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Posted on 04/07/2004 3:12:51 AM PDT by kattracks
BERLIN (Reuters) - The only man jailed over the September 11 attacks was released from custody in Germany on Wednesday pending his retrial, a representative from his defense lawyer's office said.Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq, sentenced to 15 years in jail in February 2003 for conspiring to murder around 3,000 people in the 2001 plane attacks in the United States, won the right to a retrial at Germany's Supreme Court a month ago.
His lawyers argued that new evidence, which secured the acquittal of Motassadeq's friend Abdelghani Mzoudi on similar charges, also made Motassadeq's conviction unreliable.
A German court accepted their view that he should also be let out of jail immediately. But he will not be allowed to leave the city of Hamburg and must surrender his passport.
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Convicted 9-11 suspect ordered releasedDAVID RISING
HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — The only Sept. 11 suspect ever convicted was ordered released by a Hamburg court Wednesday, his lawyers' offices said, after his guilty verdict on charges of aiding the suicide pilots was thrown out last month,
Mounir El Motassadeq, 30, has been serving a maximum 15-year prison term in Hamburg since a court in the city convicted him in February 2003 of giving logistical help to the Hamburg al-Qaida cell that included three of the Sept. 11 pilots.
An appeals court has ordered a retrial starting June 16, saying the Moroccan was denied a fair trial because the U.S. government refused access to a key witness in its custody.
Assistants at the offices of both of his Hamburg lawyers, Gerhard Strate and Josef Graessle-Muenscher, told The Associated Press they had received the court ruling ordering el Motassadeq's release.
It was not clear whether had already been freed.
Strate's office said El Motassadeq's release included several conditions, including that he cannot leave Hamburg and cannot be issued a new passport.
In his first trial in Hamburg state court, el Motassadeq was found guilty of more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization.
Prosecutors allege el Motassadeq helped cell members conceal their involvement in the plot to attack the United States while they lived and studied in Hamburg.
El Motassadeq acknowledged during his trial that he trained at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan and was friends with the three Hamburg-based suicide hijackers — Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah — but he denied any knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot.
A federal appeals court threw out his conviction, citing the absence of testimony by Ramzi Binalshibh. The Yemeni, captured in Pakistan on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, is believed to have been the Hamburg cell's main contact with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.
Binalshibh might be able to testify that El Motassadeq knew nothing of the plot, the Moroccan's lawyers say.
New evidence emerged a Hamburg court hearing Friday on whether el Motassadeq should be set free pending the outcome of his retrial.
The court was presented with an intercepted 2003 telephone call in which suspected cell member Said Bahaji told his wife that he and others close to the hijackers knew nothing of the planned attacks.
Also presented was a 2002 letter from Bahaji to his mother in which he wrote "Mounir didn't know anything," the attorney said.
German authorities say Bahaji, a suspected cell logistician, left Germany shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks and remains on the run.
El Motassadeq lived with his wife and two children in an apartment near Hamburg's Technical University, where he studied before his November 2001 arrest.
His attorney said he is expected to resume living with his family at a different location that he would not disclose.
The absence of testimony from Binalshibh also helped bring about the acquittal of el Motassadeq's friend and fellow Moroccan Abdelghani Mzoudi on the same charges in February.
Mzoudi's case turned in his favor when the Hamburg court heard a statement from an unidentified source that only Binalshibh and the suicide hijackers knew of the Sept. 11 plot — which could also exonerate el Motassadeq. The court said it believed the source was Binalshibh himself
Then his disappearance will have to be arranged.
The Associated Press
4/7/04 8:49 AM
HAMBURG, Germany (AP) -- The only Sept. 11 suspect convicted was freed by a court Wednesday, pending the outcome of his retrial on charges of aiding the Hamburg al-Qaida cell that included three of the suicide pilots.
Mounir el Motassadeq, 30, smiled broadly as he left the Hamburg prison where he had been held since November 2001. He walked past reporters without comment before his friends and lawyer whisked him away in a car to an unknown location.
Stop wondering, it is - it's called appeasement. Finding him guilty first shows "resolve" - freeing him satisfies the Islamofacists. This is just the latest in a long line of appeasements, starting back after the Munich Olypic Massacre.
So, unless they are watching him 24 hours a days (which, due to the report in requirement, does not seem likely),
You can bet your ass that we’re watching every move he makes.
And screw the Germans, we’re watching every move they make too.
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