U.S. Pledges to Share Evidence as 9/11 Retrial Begins in Germany

New York Times ^ | August 10, 2004 | MARK LANDLER

[OESY]

HAMBURG, Germany, Aug. 10 — A German court today began a retrial of Mounir el-Motassadeq, the only person convicted of involvement in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, with the disclosure that the United States will for the first time share evidence about the plot.

Mr. Motassadeq's conviction was thrown out in March by an appeals court, which said that critical evidence had been withheld by American authorities. After having been sentenced to 15 years in prison, Mr. Motassadeq was freed in April.

The decision by the United States to offer limited cooperation to the Germans introduces a combustible element to a trial that many here had expected would be a frustrating replay of the first trial, and other Sept. 11 prosecutions, which have foundered on a lack of evidence.

It is not clear exactly what information the United States plans to hand over. In a three-page diplomatic note faxed to the German government by the State Department on the eve of the trial, Washington said it would provide "unclassified summaries of relevant intelligence information."

A copy of the note was given to The New York Times by one of the lawyers involved in the case.

Among those summaries, lawyers here said, could be excerpts from interrogations of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a suspected Al Qaeda member in American custody who is believed to have played a central role in the Sept. 11 plot, which killed more than 3,000 people. Prosecutors here say Mr. bin al-Shibh could confirm that Mr. Motassadeq knew about the plot and was involved in its planning.

In keeping with prior practice, the Justice Department refused to allow Mr. bin al-Shibh or other suspected Qaeda members to testify. The United States did not respond to a request by the court for testimony from the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet.

Lawyers for Mr. Motassadeq sought to head off the prospect of damaging new disclosures by arguing that any statements made by suspected terrorists in American custody would be tainted, and thus inadmissible, because they might have been obtained through torture.

Invoking harsh conditions at the military detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, the lawyers promised to make this trial as much about American conduct since September 2001, as about the events leading up to the attacks.

That drew an emotional reaction from a bereaved relative of one of the victims. Dominic J. Puopolo, a 38-year-old computer consultant from Miami Beach, Fla., whose mother was aboard one of the hijacked planes that was rammed into the World Trade Center, urged the panel of five judges not to turn the proceedings into a "sweeping indictment of the United States."

"You're desecrating the memory of 3,000 people who died, including my mother," he said, his voice shaking.

Sitting across the courtroom, Mr. Motassadeq, a 30-year-old Moroccan who came to Germany in 1993 as an engineering student, listened impassively. Dressed in a black shirt and slacks, and wearing his beard longer than during the last trial, Mr. Motassadeq turned down an invitation to speak.

That Mr. Motassadeq had links to the terrorist cell in Hamburg is not in dispute. He was a friend of two of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, and wired money to Mr. al-Shehhi. He also acknowledged attending a training camp in Afghanistan sponsored by Osama bin Laden.

But he denied knowing about the impending attacks, and said he had aided the hijackers unwittingly.

Reached by phone in Marrakesh, his father, Ibrahim Motassadeq, said, "People are searching for something that doesn't exist. My son had nothing to do with these things, so they will find nothing."

Mr. Motassadeq's chief lawyer, Josef Grässle-Münscher, played down the threat of new information from the United States, saying it would be "fourth-rate." The first three categories of evidence, he said, are first-hand testimony from witnesses like Mr. bin al-Shibh, testimony from the people who questioned them, and verbatim transcripts of the interrogations.

"The court would have to trust that this information has not been manipulated," Mr. Grässle-Münscher said. "`The torture issue is relevant because of two of the potential witnesses are in Al Qaeda camps."

Mr. Grässle-Münscher laid out a detailed case for why such prisoners are likely to have been subjected to harsh treatment, if not full-fledged torture. He quoted from a Justice Department memorandum arguing that Qaeda prisoners are not protected by the Geneva Conventions. He cited another government memo that lists permissible forms of coercive interrogation.

And he quoted testimony from prisoners who had been subjected to physical abuse by American soldiers in Afghanistan. The sometimes graphic descriptions were laboriously translated into German.

Mr. Grässle-Münscher denied that he was trying to deflect attention from Mr. Motassadeq. But he added: "In some areas, the U.S. has lost its standards. They have to regain their standards."

In his statement, Mr. Puopolo said, "I cannot speak for my government. But I can pretty much assure you that we follow the rule of law." Outside the court, he expressed hope that the case would not be derailed by this issue, since it will be decided by a panel of judges rather than a jury.

A lawyer for the families of victims of Sept. 11, Andreas Schulz, said the judges would not be swayed by tales of abusive American behavior. The question, he said, is whether Mr. Motassadeq's lawyers will be able to block potentially damaging evidence supplied by the United States.

"If you introduce transcripts, you have to answer the questions, How were they obtained? What was the context?" he said.

After months of refusing to share any information, the American promise of cooperation was greeted with palpable skepticism in court today. The presiding judge, Ernst-Rainer Schudt, raised his eyebrows several times, as he listened to a German translation of the American note.

He said it remained to be seen whether the information supplied by the United States would be of any use.

The United States insisted it was treating the German court the same as Federal prosecutors in Virginia who are trying to rebuild their case against another alleged Sept. 11 plotter, Zacarias Moussaoui.

The case against Mr. Moussaoui, a French citizen, has been hurt by the same lack of access to testimony from captured Qaeda prisoners as in the Motassadeq case. In Hamburg, a second suspected Sept. 11 plotter, Abdelghani Mzoudi, was acquitted last February on similar grounds.

Germany is trying to deport both Mr. Mzoudi and Mr. Motassadeq to their native Morocco on the ground that they came to this country as students but are no longer attending a university. That process will continue until both men have exhausted their appeals in these cases.

Mr. Motassadeq, who is married and has two children, walked out of court today with a smile, before hopping into a Mercedes taxi.

[OESY]

This should have been sourced to the New York Times, not the Wall Street Journal. The admin moderator has been notified of the need to change.

[Guillermo]

Of course, 9-11 was justified because some prisoners in Iraq had panties put on their heads.

< / Left logic>