German court jails 9/11 terror cell member

Claus-Peter Tiemann, Hamburg

The conviction was welcomed by the German government and a victim’s relative after a string of court setbacks. However, the Hamburg state court faulted US authorities’ failure to deliver more evidence as it acquitted Mounir el Motassadeq of direct involvement in the attacks, finding him not guilty of more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder.

El Motassadeq, a slight, bearded 31-year-old, watched calmly as presiding Judge Ernst-Rainer Schudt announced the verdict after a year-long retrial.

In 2003, the Moroccan became the first person anywhere to be convicted in connection with the September 11, 2001 suicide hijackings but had his conviction overturned last year.

He had been free since shortly after a federal appeals court ordered the retrial, ruling that he was unfairly denied evidence from suspects in US custody.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Dominic Puopolo, an American co-plaintiff whose mother died in one of the planes which struck the World Trade Centre. “Having devoted a year of my life to this, I feel vindicated.”

Still, Mr Puopolo said he might join federal prosecutors in appealing against el Motassadeq’s acquittal on the accessory to murder charges. Defence lawyer Ladislav Anisic, pledged his own appeal against what he called “a semi-acquittal.”

Explaining the court’s decision, Judge Schudt said the Hamburg-based group that included suicide pilots Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah became “a sect.” He said el Motassadeq was part of it in 1999, before its leading members travelled to Afghanistan and were recruited for the al-Qaida attacks on the US.

The judge said el Motassadeq’s own later trip to an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan was evidence of his belief in holy war, but that the court didn’t see that he had been initiated into the plot.

“The population needs to be protected against such groups,” Judge Schudt said. “The clear picture shows the defendant as a member of a terrorist organisation, but not as an accessory to murder.”

El Motassadeq was accused of helping pay tuition and other bills for cell members to allow them to live as students while they plotted the attacks. Prosecutors had demanded the maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.