Court overturns 9/11 conviction

A GERMAN court yesterday overturned the world's only conviction for the September 11 attacks and ordered a retrial for a Moroccan found guilty last year of aiding the Hamburg cell of suicide hijackers.

Mounir el Motassadeq's conviction on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organisation was flawed as the lower court failed to properly consider the absence of evidence from a key witness who is in US custody, the Federal Criminal Court ruled.

The jailed 29-year-old's case now returns to court in Hamburg.