Prosecutors seek maximum jail term for Al-Qaida plot accused

Philip Blenkinsop, Hamburg

Mounir El Motassadeq is charged with being an accessory to 3,045 murders in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001 and of belonging to the Hamburg-based al-Qaida cell said to have led the suicide assault.

Prosecutors summed up their case in four-and-a-half hours yesterday, saying the 28-year-old Moroccan student was aware of the hijackers’ plans and provided logistical back-up, including money transfers, from Germany.

Prosecutors said the electrical engineering student was an important part of the Hamburg al-Qaida cell led by Mohamed Atta, who US authorities believe crashed the first plane into the World Trade Centre.

“The defendant was a member of the group led by Atta from the start and supported the attacks with various actions ... by summer 1999 it was not just a group of friends but an isolated conspiratorial unit,” prosecutor Matthias Krauss told the five judges who will determine the accused’s fate.

Motassadeq remained impassive during the proceedings, making notes and occasionally shaking his head. Lawyers for the Moroccan say he did little more than befriend the Hamburg-based attackers and help some out as fellow Muslims. Motassadeq has acknowledged training in Afghanistan.