Hamburg court clears 9/11 suspect

A HAMBURG court yesterday acquitted a Moroccan man of helping the September 11 hijackers after a 5½-month trial that was only the second anywhere of a suspected attacker.

Abdelghani Mzoudi, aged 31, had no visible reaction as presiding Judge Klaus Ruehle read the verdict in Hamburg state court, keeping his arms folded and looking down at the floor.

Prosecutors had sought the maximum 15 years in prison on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership of a terrorist organisation. Last February, similar evidence secured the maximum sentence against Mzoudi's friend Mounir el Motassadeq, the world's first September 11 conviction.