Jailed 9/11 suspect freed pending retrial David Rising, Hamburg

THE only September 11 suspect ever convicted was freed by a German court yesterday pending the outcome of his retrial on charges of aiding the suicide pilots.

Mounir El Motassadeq had been serving a maximum 15-year prison term since he was convicted in February 2003 of giving logistical help to the Hamburg al-Qaida cell that included three of the September 11 suicide pilots.

The 30-year-old Moroccan was ordered freed on condition he stay in Hamburg and not be issued a new passport, said Sabine Westphalen, spokeswoman for the Hamburg state court.

He smiled broadly as he left the Hamburg prison where he had been held since November 2001. He walked past waiting reporters without saying a word and was whisked by friends and his lawyer into a car, which took off for an unknown location.

In their decision, the judges also said they viewed suspicions against El Motassadeq as less serious than before.

While the original arrest warrant cited "urgent suspicion" that he was guilty of more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder, that was downgraded to "adequate suspicion", Ms Westphalen said.

In his first trial, prosecutors alleged he helped cell members conceal their involvement in the plot to attack the US while they lived and studied in Hamburg.

El Motassadeq acknowledged he trained at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan and was friends with the three

Hamburg-based suicide hijackers Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah but denied any knowledge of the September 11 plot.

An appeals court threw out his conviction, citing the absence of testimony from Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni who was captured in Pakistan and is believed to have been the Hamburg cell's main contact with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

Binalshibh might be able to testify that El Motassadeq knew nothing of the plot, the Moroccan's lawyers say.

New evidence emerged at the Hamburg court hearing yesterday on whether El Motassadeq should be set free pending the outcome of his retrial.

The court was presented with an intercepted 2003 telephone call in which suspected cell member Said Bahaji told his wife he and others close to the hijackers knew nothing of the planned attacks.

Also presented was a 2002 letter from Bahaji to his mother in which he wrote: "Mounir didn't know anything" German authorities say Bahaji, a suspected cell logistician, left Germany shortly before the September 11 attacks and remains on the run.

El Motassadeq lived with his wife and two children in an flat near Hamburg's Technical University, where he studied before his November 2001 arrest.

His lawyer said he is expected to resume living with his family at a different location.

The absence of testimony from Binalshibh also helped bring about the acquittal of El Motassadeq's friend Abdelghani Mzoudi.