New York hijack planned in 1999, says prosecutor

A SEPTEMBER 11 hijacker vowed as far back as 1999 that thousands would die when planes crashed into the World Trade Center, a German prosecutor said yesterday.

And federal prosecutor Kay Nehm said the Hamburg-based hijackers began planning an attack on the US using aircraft at least as early as October 1999, and had decided on their target six months later.

Announcing charges against Mounir El Motassadeq, the only person in German custody in connection with the attacks, Nehm said hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi mentioned the World Trade Center explicitly as a target in a conversation with a librarian either in April or May 2000.

"There will be thousands of dead. You will all think of me," al-Shehhi told the librarian, according to Nehm.

Nehm indicated, however, that the idea for using airliners to attack the United States came from the international al-Qaida network, not the Hamburg-based terrorists.

El Motassadeq, a 28-year-old Moroccan arrested in Hamburg two months after the attacks, was charged with more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organisation. Prosecutors expect a trial to begin later this year in a Hamburg superior court.

The month before his arrest, his name appeared on a US list of 370 individuals and organisations with suspected links to the September 11 attacks.

The Hamburg cell included hijackers Mohamed Atta, al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah. Authorities believe Atta and al-Shehhi piloted the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, while Jarrah piloted the plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

In laying out the charges against El Motassadeq, Nehm gave a detailed account of how the Hamburg cell was formed.

Atta, 33, became leader of the group because of his age, the length of time he had been in Germany, his proficiency in German and his organisational skills, Nehm said.

El Motassadeq supported the suicide pilots, arranging for financing through al-Shehhi's bank account.

Members of the group went to Germany between 1992-97 to study, and by the end of the decade all had converged in Hamburg. El Motassadeq, for example, left Morocco in 1993 to study German in Munster, then moved to Hamburg in 1995 to study electrical engineering at the city's technical university, which was also attended by Atta and al-Shehhi.

In November 1999, after the group had decided to attack the US, Atta, al-Shehhi, Jarrah and Binalshibh left for Afghanistan to secure financial and logistical help for the planned attack.

The second group from the Hamburg cell went to Afghanistan in early 2000, Nehm said.