Verdict due in Hamburg terror trial

A verdict was expected today in the first trial of a suspect in the September 11 terror attacks against New York and Washington.

Mounir el Motassadeq, a Moroccan living in Germany, is accusing of helping the hijackers and has been charged with being an accessory to the murder of more than 3,000 people.

He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of providing logistical support to the Hamburg al-Qaida cell that included Mohamed Atta, who flew one of the two jets into the World Trade Centre.

El Motassadeq, 28, denies the charges. He has admitted knowing the six alleged cell members – Atta, two other hijackers Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi, and logisticians Ramzi Binalshibh, Said Bahaji and Zakariya Essabar.

But he claims to have known nothing about their plans.

“I couldn’t believe that people I knew could do something like that,” el Motassadeq told the Hamburg court in his closing statement.

“I watched it on television and I was shocked ... I can only hope that something like September 11 never happens again.”

But witnesses testified that el Motassadeq, a slight, bearded man, was as radical as the rest of the group, talking of jihad – holy war – and his hatred of Israel and the US.

He has also admitted receiving training at one of Osama bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan in 2000.

Prosecutors claim el Motassadeq used his power of attorney over al-Shehhi’s bank account to pay rent, tuition and utility bills, allowing the plotters to keep up the appearance of being normal students in Germany.

El Motassadeq argued he was simply providing an innocent service to friends and that he took weapons training in Afghanistan because he believed all Muslims should learn to shoot.

The defence tried several times unsuccessfully to obtain testimony by two of el Motassadeq’s friends, Ramzi Binalshibh and Mohammed Haydar Zammar – a lack of evidence that the lawyers say could be grounds for an appeal if he is convicted.

Binalshibh, a Yemeni suspect in US custody, is believed to have been the Hamburg cell’s key contact with al-Qaida. Zammar, an alleged al-Qaida recruiter in Hamburg, is in prison in Syria.

The court could not get the men released to testify and German authorities refused to turn over their files on the two, saying transcripts of their interrogations were provided to them on condition they only be used for intelligence purposes.

Lawyers representing Americans who lost family members on September 11 said they would appeal if el Motassadeq does not receive close to the maximum sentence.

The family members are allowed to be co-plaintiffs under German law.

Motassadeq, the son of a middle class family, came to Germany in 1993 to study.

By 1995, he was studying electrical engineering in Hamburg, where he is believed to have first met Atta no later than the following year.