Freedom for only convicted Sept 11 suspect

The only September 11 suspect ever convicted was freed by a German court today after his conviction for aiding the suicide pilots was thrown out last month.

Mounir El Motassadeq, 30, had been serving a maximum 15 year prison term after being convicted in February 2003 of giving logistical help to the Hamburg al-Qaida cell that included three of the September 11 pilots.

His lawyer’s office said it had received a court ruling ordering el Motassadeq’s release.

An appeals court has ordered a retrial in June, saying the Moroccan was denied a fair trial because the US government refused access to a key witness in its custody.

Conditions placed on El Motassadeq’s release include a ban on him leaving Hamburg or being issued with a new passport.

In his first trial in Hamburg, el Motassadeq was convicted of more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organisation.

Prosecutors alleged he helped cell members conceal their involvement in the plot to attack the US while they lived and studied in the German port city.

El Motassadeq acknowledged during his trial that 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 he 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 a Hamburg court hearing today 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 that 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,” the a defence lawyer said.

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 that he would not disclose.

The absence of testimony from Binalshibh also helped bring about the acquittal of el Motassadeq’s friend and fellow Moroccan Abdelghani Mzoudi on the same charges in February.