Re-trial of 9/11 suspect opens in Germany

The re-trial of the only September 11 terror suspect ever convicted opened today with the United States under pressure to allow testimony by alleged key al-Qaida operatives in its custody.

Mounir el Motassadeq, a 30-year-old Moroccan charged with aiding the three Hamburg-based suicide hijackers, won a new trial in March after a German appeals court ruled his first one unfair because the US-held witnesses did not testify.

El Motassadeq, who denies the charges, was released from prison in April when the Hamburg state court decided there was no longer sufficient suspicion that he was guilty of more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder to hold him pending retrial.

His conviction on those charges and for membership in a terrorist group were overturned by the appeals court, making the quest for evidence from the witnesses – Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed – critical to Germany’s second attempt to convict him.

Binalshibh, a Yemeni, is believed to have been the Hamburg cell’s key contact with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida organisation. Mohammed is thought to be the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

El Motassadeq smiled but said nothing as he entered the court in Hamburg today.

His lawyer said before the re-trial opened that he would maintain his client’s innocence, then ask the court to drop the proceedings on the grounds that past experience showed el Motassadeq would not get a fair trial.

Lawyer Josef Graessle-Muenscher said he would argue that torture “underlies the interrogation system of the United States”, making any evidence from Binalshibh or Mohammed inadmissible even if it is provided.

He cited reports from prisoners released from US military detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the policy of holding Taliban and al-Qaida suspects without giving them the usual rights of prisoners of war set out in the Geneva Conventions.

The US Department of Justice refused to allow even transcripts of the two men’s interrogations to be admitted as evidence in el Motassadeq’s trial.

Lack of their testimony also played a large role in the February acquittal in the same court of el Motassadeq’s friend and fellow Moroccan Abdelghani Mzoudi, who faced identical charges.

But now, German prosecutors say they are confident they will receive more information from the United States for the re-trial.

“We have made it clear to the United States that we depend on being able to hear Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as witnesses,” chief federal prosecutor Kay Nehm was quoted as saying in this week’s Focus magazine.

El Motassadeq is accused of helping pay tuition and other bills for members of the Hamburg al-Qaida cell, which included suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah, to allow them to live as students as they plotted the attacks.

He admitted to training in bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan, and witnesses at his trial testified that he was as radical as the rest of the group, often talking of jihad – holy war – and his hatred of Israel and the United States.

El Motassadeq has said he was nothing more than close friends with the others and did only things that a good Muslim would do for any “brother”.