Sept 11 accused 'did not know of plot'

A key al-Qaida captive in US custody told interrogators that a Moroccan on trial for helping the Hamburg-based September 11 suicide pilots had no knowledge of the plot, according to a summary read out in court in Hamburg today.

Mounir el Motassadeq, accused of providing logistical help to the Hamburg al-Qaida cell that included hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan el-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, is being retried after having his conviction thrown out in March by an appeals court.

The appeals judges ruled that he was unfairly denied testimony from US-held suspects including Ramzi Binalshibh, believed to be the Hamburg cell’s contact with al-Qaida.

El Motassadeq’s retrial opened yesterday with a US pledge to provide evidence - but no direct testimony.

Presiding Judge Ernst-Rainer Schudt said today the court had received a fax from the US Justice Department dated August 9, containing summaries of three detainees’ interrogation.

Binalshibh said that “the only members of the Hamburg cell were himself, Atta, al-Shehhi and Jarrah,” according to the letter.

He said that “the activities of the Hamburg group were not known to el Motassadeq”.

The group was well known by a number of Arab students, but ”Binalshibh said that the people in question had no knowledge and were not participants in any facet of the operative plans of September 11”.

The United States also provided summaries of the interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to have masterminded the September 11 plot, and Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian man, suspected to have been an al-Qaida contact in Germany.

The summary said that the Justice Department had “doubts” about some of the testimony, but did not elaborate.