September 11 trial hears al-Qaida suspects' statements

A senior planner of the September 11 2001 attacks said the Hamburg al-Qaida cell was smaller than investigators believed, consisting only of himself and three of the suicide pilots, a German court was told in the first public release of statements by suspects in US custody.

In the eight-page US Justice Department summary of interrogations released yesterday, accused September 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed supports the contention that while the core cell members had violently anti-US discussions with other Muslims in Hamburg, they kept the plot to attack the United States secret.

However, the justice department warned that the interrogated captives may have wanted “to influence as well as inform” and that they may have withheld information or used “counter-interrogation techniques”.

The new evidence emerged at the retrial of Mounir el Motassadeq, a Moroccan accused of providing logistical help to the Hamburg cell that included suicide pilots Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah.

Ramzi Binalshibh, believed to have been the cell’s main contact with al-Qaida, told interrogators “that members of the Hamburg cell included only himself, Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah”, according to the summary.

He said the group “was well known to many Arab students in Hamburg” and often hosted them at their flat in Hamburg’s Marienstrasse “where they engaged in ‘vitriolic anti-US discussions’”.

El Motassadeq and his friend, Abdelghani Mzoudi, were among those who would regularly go to “study jihad” or holy war, according to the Binalshibh statement.

But the transcript says Binalshibh maintains that he and the Hamburg hijackers “never discussed actual operations and they never formed a terrorist cell to commit jihad”.

The statement backs up el Motassadeq’s contention that while he was close to the hijackers, he knew nothing of their plans. He showed no reaction as the documents were read aloud in the Hamburg court.

Mohammed is quoted as telling interrogators that he met el Motassadeq in Karachi, Pakistan, to help arrange his travel to an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan.

Mohammed says he did not tell el Motassadeq about the September 11 plans and believes Binalshibh would not have told him either “because of security concerns” – an apparent reference to keeping the circle of conspirators as small as possible.

“Binalshibh was handling support functions for Atta and the Hamburg cell, so there was no need for Motassadeq to have an operational role,” the summary of Mohammed’s remarks said.

El Motassadeq is being retried on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organisation.

His 2003 conviction – the only one of a September 11 suspect so far – was thrown out in March after an appeal court ruled he was unfairly denied testimony from suspects in US custody, such as Binalshibh and Mohammed.

With those statements now on record, the justice department said it was considering whether it could provide further information to the Hamburg trial.

Responding to the new evidence, el Motassadeq’s lawyer Josef Graessle-Muenscher said talk of a Hamburg cell “is now buried”.

He said the interrogation report is a “surprisingly clear and detailed document” that proves his client had nothing to do with planning the September 11 attacks.

Prosecutor Walter Hemberger cited the US report as important evidence that el Motassadeq had contact with top al-Qaida leaders.

“This leads to a lot of questions,” he said.

Presiding Judge Ernst-Rainer Schudt said afterwards that ”we must consider what this means for the trial, and what it means for the volume of evidence we will listen to”.

Lack of testimony from witnesses in US custody also played a large role in the February acquittal in the same court of Mzoudi, who faced identical charges.

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

But according to Binalshibh’s statement, “al-Shehhi had Motassadeq continue to pay his rent to maintain his cover, but Motassadeq did not know that was the reason”.

Hemberger said he had “serious doubts” about Binalshibh’s statement that only he and the suicide pilots were involved, saying there was solid evidence others played active roles.

“There are doubts whether this is really exonerating, but we must see,” he said outside court.