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Sept. 11 defendant handled bank affairs of hijack pilot
HAMBURG - Mounir al-Motassadeq, the Moroccan on trial in Hamburg as an accused accomplice in the September 11 terror attacks, carried out money transactions on behalf of one of the suicide pilots, a police witness said Tuesday.Motassadeq had power of attorney for Marwan al-Shehhi who was believed to have been at the controls of the hijacked plane which crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center in 2001, the court was told. Motassadeq, who has been described as a friend of al-Shehhi's as well as other members of the Hamburg terrorist cell behind the 9/11 attacks, is accused of being a member of a terrorist organization and an accessory to 3,000 murders. The Federal Police Department witness said Motassadeq carried out several transactions on behalf of al-Shehhi. These included one in September 2000 when Motassadeq transferred 5,000 marks (3,200 dollars) from al-Shehhi's account at the Dresdner Bank in Hamburg to an account belonging to Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who is thought to have organized the 9/11 attacks. In several cases there was a "time proximity" between money taken from al-Shehhi's account and money arriving on Motassadeq's account, the investigator said. Motassadeq was convicted in 2003 and sentenced to 15 years in jail on the current charges, but the conviction was overturned by an appeal court. He is free on bail during the retrial which is not expected to end before April. Posted by: Steve White 2005-02-09 |
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