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| Europe |
| El-Motassadeq back in court |
| 2005-08-15 |
| Defence lawyers of a Moroccan terror suspect accused in Germany of helping the September 11 hijackers have called for his acquittal. They argue that a conviction after the US refused to allow key al-Qaeda suspects to testify would hand a victory to Osama bin Laden. Mounir el Motassadeq is charged with more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership of a terrorist organisation over his links to the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell. El Motassadeq, 31, acknowledges that he was close to the three suicide hijackers who lived in the north German city, but maintains he did not know about their plans to attack the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001. Completing the defence's closing statements, attorney Ladislav Anisic criticised the lack of direct testimony from witnesses including Ramzi Binalshibh, a key September 11 suspect in US custody. US authorities had supplied summaries of interrogations, but they may have been "filtered" or obtained under torture, Anisic said, urging the Hamburg state court to give his client the benefit of the doubt. "Don't let Osama bin Laden win by neglecting the principles of the state of law," Anisic said, as the year-old trial drew toward a close. El Motassadeq, a slight man with a full beard, had nothing to add. "I think my attorney has said everything." Prosecutors last week demanded the maximum sentence of 15 years in prison for el Motassadeq, who is accused of helping pay tuition and other bills for members of the cell to allow them to live as students as they plotted the attacks. He was convicted in 2003 of the same charges, but the verdict was thrown out last year and a retrial ordered after an appeals court ruled el Motassadeq was unfairly denied testimony from al-Qaeda suspects in US custody. According to statements provided by the US Department of Justice for the retrial, Binalshibh said he and suicide pilots Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah alone comprised the Hamburg cell. However, prosecutors have argued that Binalshibh, who was detained in Pakistan on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, probably lied in an attempt to protect co-conspirators. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |