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| German Court Jails 9/11 Conspirator for 15 Years |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 02/21/2003 |
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A German court convicted a Moroccan of aiding the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide hijackers and sentenced him to the maximum possible 15-year jail term in the first trial of an attack conspirator. Mounir El Motassadeq, 28, a slightly built electrical engineering student, was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of 3,066 people in the hijack plane attacks on the United States, presiding judge Albrecht Mentz said. Mentz said Motassadeq had belonged to a Hamburg-based al Qaeda cell led by Mohamed Atta, an Egyptian who also studied in the German port city and who U.S. authorities say crashed the first plane into the World Trade Center. 'The accused belonged to the group surrounding Atta from the time it was founded. This group of Arab-Muslim students planned the attacks out of hatred for the United States and Israel,' Mentz said. 'They wanted to strike at the foundations of the United States with this attack of unprecedented dimensions.' Motassadeq, who stared at the floor as the verdict was read and shook his head on occasions, had denied the charges but admitted he had known Atta and had trained at a camp in Afghanistan run by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. The prosecution's case hinged on Motassadeq's close friendship with six alleged plotters, his financial transfers for Marwan Al Shehi, the man said to have smashed the second plane into the World Trade Center, and his Afghan training. Defense lawyers had said Motassadeq did little more than befriend fellow Muslims and insisted his Afghan training did not mean he was violent. They said they would appeal. The trial, which began in October, gave insights into the al Qaeda network that is widely blamed for the suicide attacks and Germany's role as a host for key perpetrators. It has also highlighted the difficulties in pressing terrorism charges and the potential for conflict between justice systems, designed to deal openly with actual deeds, and security services, clouded in secrecy and preferring preventative action. Motassadeq arrived in the German city of Muenster in November 1993 to learn German and later moved to Hamburg. Hamburg became the base of an al Qaeda cell and it was there that Motassadeq met Atta. |
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