Breaking News::9/11 accused gets seven years

From correspondents in Hamburg
August 19, 2005

THE only man convicted over the September 11, 2001, attacks against the United States was jailed today for seven years by a German court for membership of a terrorist organisation after a retrial.However, the court in Hamburg, northern Germany, ruled there was no proof of 31-year-old Mounir el Motassadeq's direct involvement in the attacks.

The Moroccan national had been jailed for the maximum 15 years in February 2003 on more than 3000 counts of accessory to murder and membership of a terrorist organisation.

But a retrial was ordered after a federal appeal court last year quashed the verdict on the grounds that US authorities had refused to allow the court to question top al-Qaeda suspects in custody.

Ramzi Binalshibh, the self-purported mastermind behind the atrocities, and alleged al-Qaeda number three Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are among the only men alive who could shed light on Motassadeq's mysterious role in the so-called Hamburg cell of Islamic extremists.

Motassadeq was arrested in Hamburg in November 2001, just two months after Islamic extremists ploughed passenger jets into New York's World Trade Centre and the Pentagon near Washington

Prosecutors argued that he provided key assistance to the three Hamburg-based hijackers including ringleader Mohammed Atta, handling money transfers and covering up their whereabouts with full knowledge of their plot.

"The image of the naive, helpful student has been shattered," chief prosecutor Walter Hemberger told the court in closing arguments last week, adding that the prosecution had successfully portrayed Motassadeq as a "radical Muslim engaged in holy war".

But the defence had said its client, a married father of two, was an innocent man being tried for guilt by association due to his friendship with the group of Arab students at Hamburg's Technical University.

They had said they expected a full acquittal.

"Calling Motassadeq a terrorist because of his closeness to the attackers is unacceptable under the rule of law," attorney Ladislav Anisic said.

Motassadeq has said he attended mosque with the group surrounding the charismatic Atta and that he signed the young Egyptian's will. He has also acknowledged attending an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in early 2000.

But the defendant has repeatedly denied any previous knowledge of the attacks, saying that the favours he did for the three suicide hijackers were customary among good Muslims.

A not-guilty verdict would have been seen as a stinging blow to federal prosecutors, leaving them empty-handed after a three-year legal odyssey that began with the start of Motassadeq's first trial.

Fellow Moroccan suspect Abdelghani Mzoudi was cleared in February 2004 by the Hamburg court on the same charges as Motassadeq and saw the decision upheld by a federal tribunal in June.

Under threat of deportation, Mzoudi returned home to Morocco in June.

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