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| Europe | ||||
| Motassadeq guilty (again) | ||||
| 2005-08-20 | ||||
| HAMBURG, Germany, Aug. 19 - A Moroccan man brought to trial in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks was convicted Friday, when a German court found him guilty of belonging to a terrorist organization and sentenced him to seven years in prison. But the man, Mounir el-Motassadeq, 31, was found guilty only of belonging to Al Qaeda, specifically to a cell in Hamburg, whose other members included ringleaders in the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Motassadeq was acquitted of a more serious charge, of complicity in the attacks, with the presiding judge in the trial criticizing the United States for refusing to release information that the court regarded as central to the case and necessary for a conviction on the complicity charge. "This was a difficult case," the judge, Ernst-Rainer Schudt, said as he announced the verdict. "It didn't make it easier that the United States would not allow its intelligence services to give testimony here." Mr. Motassadeq was among the first to be charged in connection with the attacks and is also among the first to be convicted, albeit for a different crime. In April, Zacarias Moussaoui pleaded guilty to participating in a Qaeda conspiracy to fly planes into American buildings, but he said the plan was to fly a plane into the White House, unrelated to the Sept. 11 plot. Mr. Motassadeq's conviction and sentencing on Friday were the latest developments in a case that has dragged on for three years, through two long trials and one appeal. A lawyer for Mr. Motassadeq, Udo Jacob, said Friday he would appeal the new verdict. "My client is not a terrorist," he said. "It's important for him that the whole world knows that."
The verdict seemed to surprise Mr. Motassadeq, who entered court dressed casually in jeans and a plaid shirt, smiling and chatting with his lawyer and interpreter.
Mr. Motassadeq also had power of attorney over a bank account of one of the hijackers, Marwan al-Shehhi, and transferred money from the account to one of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who is believed to have been an organizer of the plot along with its architect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Both are in American custody. All along, Mr. Motassadeq has denied knowing of the plot and of intentionally providing it with support.
This information was provided to the court in a letter from the German authorities, who had been given summaries of the interrogations by American intelligence services. During the yearlong second trial, which ended Friday, the United States provided some additional information from the interrogations but apparently not enough to lead the seven judges in the case to find Mr. Motassadeq guilty of involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. "The point is we would have liked to have questioned them ourselves," Judge Schudt said in court, referring specifically to Mr. bin al-Shibh and Mr. Mohammed. "If they had been here, probably they would have availed themselves of their right not to testify, but at least it would have been helpful to have them here," the judge said. He added that summaries of their statements provided to the court did not constitute "sufficient proof in either direction," and that there was no way for the court to check their veracity. The United States government does not officially acknowledge it has custody of suspects like Mr. bin al-Shibh and Mr. Mohammed, although it is widely known that it does. The government has never agreed to make them available for any reason in any legal case, not even in the federal prosecution of Mr. Moussaoui. The 9/11 commission was allowed to review portions of reports based on interrogations of the detainees, but even then the commission had no direct access to any of them. Mr. Motassadeq's lawyers had argued that whatever the Qaeda detainees told interrogators, they might have made the statements Judge Schudt said on Friday, "When we asked the Americans under what circumstances the questioning of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh took place, the answer was 'no comment.' " The judge also referred to Matthew Walsh, an F.B.I. agent who came to Hamburg to testify in the Motassadeq trial, but who, Judge Schudt said, answered most questions with the phrases "not available" or "not authorized to answer such questions." While the court rejected the prosecution's claim that Mr. Motassadeq was a knowing member of the Sept. 11 conspiracy, Judge Schudt said there was little doubt that he was a member of Al Qaeda and shared its goal of carrying out jihad against Americans and Jews. "Nine-eleven was carried out by fanatics, and you, Mr. Motassadeq, had the same way of thinking as these men," the judge said. "It is not important what exactly you did in Afghanistan, but what is important is that you were there in a training camp of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan." | ||||
| Posted by:Steve White |
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| Posted by: Frank G 2005-08-20 18:58 |
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| Posted by: Sock Puppet 0’ Doom 2005-08-20 18:40 |
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| Posted by: Mona Gorilla 2005-08-20 18:25 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: .com 2005-08-20 00:36 |