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October 12, 2006

Germany: 9/11Islamist May Face Retrial

Mounir al-Motassadeq is one of only two people to have been convicted for playing a role in the 9/11 terror attacks. The other was Zararias Moussaoui. 32-year old Motassadeq is a Moroccan student, a friend of Mohammed Atta who signed the hijacker's will. Motassadeq also had power of attorney over Marwan al Shehhi's bank account.

Convicted in February 2003 by Hamburg Higher Regional Court, after facing 3,066 counts of being an accessory to murder, Motassadeq (pictured) was originally sentenced to 15 years' jail. He had this conviction overturned in March, 2004 at an appeals court held in the Federal Court of Justice. This appeals procedure had argued that evidence from the US from Ramzi Binalsibh may have exonerated him of the charges of assisting in the murder of 3,000 individuals.

He had a second trial in Hamburg and was last year convicted for belonging to the terrorist organization which had caused the 9/11 attacks.

He was ordered to be freed on February 7 this year, pending the results of his appeal. The conviction for belonging to a terrorist cell still stands. The day after he was released on bond, Hamburg's interior minister, Udo Nagel, said that Mosattadeq will be expelled from Germany if he is acquitted or deported after the completion of any prison sentence which may be handed to him.

Now, there are moves to have him retried, following an appeal made by prosecutors, state DPA via Expatica, Reuters, Bloomberg, Deutsche Welle, Matthew Schofield in Mercury News and Associated Press via International Herald Tribune.

Motassadeq is currently free on bond, but a hearing has started today at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, western Germany. Here presiding judge Klaus Tolksdorf has said that if the judge at Motassedeq's trial was satisfied that he had known in advance of the 9/11 attacks, he should have been convicted both for belonging to the terror cell and for assisting murder.

Tolksdorf said: "Our preliminary estimate is that everything suggests the federal prosecutor's appeal will be successful....It was clear that Motassadeq knew his acquaintances from Hamburg were planning attacks with planes."

Gerhard Altvater, a federal prosecutor, said to the press: "Our opinion is that the defendant should have also been convicted of accessory to murder."

Motassadeq has maintained that he was friends with three of the 9/11 hijackers, but was unaware of their intentions to carry out attacks. As well as signing Mohammed Atta's will, and being power of attorney for Marwan al Shahhi, Motassadeq was a friend of Ziad Samir Jarrah.

He also transferred $2,500 to Yemini plotter Ramzi Binalshibh, who has been in US custody since 2002. Motassadeq also sent money to the United States which became used for the hijackers' training.

The results of this hearing will be announced on November 16.

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Additonally, this week, an unemployed Iraqi man was arrested in Germany, states DPA via Expatica and Associated Press via International Herald Tribune. The 36-year old father of three, named only as Ibrahim R., was arrested on Tuesday after his apartment near Osnabrueck in western Germany was searched.

He has lived in Germany since 1996. He has been charged with supporting a foreign terror organization. Since September 24, 2005, Ibrahim R had been downloading video and audio messages from Osama bin Laden, and then circulating them on web forums. He had posted such items on message boards on at least 28 occasions, it was claimed. In Karlsruhe, prosecutor Rainer Griesbaum said that anyone taking part in online discussion where terrorist activities of Al Qaeda were praised and glorifies would be subject to punishment.

Griesbaum said that so far, no evidence has emerged to indicate a direct link between al Qaeda and Ibrahim R.

Two computers, handwritten notes and a digital camera had been recovered from his apartment. Griesbaum said at a news conference that instead of going to fight as an insurgent in his homeland, the Iraqi had chose "rather to work on the propaganda side....He supported the cohesion of the terrorist organization."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at October 12, 2006 6:39 PM

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