Posted on 01/22/2004 8:01:22 AM PST by Dog
Iran initiated 9/11 attacks’
22 January 2004
HAMBURG – The Iranian intelligence service was the initiator of the 11 September 2001 suicide-jet attacks on New York and Washington, according to a defector quoted Thursday by German police at the Hamburg terrorist trial.
One Federal Crime Office interrogator said he had taken down a statement in Berlin on Monday from a former Iranian agent who insisted that Iran had employed Saudi radical Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network to carry out the attacks.
The defector could not appear himself in court because he had been promised anonymity, two police officers told the trial of accused plotter Abdel-Ghani Mzoudi, a Moroccan student who lived in Hamburg and was friends with three of the four suicide pilots.
The shock claim emerged on the day when a verdict had been scheduled. The prosecution asked for the delay to hear the new evidence. The end of the trial may be delayed for weeks.
The defector, who stated he had fled Iran in July 2001, two months before the attacks, claimed ultimate responsibility lay with a man named Saif al-Adel, who was an official in Iran of Hezbollah, a radial Shiiite organization with close links to Iranian intelligence.
According to the defector, "Department 43" of Iranian intelligence was created to plan and conduct terror attacks, and mounted joint operations with al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden's son, Saad bin Laden, had made repeated consultative visits to Iran.
According to the unnamed agent, Mzoudi too had visited Iran for three months, though the agent said he had never seen him, and did not know at what point in time the visit took place.
The claim runs directly counter to the received wisdom about the attacks: that they were conducted by young Sunni Moslems loyal to Osama bin Laden, a radical Saudi with ideas rooted in his country's Wahabi brand of Islam. Iran's Islam is the opposed Shiite variety.
The 28-year-old police witness said the defector claimed to have first received information about Mzoudi by e-mail after his defection and from "other Iranian intelligence sources".
The defector alleged that following the 11 December release of Mzoudi from trial custody, the sources told him they believed Mzoudi had only been released so that he could be tailed by western investigators hoping he would lead them to other terrorists.
"That is why al-Qaeda is going to liquidate Mzoudi," the defector was said to have stated.
The defector also declared that immediately after fleeing Iran, he had approached CIA station officers at the U.S. embassy in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic adjoining Iran, to warn them attacks were planned.
"He wrote a five-page letter stating that something would happen on 10 or 11 September without precisely delineating what it could be," said the police witness.
The man claimed he had been passing information to the CIA since 1992 and had been promised USD 1.2 million in payment, but had never received the promised money after his defection. He had therefore resolved to sell information to the Germans or French.
"He says he wants to negotiate terms for further cooperation with the federal prosecutor general's office," he said. That prosecutor, assisted by the Federal Crime Office, heads Germany's fight against terrorism.
A second police officer, aged 29, said he found the claims of the defector were "not unrealistic", given what Germany know of the structures of the Iranian intelligence service. But the court was unable to establish more about the credibility of the defector.
The policeman said he did not know why the defector had waited so long to come forward with such explosive information.
Presiding judge Klaus Ruehle pressed both police officers to offer their personal impressions of the man they interrogated.
"It is noticeable that you are both very cautious every time we ask for an assessment of this witness," the judge said to them.
Federal prosecutors suddenly announced Wednesday they had new evidence, more than a week after closing arguments by both sides. The court had been widely expected to pronounce Mzoudi acquitted on Thursday.
Federal prosecutor Walter Hemberger said Thursday that though he had applied for a 30-day extension of the trial, "I don't think we will need the full 30 days." He said a week or two would be enough to weigh the Iranian's credibility.
Mzoudi is accused of assisting in more than 3,000 murders and of being a member of Egyptian student Mohammed Atta's terrorist organization in Hamburg. The state contends Mzoudi must have known what his close friends were planning and was therefore a conspirator.
Prosecutors have demanded he go to jail for 15 years, like Mounir al-Motassadeq, another Moroccan, who was convicted in Hamburg in February last year. But judges freed Mzoudi on December 11 after earlier hearsay evidence relayed by the Federal Crime Office.
In that instance, a person thought to be self-confessed plotter Ramzi bin al-Shibh said Mzoudi had not been privy to the conspiracy.
German trial procedure allows such hearsay evidence, which would be prohibited under the Anglo-American legal tradition. Judges said the second-hand statement they attributed to bin al-Shibh created reasonable doubt about Mzoudi's guilt.
Hezbollah is a militant Shiite movement with Iranian and Lebanese branches.
After the 11 September attacks, US diplomats are alleged to have put out feelers to the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah, offering a truce with the anti-US group in exchange for all the Shiite group knew about the activities of rival Sunni terrorists.
Hezbollah's spiritual leadership claimed in late 2001 they had received such approaches, but denounced them as an attempt to drive a deeper wedge between the two main denominations of Islam.
The US government has accused Iran of harbouring al-Qaeda operatives, but has not alleged that Iran was behind the attacks.
There were no "lies," unless every single intelligence organization in the world was completely and totally mistaken.
And, my justification for the war is not important. I'm glad Bush and Blair and 40 other leaders decided that it was time for Hussein to go.
I'll galdy argue either side once you tell which one your taking. ;o)
I'm not going to argue with you. You won't be convinced, nor will I.
The present Iranian regime was established by a popular/grass root revolution which overthrew the dictator/shah.
The Iranian system is dual in character - it has true elections, functioning Parlament and local elected officials. At the same time it is supervised by religious bodies in order to prevent secularization and to protect the supremacy of Islam. We can see it as a mixture of democracy and theocracy or a compromise between Iranian traditions and modern Western style of government.
Both elements - democratic institutions and theocratic supervision were created by Iranians and have social base. The foreign intervention would not have such base and could achieve at best only a secularization of the system, at worst it would bring unpopular dicatorship back.
If this was in fact recorded by the CIA, and happened in July when he defected, then we really do have a smoking gun here, and not just speculation. The linkage to Iran, which some liberal skeptics here seem to miss, is that he made these charges a full two months prior to 9-11. And the specifics he implicates are reasonable, at least according to German intelligence. Where is the CIA response...and will we be able to trust it since it is infiltrated with God only knows how many conflicting Fifth Columnists?? Short Answer: DHYB--Don't Hold Your Breath.
I don't know about that. "Parallel" seems to be a more apt way of seeing things here. Or "similar."
If there is anything substantive to this assertion the Democrats will jump all over it and use it to smear this administration. If they do nothing with it, I suggest we can safely assume it doesn't have "legs".
On ZULU's point, I agree that overturning the rule in Iran is a necessary part of winning the war on terror. The short-sighted previous policies tried to fight terror like crime, on a case-by-case basis --- but terrorism is ideological and must be won by pulling up the roots as well. IMHO, terrorism cannot gain steam in a Democracy which supports individual liberty.
Which way would you "overturn the rule"? Would you force secularization of the system by eliminating the supervisory religious bodies and imposing the sepration of religion and state, while preserving the parliament and elections? Or would you suppress the parlamentary system and restored to power pro-Western dictatorship (which had control under shah)?
I would like to see a secular government in Iran. I prefer a republic, but the nature of representation ought to be up to them.
I posted a thread about a capture of a senior AQ leader in Karachi.....put the Pakistanis don't know who it really is. Last I read was that this suspect was flown into Islamabad to be transferred to the CIA/FBI.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.