Posted on 02/05/2004 6:59:04 AM PST by Prince Charles
SEPT 11 SUSPECT ACQUITTED
A Moroccan man accused of helping the September 11 suicide hijackers has been acquitted by a German court.
Abdelghani Mzoudi, 31, had been charged in Germany's second major 9/11 trial with aiding and abetting the murder of several thousand people and being a member of a terrorist organisation, the Hamburg cell of al Qaeda.
The court pronounced its verdict despite a last-minute bid by lawyers for victims' families to delay it, claiming alleged new evidence linked to the case of accused September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in the United States.
They are appealing against the verdict.
The case centred on the membership and activities of the Hamburg cell which provided three of the 19 suicide hijackers for the attacks.
Prosecutors had accused Mzoudi of handling money for fellow plotters and covering up for them, and said that he also trained at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.
A turning point came in December when German investigators passed new information to the court, indicating Mzoudi did not belong to the core cell with prior knowledge of the plans.
According to this evidence - presumed to come from the interrogation of captured al Qaeda member Ramzi bin al-Shaibah - only bin al-Shaibah himself and suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehi and Ziad Jarrah were members of this inner circle in Hamburg.
The court said at the time that without access to bin al-Shaibah, it had no way of deciding the reliability of the evidence.
But it declared Mzoudi no longer under "urgent suspicion" and freed him from custody while the trial continued, raising expectations that he would be acquitted.
In Germany's other major 9/11 case, Mzoudi's friend and fellow-Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq was sentenced to 15 years in jail by the same Hamburg court last February.
He is awaiting a ruling on an appeal.
Last Updated: 14:27 UK, Thursday February 05, 2004
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