Morrocan Mounir El Motassadeq in a Hamburg, northern Germany, court in a Feb 12, 2003 file picture. Germany's Federal Criminal Court on Thursday, March 4, 2004, ordered a retrial for Motassadeq, the only person convicted in the Sept. 11 attacks. Motassadeq was found guilty of aiding the Hamburg cell of suicide hijackers. Motassadeq is serving a 15-year prison sentence. (AP Photo/Christof Stache, pool)
Court Overturns 9/11 Suspect's Conviction
By GEIR MOULSON, Associated Press Writer
KARLSRUHE, Germany - A German court Thursday overturned the world's only conviction for the Sept. 11 attacks and ordered a retrial for a Moroccan found guilty last year of aiding the Hamburg cell of suicide hijackers.
Mounir el Motassadeq's conviction on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization was flawed because the lower court failed to properly consider the absence of evidence from a key witness who is in U.S. custody, the Federal Criminal Court ruled. The jailed 29-year-old's case returns to court in Hamburg.
"The defendant el Motassadeq is certainly far removed from being clear of suspicion," Presiding Judge Klaus Tolksdorf said.
El Motassadeq is serving a maximum 15-year prison sentence after the Hamburg court convicted him in 2003 of giving logistical support to the Hamburg-based al-Qaida cell that included Sept. 11 suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah.
After the appeal ruling, el Motassadeq's lawyers said they would ask the Hamburg court to free the electrical engineering student from custody. El Motassadeq did not attend the session, but one of his lawyers grinned as the verdict was read in the court in the southern city of Karlsruhe.
Stephen Push, founder of the New York-based Families of Sept. 11 organization, said he was "frustrated" by the decision.
"I am hopeful that he can be (convicted)," Push, whose wife was aboard the plane that crashed into the Pentagon (news - web sites), told The Associated Press by telephone from the United States. "I believe he is guilty."
El Motassadeq's lawyers argued he was denied a fair trial because the United States refused to allow testimony by Ramzi Binalshibh, thought to be the Hamburg cell's key contact with al-Qaida.
Binalshibh was captured in Pakistan on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and is in secret U.S. custody.
The U.S. Justice Department (news - web sites) has told the Hamburg court that Binalshibh is "not available." Also, the German government refused to release transcripts of his interrogations, saying the United States provided them only for intelligence purposes.
El Motassadeq acknowledges knowing the hijackers. But he says he knew nothing about their plans — and maintains Binalshibh could confirm this.
Thursday's ruling brought a new setback for prosecutors after the same Hamburg court last month acquitted el Motassadeq's friend Abdelghani Mzoudi of identical charges for lack of evidence.
Mzoudi benefited from a statement presented by German investigators in which an unnamed source — believed by the court to be Binalshibh — said the only people in Hamburg who knew of the plot were hijackers Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, and Binalshibh.
Though that evidence was not considered in el Motassadeq's appeal, defense lawyer Graessle-Muenscher said it would "definitely" play a role in the retrial.
Without ruling on el Motassadeq's guilt, the appeals court said the lower court erred by failing to consider whether the lack of direct evidence from Binalshibh should have influenced its decision.
In convicting el Motassadeq, the Hamburg court cited evidence that included his payment of tuition and rent for other cell members. That helped the plotters maintain appearances of having a normal student life in the city while planning the attacks, the court said.
Federal prosecutors had wanted to see el Motassadeq's conviction confirmed, insisting the Hamburg court made every effort to get Binalshibh's testimony. But experts believe a retrial is likely after critical questioning by the appeals judges at a January hearing.
El Motassadeq's lawyers also argued that al-Qaida hatched the Sept. 11 plot in Afghanistan and the hijackers trained to fly in the United States, so Atta's group did not constitute a German-based terrorist organization under laws at the time.