Posted on 08/29/2002 10:20:54 PM PDT by MadIvan
A Moroccan has been charged with more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder in connection with the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, the German authorities said yesterday.
Mounir El Motassadeq was accused of membership of a terrorist organisation and being an accessory to murder in 3,116 cases, Kay Nehm, the chief federal prosecutor said.
Mr Nehm said El Motassadeq, 28, was an integral member of a terrorist cell in Hamburg which included three of the four suicide pilots, Mohammed Ata, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah.
He is alleged to have acted as logistics and finance manager to the cell's core members, moving money around to fund their flying lessons in Americaand ensuring that rent was paid on their accommodation there.
El Motassadeq is only the second person to be charged formally in connection with September 11.
A month after the attacks, El Motassadeq's name appeared on an American list of 370 individuals and organisations suspected of links to the plot. At the time he denied being involved. "All of this is false, I have nothing to do with this thing," he said then.
He was arrested weeks later in Hamburg and has been held in investigative custody since, telling interrogators that although he knew the pilots, he had nothing to do with their plan.
In detailing the charges, Mr Nehm gave the most comprehensive official account of how the Hamburg cell was allegedly formed and planned the suicide attacks.
He said seven students - Motassadeq, the three pilots, and Ramzi Binalshibh, Said Bahaji and Zakariya Essabar - decided by the summer of 1999, to form a secret group to take jihad to the West.
"The members of the cell were united by the rejection of the western social and value system, combined with an anti-American and anti-Jewish attitude," said Mr Nehm.
"The Hamburg cell was part of an internationally operative network of Islamic fundamentalists, prepared for violence, under the influence of al-Qa'eda which was and is led by Osama bin Laden.
"By October 1999 at the latest they developed the idea of using airplanes to undertake attacks in the USA. In order to discuss the details with those responsible from the international network, and to secure the financial and logistical support, the group members travelled to Afghanistan."
He said Al-Shehhi, who flew one of the aircraft into the World Trade Centre, had boasted to a librarian as early as spring 2000 that an attack in was going to take place in America.
"There will be thousands of dead. You will all think of me," Al Shehhi allegedly told her, and mentioned his eventual target.
All right, then.
Regards, Ivan
>>>>This seems to support Wolfowitz's statement that Hamburg is an Al Qaeda cell node. The only other cell node Wolfowitz identified outside of Afghanistan was in Jacksonville, Fl.<<<<<
----------------------------------------------------------
Afghanistan is only one node in the global terrorist network. "A network, by its very nature is based on the idea that should one node be eliminated, the network can still continue to function," he said.
In Arabic, "al Qaeda" means "base," indicating that the entire organization is the base of terrorist operations. "It is spread throughout the world and it needs to be eliminated, root and branch," Wolfowitz said.
Al Qaeda has infected some 60 countries, including the United States, Germany, France, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines. It had critical nodes in Hamburg, Germany, and Jacksonville, Fla., as well as in Afghanistan.
Yes.
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.