Posted on 09/18/2003 1:03:01 AM PDT by Stultis
HAMBURG - A Moroccan man accused of membership in the Hamburg terrorist cell that staged the 11 September attacks actively participated in planning the suicide hijackings, a witness testified at his trial in Germany Wednesday.
The 22-year-old witness, a university student who claimed to be a close acquaintance of defendant Abdel-Ghani Mzoudi, said he was convinced Mzoudi was an active member of a Hamburg cell of al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for the attacks which claimed some 3,000 lives.
"I always had the feeling that he (Mzoudi) definitely belonged to the group," the witness testified.
The witness further stated that Mzoudi was especially close to cell ringleader Mohammed Atta, who piloted one of the planes into the World Trade Center.
In addition, Mzoudi was "well acquainted" with Ramzi Binalshibh, a self-described planner of the 11 September attacks who was captured last year and now faces trial in the United States.
The witness recalled marathon discussions in the Hamburg flat where Mzoudi and the others lived in which they "ranted about how the Jews controlled the world" and in which they watched videotapes exhorting Moslems to Islamic jihad and to martyrdom in the name of Islamic radicalism.
Another member of the group was Mounir al-Motassadeq, the Moroccan sentenced by the Hamburg court earlier this year to 15 years in jail in connection with the 11 September attacks.
In the current trial, prosecutors are seeking to show that Mzoudi too had foreknowledge of the attacks on New York and Washington.
Mzoudi rejects the charges, but has declined to testify at the trial other than describing his childhood and youth.
Earlier witnesses have told the court that Mzoudi was a frequent guest at Motassadeq's room, as was a larger group of Arab friends. They said Mzoudi occasionally spent the night there.
Others in the circle of visitors included Atta, Said Bahaji, who is on the run, and Binalshibh, who is in US custody.
One of the witnesses, an engineer, 31, recalled how a Motassadeq friend was once introduced to him as "our pilot", but the witness said he could not recall whether the person so introduced was Atta or somebody else.
He said Motassadeq and the others were were "very religious" and performed regular daily prayer.
Sounds like a fruitcake to me. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)
Posted on 09/09/2003 2:17 PM CDT by Brian S
Sept. 9
— HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - A Moroccan accused of helping the suicide hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities was a fanatical Muslim who hated Jews, his trial heard on Tuesday.
Abdelghani Mzoudi, a 30-year-old electrical engineering student, is charged with being an accessory to 3,066 counts of murder and with membership of a terrorist organization -- the Hamburg-based al Qaeda cell that led the 2001 attacks.
Bernd Frost, 37, told the court that he had often discussed politics with Mzoudi when they lived in the same student accommodation building in Hamburg in the mid-1990s.
He described Mzoudi as a devout but "extremely fanatical" Muslim who supported Islamist attacks, hated the United States and Israel and said killing children could also be justified.
"Small Jews also eventually grow up," Frost quoted Mzoudi as telling him.
Posted on 09/04/2003 12:33 PM CDT by knighthawk
HAMBURG, Germany - A Moroccan on trial for allegedly supporting a cell of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers was easy to get along with until he fell under the influence of a fellow countryman, who later was convicted on terrorism charges, their former landlord testified Thursday.
Reinhard Martens, who rented defendant Abdelghani Mzoudi a room in his house in late 1996, remembered him as a "very good" tenant until another Moroccan, Mounir el Motassadeq, moved in at the start of 1997.
"Mzoudi was quieter than before, he seemed like he could not make his own decisions," Martens testified. "Mounir was not a nice person, very aggressive. In my opinion, he was a religious extremist."
...
Witness Ralf Goetsche, who lived with el Motassadeq in student housing in 1997, described his influence on other Muslims, largely repeating testimony he gave at el Motassadeq's trial.
Another roommate — a "liberal Muslim" from Turkey — became much more devout once el Motassadeq moved in, Goetsche testified.
He said El Motassadeq had regular visitors to their student apartment, including Atta, Jarrah and Mzoudi, who would meet there before going to a mosque.
Recalling an incident in their shared kitchen, Goetsche said el Motassadeq was anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.
"He said that what Hitler did wasn't so bad," Goetsche testified. "I asked what he meant, and he said: 'With the Jews.'"
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