Posted on 08/31/2002 1:38:51 PM PDT by Jean S
Germany Refuses U.S. Evidence Against Sept. 11 Suspect Without Assurance He Won't Be Executed, Minister Says
BERLIN (AP) - Germany has told the United States it will withhold evidence against Sept. 11 conspiracy defendant Zacarias Moussaoui unless it receives assurances that the material won't be used to secure a death penalty against him, Germany's justice minister said in remarks released Saturday.
Investigators suspect Moussaoui, who is awaiting trial in Virginia on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism and murder federal employees, was training to become the pilot of one of the airliners hijacked for the attacks when he was arrested.
German prosecutors say he received money for flight school fees from a member of the terrorist group based in the northern city of Hamburg. But the government insists it can't bend laws forbidding the extradition of suspects to countries with the death penalty or supplying evidence that could incriminate someone facing execution.
In an interview with the Der Spiegel news weekly, Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin said Germany would provide documents on Moussaoui to the United States on condition that they "may not be used for a death sentence or an execution."
A letter explaining the long-standing German position had been sent to U.S. authorities in reply to a request for information about Moussaoui, she said.
"At the moment, the United States are examining our answer and will then get back to us," she said.
Outlawing the death penalty is a requirement for membership of the 15-member European Union.
Daeubler-Gmelin insisted the exchange was not putting more pressure on relations between the Germany and the United States already strained by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's criticism of U.S. threats to attack Iraq.
Cooperation between justice authorities in the two countries is "good and trustful," Daeubler-Gmelin said. "After Sept. 11, one shouldn't try to soften that."
Moussaoui, 34, was arrested last summer at a flight school in Minnesota and became the first person to be charged directly in connection with the attacks. He is being held in custody in pending the opening of his trial in January.
U.S. law enforcement officials have said Moussaoui received two money transfers from Ramzi Binalshibh, who roomed with suicide pilot Mohamed Atta in Hamburg and wanted to take part in the hijackings, but was unable to secure a visa.
German prosecutors this week announced that they had charged another suspect, Mounir El Motassadeq, with belonging to a terror group and 3,000 counts of being an accessory to murder for his alleged support for the Hamburg terror cell.
AP-ES-08-31-02 1607EDT
The situation, from what I've read, is that the large number of people behind the officer and the soon-to-be-dead partisan are (a) being shown what happens when you dis the Wehrmacht, and (b) are being covered by a few MG42s.
Try for the gun, and your fellow countrymen, most of whom are your resource base for being a partisan (and thus enable future ops by your comrades) are going to get mown down like wheatstalks at harvest time.
Get shot, and the good folk go back to their homes, and many look for a way to stick it to the Hun bastards at a more propitious time.
Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when the come for you? (Bad Boys Bad Bad Boys) Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?
Extortion
Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin: But, you said you vould not execute ze prisoner!
GWB: Well, you know, we didn't mean to kill him, Herta, but a funny thing happened on the way to the delousing chamber.
Visas? What Visas? Germany is on the Visa Waiver (tm) programm.
It seems those tender-hearted Germans went to great pains to protect the mother of all flybait:
It was reported from Paris that Saddam has a vast subterranean bomb shelter, a nuclear-proof "minicity", where he could hide for months from a US attack with no outside help, said Iraqi exiles.
They said Saddam had always been fascinated with underground shelters, and that the weapons of mass destruction currently the object of UN weapons inspectors were undoubtedly hidden beneath ground.
The sources said the sonar scanners used by UN weapons inspectors in 1993 to locate Saddam's weapons had found nothing because the weapons were buried too deep.
They said that although German engineers had designed Saddam's underground bomb shelter, it had been built exclusively by Iraqis to keep the exact location a secret.
The fate of the builders remains uncertain, they said.
The exiles described the shelter as a veritable palace, equipped to withstand nuclear attack, in which Saddam and his immediate family could live in total comfort for months with even a gymnasium, sauna, patio and artificial plants to provide the illusion of a garden.
The shelter is powered by its own underground electricity generating plant and equipped with a sophisticated telephone system. The system was so vast that it had electric cars. -- Sapa-AFP
Reminiscent of Yamantau Mountain
The Nazis, and most of continental Europe for that matter, seem to have serious problems with amenisa. Perhaps flying a squadron of bombers over Dresden and Hamburg (without dropping any firebombs.....yet) will refresh their collectiv(ist) memories.
I demanded of the Secretary of State that she provide the evidence re Moussaoui.
She said she'd be in touch with me soon.
I'll forward the evidence to Mike in Queens who told Osama "this is my face. I live in Queens. You can kiss my [moose]."
Execute Moussaoui?
No no no no. I've got a perfectly good battery charger. I know the boy can dance.
Paraphrasing Justice Scalia: "If you believe that there is NOTHING AT ALL after this life, then in taking a man's life from him you take ALL THAT HE HAS. The religious person sees it merely as sending him on to his ultimate judgement, but the individual continues."
The overpowerful sense of evil could be felt in every step, with every room full of exhibits...
schmuck at the Pentagon to give them the plants for a lot less cost?
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