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Wednesday, February 19, 2003

It's an encouraging start...

I'm guessing they sentenced him to a year in jail, 2 years probation, and 3 years of tolerance training.

15 years imprisonment.

04:48 PST HAMBURG, Germany (AP) -- A Moroccan student was convicted Wednesday of more than 3,000 counts of murder in the Sept. 11 attacks for helping support the Hamburg-based terror cell. He was sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison, concluding the first trial anywhere of a suspect in the attacks on the United States.

The Hamburg state court found Mounir el Motassadeq, 28, guilty of membership in a terrorist organization for organizing logistics for the al-Qaida cell that included lead hijacker Mohamed Atta and two other suicide pilots.

04:50 PST (AP) -- El Motassadeq denied the charges during his 31/2-month trial and his lawyers had demanded acquittal.

El Motassadeq has acknowledged knowing six other alleged members of the Hamburg cell -- Atta and two other suicide pilots, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi, and organizers Ramzi Binalshibh, Said Bahaji and Zakariya Essabar. But he says he knew nothing of their plans.

04:52 PST (AP) -- "I couldn't believe that people I knew could do something like that," el Motassadeq said in his closing statement last week. "I watched it on television and I was shocked ... I can only hope that something like Sept. 11 never happens again."

But witnesses testified that el Motassadeq, a slight, bearded man, was as radical as the rest of the group, talking of jihad -- holy war -- and his hatred of Israel and the United States.

The defendant himself admitted training in one of Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan in 2000.

Prosecutors allege el Motassadeq used his power of attorney over al-Shehhi's bank account to pay rent, tuition and utility bills, allowing the plotters to keep up the appearance of being normal students in Germany.

El Motassadeq argued he was simply providing an innocent service to friends and that he took weapons training in Afghanistan because he believed all Muslims should learn to shoot.

The prospect of el Motassadeq's imprisonment in Germany raised security fears even before the verdict. Terrorists might attempt hijackings or kidnappings to free him, said Bavaria's top security official, Interior Minister Guenter Beckstein.

The Hamburg case, coupled with a possible Iraq war, has led some German authorities to step up surveillance of likely suspects who might be planning attacks, though there is no evidence of any specific threats for now, Beckstein told ZDF television.

Germany's federal anti-crime agency said no nationwide measures were being taken, but the states were free to increase security.

"We gather information regarding the level of danger from national and international sources and pass on anything that is relevant to the state police," said Dirk Buechner, spokesman for the Federal Criminal Office.

El Motassadeq's lawyers tried several times unsuccessfully to obtain testimony by two of his friends, Ramzi Binalshibh and Mohammed Haydar Zammar -- a lack of evidence that the lawyers say could be grounds for an appeal in case of a guilty verdict.

Binalshibh, a Yemeni suspect in U.S. custody, is believed to have been the Hamburg cell's key contact with al-Qaida. Zammar, an alleged al-Qaida recruiter in Hamburg, is in prison in Syria.

The court could not get the men released to testify and German authorities refused to turn over their files on the two, saying transcripts of their interrogations were provided to them on condition they only be used for intelligence purposes.

Attorneys representing Americans who lost family members on Sept. 11 said they would appeal if el Motassadeq does not receive close to the maximum sentence, The family members are allowed to be co-plaintiffs under German law.

El Motassadeq, the son of a middle-class family, came to Germany in 1993 to study. By 1995, he was studying electrical engineering in Hamburg, where he is believed to have first met Atta no later than the following year.

15 years for being an accessory to 3,045 murders in New York and Washington...

Thank you, Germany.

Mounir el Motassadeq, a 28-year-old electrical engineering student, was found guilty of being an accessory to 3,045 murders in New York and Washington and being member of a terrorist organisation.

About 1.8 days per murder.

CNN -

CNN

Profile: Mounir el Motassadeq

Hmmm, 1.8 days per person. I guess life in Germany is pretty cheap since WWII. Another reason to get our people out of the land of lederhosen.

15 Year for 3,000 murdered.

That works out to 1 day and 20 hours for each murdered person.

CNN's Matthew Chance said the 15-year sentence was the maximum the court could impose under German law.

German law sucks.

There needs to be some immediate wetwork if this guy ever gets released from prison. There needs to be an instant message.

If this man lives through his term I'll be surprised. If he lives for more than a year after his release, I'll be amazed.