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Mzoudi was a liaison to al Qaeda, witness said. A man claiming to be a former Iranian spy testified Friday that Abdelghani Mzoudi, the second man to be tried for an alleged role in the Sept. 11 attacks, was involved in the preparations to hit the World Trade Center. The witness, who goes by the alias Hamid Reza Zakeri, took the stand at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg and claimed that Mzoudi, was "responsible for part of the organization" of the suicide attacks that destroyed the twin towers in New York and damaged the Pentagon. Zakeri testified Mzoudi...

HAMBURG, Germany, Aug. 10 — A German court today began a retrial of Mounir el-Motassadeq, the only person convicted of involvement in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, with the disclosure that the United States will for the first time share evidence about the plot. Mr. Motassadeq's conviction was thrown out in March by an appeals court, which said that critical evidence had been withheld by American authorities. After having been sentenced to 15 years in prison, Mr. Motassadeq was freed in April. The decision by the United States to offer limited cooperation to the Germans introduces a combustible element to...

DUESSELDORF, Germany -- A Jordanian man who claims he was Osama bin Laden's bodyguard was questioned by U.S. officials who are considering having him testify at the Virginia trial of terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, the man's attorney said Thursday. Shadi Abdellah, 28, sentenced last November to four years in prison for helping plan terror attacks in Germany, was granted early release last month after serving more than half the time, including in pretrial custody. While in prison, he served as a government witness in several trials, including that of his alleged co-plotters in the German cell of the Tawhid and...

HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - The balding young man with the black beard raised his hands to cover his face as three visitors entered the room. Abdelghani Mzoudi is no stranger to the world's front pages and television screens after a six-month trial that saw him acquitted this year of aiding and abetting the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. But he does not like to be recognized, still less to speak to the press. In a drab canteen at Hamburg's Al Quds mosque, housed in an anonymous grey-tiled building with a fitness club on the ground floor, the 31-year-old...

BERLIN, Dec. 11 — A judge surprised a Hamburg courtroom today by ordering the release of a Moroccan man accused of aiding the Sept. 11 hijackers, after the German police said they had seen evidence that a witness had testified to American interrogators that only four people from the Hamburg cell knew of the attack. The man who was freed, Abdelghani Mzoudi, had been on trial on charges of being an accessory in the deaths of more than 3,000 people in the attacks in the United States. But Judge Klaus Ruehle expressed doubt today that the defendant had knowledge of...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German court postponed on Wednesday the verdict on a Moroccan accused of aiding the Sept. 11 attackers after prosecutors said they had found a new witness, casting doubt on his expected acquittal. The Hamburg court where Abdelghani Mzoudi is on trial said that the verdict would not now be issued Thursday as expected after a request from prosecutors to hear evidence from two police officials about a new witness. "Federal prosecutors sent to the court today a substantial transcript dated January 19 regarding the questioning of a witness whose reliability is guaranteed and who would incriminate...

HAMBURG, Germany - A Moroccan charged with aiding a Hamburg al-Qaida cell that included three of the Sept. 11 hijackers can remain free while his trial continues, a court announced Tuesday, rejecting a request by prosecutors to return him to custody. The Hamburg state court freed Abdelghani Mzoudi on Dec. 11 after German federal investigators presented a statement quoting an unidentified informant as saying that only four people in Hamburg knew of the Sept. 11 plot — not including Mzoudi. Prosecutors lost a federal appeal against the decision Friday. On Tuesday, the Hamburg court said it had denied their second...

BERLIN -- A Saudi diplomat met a member of the Hamburg, Germany, terrorist cell shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., according to a confidential police report.The diplomat, Muhammed Fakihi, is said to have met Mounir el-Motassadeq when the 29-year-old Moroccan was contemplating fleeing Germany. A few days after the November meeting, Mr. Motassadeq was arrested. This year, he was convicted of accessory to murder in 3,066 cases and of membership in a terrorist organization. He is the only person world-wide to have been convicted for participating in the attacks.The alleged meeting is detailed in a two-page...

HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - A Jordanian who says he served as Osama bin Laden's bodyguard told a German court on Wednesday he had seen a Moroccan charged with helping the September 11 hijackers at an al Qaeda hostel in Afghanistan. Shadi Abdalla, who has since turned informant, said he spotted the accused, Abdelghani Mzoudi, both alone and with key figures in the 2001 suicide plane attacks on U.S. cities at lodgings frequented by al Qaeda trainees in mid-2000. Mzoudi, a 30-year-old electrical engineering student from Morocco, is charged with 3,066 counts of aiding and abetting murder, and membership of a...

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...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany launches the second trial of a suspected Sept. 11 plotter Thursday in a case expected to provide further insight into the Hamburg al Qaeda cell that led the hijacked airliner attacks on U.S. cities. Moroccan Abdelghani Mzoudi, 30, who shared an apartment with some of the suicide hijackers in the northern port city of Hamburg, is charged with 3,066 counts of aiding and abetting murder and membership of a terrorist organization. If found guilty, Mzoudi, faces the same 15-year jail term to which fellow Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq was sentenced in February for his part in...

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department moved Friday to block the financial assets of Abdelghani Mzoudi, a suspected member of the al-Qaida cell in Germany that is believed to have planned the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Mzoudi is among the 17 new people — all foreigners — that the government added to its list of entities suspected of helping to bankroll Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network. The action by Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control means that U.S. banks must block any assets found in the United States that belong to these people. Treasury said the 17 names have...

A wedding video shot in a Hamburg mosque has been broadcast for the first time and shows grainy scenes of Sept. 11 al-Qaida suicide pilots celebrating with other alleged plotters, possibly including suspects still not formally identified. The video of the October 1999 wedding of Said Bahaji being celebrated in a large room at the al Quds mosque suspected as a recruiting center for al-Qaida operatives has been in the hands of investigators since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. In the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks, the Bahaji wedding video provided investigators critical...

BERLIN: German federal prosecutors said on Friday they had charged a second Moroccan man suspected of providing support for the Islamic militant group behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Federal prosecutors said in a statement they had charged Abdelghani Mzoudi, a 30-year-old Moroccan, with being an accessory to the murder of 3,066 people and of membership in the al-Qaeda cell based in Hamburg that helped plan the attacks. Mzoudi was detained in October 2002 in Hamburg on suspicion he was among a group of 10 people in the city who supported the September 11 attackers. Prosecutors...

BERLIN (AP) — A second suspected helper of the Germany-based Sept. 11 hijackers will soon be charged with supporting a terrorist organization, the country's federal prosecutor said in remarks released Saturday. Abdelghani Mzoudi, a 29-year-old Moroccan, will be charged ``in the coming weeks on suspicion of supporting the Hamburg cell'' which included three of the pilots of the hijacked planes, Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm said in a magazine interview. Nehm's spokeswoman, Frauke Scheuten, said Mzoudi would be tried in the Hamburg state court where the first Sept. 11 suspect to face trial anywhere in the world was convicted Wednesday of...

BERLIN (AP) -- A Moroccan man was arrested in Hamburg on Thursday on suspicion that he provided logistical support to the cell of Sept. 11 hijackers led by Mohamed Atta, German federal prosecutors said. Abdelghani Mzoudi, 29, had close and long-standing contacts with the members of the cell, and attended training camps in Afghanistan in the summer of 2000, according to a statement from prosecutors. Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.