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SEPT 11 SUSPECT ACQUITTED A Moroccan man accused of helping the September 11 suicide hijackers has been acquitted by a German court. Abdelghani Mzoudi, 31, had been charged in Germany's second major 9/11 trial with aiding and abetting the murder of several thousand people and being a member of a terrorist organisation, the Hamburg cell of al Qaeda. The court pronounced its verdict despite a last-minute bid by lawyers for victims' families to delay it, claiming alleged new evidence linked to the case of accused September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in the United States. They are appealing against the verdict....

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...

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...

Defendant was 'terror cell member'17 September 2003 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....

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....

DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) -- A Jordanian accused of helping plot terror attacks by a radical Palestinian network went on trial in Germany on Tuesday accused of membership in a group that supports al-Qaida. Shadi Abdellah, 26, who has said he served briefly as Osama bin Laden's bodyguard at a camp in Afghanistan, was among nine alleged extremists detained across Germany in April 2002 on suspicion of plotting imminent attacks. He is charged with belonging to a terrorist organization, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, and forging passports. Prosecutors allege the German cell was acting under...

<p>In the days after Sept. 11, 2001, Sami Omar al-Hussayen led fellow Muslims as they joined an emotion-charged candlelight march remembering the dead. The Saudi graduate student in computer science at the University of Idaho helped organize a blood drive for victims. He issued a press release on behalf of the Muslim Students Association, stating that the small town of Moscow's Muslims "condemn in the strongest terms possible what are apparently vicious acts of terrorism against innocent citizens."</p>

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 (Reuters) - The first trial of an alleged September 11 conspirator ends on Wednesday when a Moroccan man hears whether German judges acquit or jail him for up to 15 years, a ruling seen as a test for other al Qaeda prosecutions. Mounir El Motassadeq, a 28-year-old electrical engineering student, is charged with being an accessory to 3,045 murders in New York and Washington and with belonging to the Hamburg-based al Qaeda cell said to have led the assault. His trial, lasting 29 days since October, has offered insights into the al Qaeda network blamed for the suicide...

A Moroccan charged with supporting the September 11 attacks transferred about $9,000 ($AU16,044) for an alleged hijacker as he prepared for his suicide mission, a police witness told a German court on Wednesday. The evidence may support the prosecutors' charge that Mounir El Motassadeq, the first suspected attack conspirator to stand trial, was the paymaster of the Al Qaeda cell based in Germany accused of masterminding the attacks. Jeanette Walter, a national police investigator, described a complicated series of payments made in late 2000 via the German account of Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, an alleged plotter captured in Pakistan in September...

P AUL Deakin studied the pictures of the 9/11 terrorists with disbelief as he realised that among them was the man who had become his friend.For four weeks the maths teacher from the North of England and Ziad Jarrah, the man who seized controls of the fourth hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, had shared a bungalow as they learned how to fly in Florida.They had watched Friends together on TV and gone out to local bars at weekends to play pool.But while all Paul had wanted was a private pilot's licence Jarrah had another purpose. He was to become...

A German court quizzing the first suspect to stand trial over the September 11 attacks will Wednesday try to examine how much he knew of the plot in the months leading up to the atrocities. The presiding judge in the trial of Mounir El Motassadeq has already voiced scepticism at the Moroccan defendant's claim that he only attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in mid-2000 for religious reasons. "You should reflect whether you want to go a few steps further" in providing evidence to the court, judge Albrecht Mentz warned as he wrapped up Tuesday's opening day. He said...

Authorities in Germany have outlined charges against a Moroccan man accused of links with the 11 September terror attacks on the United States. Mounir el-Motassadek is accused of belonging to a terrorist organisation and assisting in the murder of more than 3,000 people. German Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm said Mr el-Motassadek, who is accused of being part of a Hamburg cell of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, is believed to have helped three of the hijack pilots enter the United States. Mr Nehm said prosecutors had also prepared charges against three other alleged members of the Hamburg group. The 28-year-old...

Germany has charged a Moroccan man over his alleged links with the 11 September terror attacks against the United States. Mounir El Motassadek, who allegedly knew two of the suicide hijackers who crashed planes into the World Trade Center, was arrested in November in Hamburg and has been held in detention since. Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm said the charges related to his "participation in the terrorist attacks", and said further details of the indictment would be released on Thursday. Hamburg has been a focus of investigation into the attacks since it emerged that three of the hijackers spent a considerable...

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...