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Mr Mzoudi admits knowing the hijackers but not their plans A German court has agreed to allow a new prosecution witness in the trial of an 11 September suspect which appeared to have all but crumbled last month. The dramatic move has delayed the verdict in the case of Abdelghani Mzoudi which was expected this week. Mr Mzoudi, 31, is accused of being an accessory to the murder of more than 3,000 in the 2001 attacks on America and membership of a terrorist group. The Moroccan national was freed after new evidence cast doubt over the case. It's a...

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 - Prosecutors in the trial of a Moroccan accused of helping the September 11 suicide hijackers said on Thursday they still believe he is guilty despite a statement presented in court last month that would exclude him from the plot if true. Prosecutors cast doubt on the value of the statement as they began closing arguments in the trial of Abdelghani Mzoudi, charged with 3.066 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organisation. "I and my colleagues are still convinced that the defendant is guilty," chief prosecutor Walter Hemberger told the Hamburg state court. He was...

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...

HAMBURG. A man released after a Hamburg court ruled last week that there was insufficient evidence to hold him on charges of being a co-conspirator in the Hamburg cell believed to have masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, has applied for political asylum in Germany. The lawyer for Abdelghani Mzoudi, 31, said on Monday that the Moroccan was basing his application on a legitimate fear that if he were forcibly returned home the pro-U.S. government there would turn him over to the United States. The lawyer, Gül Pinar, did not elaborate, but local press reports said Mzoudi would argue...

A German court has ruled that the only man convicted anywhere in the world over the September 11 attacks must remain in custody despite new evidence believed to cast doubt on his involvement. Mounir El Motassadeq was sentenced to a maximum 15 years earlier this year on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder. His lawyers have now asked for his release after evidence, allegedly from a top Al Qaeda member held in the United States, that neither Motassadeq nor another accused, Abdelghani Mzoudi, were part of the al-Qaeda cell involved in the 2001 attacks. Mr. Mzoudi has already...

Abdelghani Mzoudi was just one of those stunned by the Hamburg court's decision to release him. The release of suspected terrorist Abelghani Mzoudi has caused concern and disappointment on both sides of the Atlantic as the 9/11 prosecution faces its first major setback. The Hamburg court’s decision to release suspected 9/11 accomplice Abelghani Mzoudi, the man accused of involvement in the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and only the second person in the world to stand trial over the attacks, has drawn criticism and skepticism from authority figures involved in the investigation and prosecution of suspected terrorists....

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...

The article is in German and I am not in the mood to entirely translate it. Here is a quick summary (I am sure there will soon be more complete English articles on the web). Surprisingly the Hamburger Oberlandesgericht (court) has decided, that the defendat Abdelghani Mzoudi was NOT part of the 9/11 attacks and that his warrant of arrest will be repealed. This is due to new information received by the BKA (German version FBI), that captured al Qaeda member claimed that only Binalshibh, Mohammed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi und Ziad Jarrah were members of Hamburg´s terror cell. The federal...

HAMBURG, Germany, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Relatives of September 11 victims demanded on Thursday the maximum 15-year jail sentence for a Moroccan on trial in a German court for helping the suicide hijackers and for belonging to an al Qaeda cell. Five relatives spoke on behalf of 25 co-plaintiffs in the trial of Abdelghani Mzoudi, charged with several thousand counts of aiding and abetting murder, and membership of a terrorist organisation, the Hamburg cell at the centre of the attack plot. In several hours of moving testimony, the relatives told of their pain. Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot...

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) - The roommate of a Moroccan accused of supporting the Hamburg-based Sept. 11 hijackers told a German court Friday that videos calling for holy war seized from their apartment belonged to him. Abderrazek Labied, 40, testified that his roommate Abdelghani Mzoudi, had never seen the videos or heard the audio cassettes, described by a judge as containing "aggressive religious speeches" urging jihad, or holy war. Labied added that their VCR had been broken for some time and although he continued to buy the tapes, he couldn't watch them. "They just lay there getting dusty," Labied said. Mzoudi,...

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...

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....

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...

HAMBURG, Germany - A court trying a Sept. 11 terror suspect said Thursday it would seek testimony from a captured al-Qaida leader who allegedly masterminded the attacks on the United States. Presiding Judge Klaus Ruehle said the Hamburg state court had prepared a request for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to appear as a witness in the trial of Abdelghani Mzoudi, 30, who is accused of supporting the Hamburg al-Qaida cell that included three Sept. 11 pilots. He did not elaborate. Given Mohammed's alleged role, he should be able to describe where the attacks were planned, defense attorney Guel Pinar said. Mohammed,...

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) -- A witness at the trial of a Sept. 11 terror suspect was pressed Thursday by a judge about her memory that one of the suicide hijackers in 1999 predicted an attack on the United States that would kill thousands. The testimony by librarian Angela Duile could be important in the case against Abdelghani Mzoudi, 30, who is accused of supporting the Hamburg al-Qaida cell. He faces the same charges as his friend and fellow Moroccan, Mounir el Motassadeq, who was convicted in February and sentenced to the maximum 15 years on 3,066 counts of accessory...

Hamburg (dpa) - The al-Qaeda terrorist network has given military training to 70,000 men over the years, but now has only limited operational capabilities of its own, according to German police intelligence provided at a trial in Hamburg on Friday. A specialist from the Federal Crime Office BKA was testifying at the trial of alleged September 11, 2001 terror-pilot conspirator Abdel-Ghani Mzoudi, described by prosecutors as one of eight Arab men who devised the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Three of the named men died in the attacks and two are still at large. Germany says the...

The Associated Press HAMBURG, Germany Aug. 13 — The second alleged Sept. 11 terrorist to face trial in Germany has been painted as a fanatical Muslim. So his choices for lawyers a woman and a Jew have raised eyebrows. Abdelghani Mzoudi goes on trial Thursday in the same Hamburg courtroom where his friend and fellow Moroccan Mounir el Motassadeq was convicted six months ago. Michael Rosenthal, a criminal defense lawyer based in the southern city of Karlsruhe, openly discussed his Jewishness with Mzoudi at their first meeting having read the indictment that says Mzoudi was part of the group with...

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...