9/11 Suspect Free, New Evidence Cited

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

German Judge Frees 9/11 Suspect, Citing New Evidence

By DESMOND BUTLER

 

Published: December 11, 2003

 

 

ERLIN, 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.

 

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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 attacks. "There is the serious possibility that Mzoudi, despite his involvement and his visit to Afghanistan, was deliberately excluded from planning for the attacks and did not consciously provide a supportive role," the judge said, according to Reuters.

 

By implication, the judge's decision also raised questions about the conviction of another man in the case, Mounir el-Motassadeq, who was sentenced this year to 15 years after being convicted of similar charges.

 

After Judge Ruehle's action to free Mr. Mzoudi, Mr. Motassadeq's lawyers immediately filed papers seeking his release and renewed their appeal of his conviction.

 

"This is a bombshell," said Hans Leistritz, who represented Mr. Motassadeq at his trial.

 

The new evidence concerned testimony of an unidentified witness who was said to have asserted that only four members of the Qaeda cell that planned and carried out the attacks had advance knowledge of them. This witness identified those four as three of the four suicide-hijacking pilots and an associate of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who has been described by the American authorities as a central figure in the logistics of the Sept. 11 plotting.

 

A prosecutor told the courtroom that by a process of elimination, the unidentified witness must be Mr. bin al-Shibh, who was arrested in Pakistan a year after the attacks and remains in American custody.

 

Judge Ruehle said the new evidence raised sufficient doubt that Mr. Mzoudi was aware that his actions as described by prosecutors were in support of a terrorist attack.

 

German prosecutors indicted Mr. Mzoudi in May on charges of 3,066 counts of accessory to murder in connection with the 9/11 attacks. He denied the charges.

 

Mr. Motassadeq, a former roommate of Mr. Mzoudi's, began serving his 15-year sentence on similar charges in February after the Hamburg court convicted him of 3,066 counts of accessory to murder, and of playing a crucial logistical role for the members of Al Qaeda who ultimately succeeded in ramming passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and crashing an airliner in rural Pennsylvania.

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

Dis I make a mistake and post an old story? If so, I honestly apologize because I didn't know.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

No. I just don't care.

 

I'm too busy cowering in fear from John Ashcroft looking at what Web sites I frequent...

[Guest Cerebus]

Yeah after this week's editorial I heard the Ashcroft Gang busted the offices of the Weekly Standard, beat the piss out of Bill Kristol and shoved coke up Robert Kagan's ass.