Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

quote:

---

A German court has acquitted a Moroccan man accused of assisting three of the 11 September hijackers. Abdelghani Mzoudi had admitted being a friend of the three men while they lived in Hamburg, but denied any prior knowledge of the US attacks in 2001.

The verdict was delayed for several hours after a lawyer representing 9/11 victims asked to submit new evidence. Mr Mzoudi, 31, had faced charges of aiding and abetting the murder of several thousand people. He was also cleared of a lesser charge of being a member of a terrorist organisation.

In December, Mr Mzoudi was released from custody for the remainder of the trial after a statement emerged from an unnamed source that was widely believed to be Ramzi Binalshibh, another alleged member of the cell currently in US custody. It said the Hamburg cell consisted only of Mr Binalshibh and the three suicide hijackers.

Prosecutors launched a last minute challenge on Thursday saying a fresh look at Mr Binalshibh's evidence could back their case instead. The lawyer, Andreas Schulz, urged the court to contact the US Justice Department to try to obtain Mr Binalshibh's evidence. But Judge Klaus Ruehle rejected the challenge, saying that the US authorities had not allowed Mr Binalshibh to testify during the trial so transcripts of his interviews could not be used.

In his summing up, he told Mr Mzoudi the verdict was not a cause to celebrate. The judge said the court reached its decision not "because it was convinced of the innocence of the accused, but because there was not enough evidence for a conviction." He added that when in doubt he ruled in favour of the accused.

The prosecution is expected to appeal against the verdict, which means Mr Mzoudi will stay in Hamburg for the time being. However he eventually may face deportation to Morocco, where there is a chance of him being handed over to the US authorities.

Mr Mzoudi was arrested in 2002 after witnesses said he had trained at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. He admitted knowing three of the men who later hijacked the planes used against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, including the alleged ringleader Mohammed Atta. But he insisted he knew nothing of the terror plans.

The ruling on Mr Mzoudi could affect an appeal in another 9/11 case, that of Moroccan Mounir al-Motassadek, convicted on the same charges as Mr Mzoudi last year. Germany's federal appeal court is due to rule on Motassadek's case in March and has already suggested that the prosecution evidence should have been stronger.

BBC News

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35561

The Germans are clearly too busy with their secret admiration for Hitler to attend to the important business of locking moslems up.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged