Convicted 9/11 Terrorist In Germany Seeks Retrial

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Convicted 9-11 terrorist in Germany seeks retrial

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2013/07/18/3098567/convicted-9-11-terrorist-in-germany.html

Published: July 18, 2013^

BERLIN - A Moroccan serving 15 years in jail in Germany for assisting the al-Qaida plot that used hijacked airliners to kill 3,000 people in the United States in 2001 has requested a retrial, Hamburg court officials said Thursday.

A group of Arab students who had met at university in Hamburg, Germany, and then learned basic piloting skills crashed four jets, destroying the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and damaging the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

Mounir al-Motassadeq, who was a friend of the group, was arrested in Hamburg after the suicide attack and convicted in 2007 of helping a terrorist group.

A spokesman for the state superior court in Hamburg said al-Motassadeq had filed a petition for a retrial and it had been sent to federal prosecutors for comment.

For al-Motassadeq's conviction, the prosecution relied on evidence provided by the United States based on statements by al-Qaida captives in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba that detailed how the Hamburg terrorist cell planned the attacks.

One of the prisoners, Ramzi Binalshibh, has reportedly since said that al-Motassadeq was not privy to his friends' plans and had nothing to do with the suicide hijackings.

The court spokesman said it was impossible to predict how long the judges would take to respond because motions to reopen a completed criminal case were legally complex.

The Moroccan is detained at a prison in Hamburg.

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Moroccan jailed in Germany over 9/11 seeks retrial

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/19/3508137/moroccan-jailed-in-germany-over.html

BERLIN (AP) – A Moroccan man serving a 15-year prison sentence in Germany for helping three of the suicide pilots in the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. is seeking a new trial, officials said Friday.

A spokesman for federal prosecutors, Marcus Koehler, said the Hamburg court that sentenced Mounir el-Motassadeq has forwarded the Moroccan’s application for the case to be reopened. Prosecutors will examine it and respond to the court, which will decide whether the case should be retried.

It wasn’t immediately clear how long that decision might take. It is very rare for such requests to be granted in Germany.

Motassadeq was convicted in 2006 of being a member of a terrorist group and an accessory to the murder of the 246 passengers and crew on the four jetliners used in the attacks on New York and Washington. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, the maximum penalty possible under German law. Germany’s highest court refused in 2007 to consider his appeal.

Motassadeq’s lawyer, Udo Jacob, said he has a new evidence casting doubt on the verdict, namely a statement from alleged 9/11 plotter Ramzi Bin al Shibh, the suspected liaison between the three hijackers who lived in Hamburg and al-Qaida. Binalshibh is being held at Guantánamo Bay, accused in a death-penalty case with alleged Sept. 11 attack mastermind Khalis Sheik Mohammed and three other alleged conspirators.

Jacob said Abdelghani Mzoudi, a fellow Moroccan who was acquitted of similar charges at a separate trial in Hamburg in 2004, also has agreed to testify – which he declined to do when Motassadeq was first tried.