German Agent Says Suspect Was Spotted Two Years Before 9-11

Agence France-Presse
January 29, 2003



HAMBURG, Germany - German intelligence homed in on a suspect now facing the world's first trial over the September 11 suicide plane attacks at least two years before the hijackings, an agent testified.

The agent, speaking under the alias Juergen Lindweiler, told the court in Hamburg, northern Germany, that Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq first came to the attention of authorities in 1999 as a possible Islamic extremist.

Lindweiler said Motassadeq's contact then with Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a Syrian-born German suspected of recruiting extremists for training camps in Afghanistan run by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, put the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution on his trail.

But while he had associations with suspected extremists, "extremist activity by these three people was not observed," he added, referring to Motassadeq, Zammar and Said Bahaji, another suspect who is now on the run.

As the trial enters its final phase, both the defense and the prosecution asked for more specific details about Motassadeq's observation by the domestic intelligence service.

Lindweiler consulted with his superiors during a recess, then informed the court that it would have to file a written request with the agency for further information.

This development, and a series of further defense motions calling for more witnesses and evidence, will delay the proceedings.

Motassadeq, a 28-year-old electrical engineering student, is accused of membership in a terrorist organization and of being an accessory in the deaths of the more than 3,000 people who died in the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

He could face a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Presiding judge Albrecht Mentz had told the prosecution to be prepared to present its closing arguments Wednesday, paving the way for a verdict to come as early as next week.

Court observers said this now looked unlikely.

The defense called for the dossier on Zammar's 15-day interrogation by Moroccan and US officials after his arrest in Casablanca in late 2001 to be presented to the court, saying it would prove that Motassadeq had no previous knowledge of the attacks in New York and Washington.

"It will show that the accused was not a member of a Hamburg cell," defense attorney Hans Leistritz said of the evidence from Zammar.

Leistritz cited a Washington Post article from Tuesday in which Zammar reportedly told Moroccan and US officials after his arrest that he did not know about the attacks until he saw them on television.

"He knew nothing specific," a Moroccan official told the newspaper, referring to Zammar.

The official said that he believed Motassadeq was also outside the inner circle. "They knew (the hijackers) were doing something, but not to the point of doing what they did in the US," the official was quoted as saying.

Motassadeq has admitted to attending a training camp in Afghanistan in mid-2000, an accusation he previously denied, but said that he was unaware it was run by al-Qaeda until after he arrived.

He has also acknowledged transferring funds in Hamburg on behalf of one of the hijackers, Marwan al-Shehhi, but told the court that this was done as a favor to a friend with no knowledge of the conspiracy.

 

Copyright © 2002 AFP.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of criminal justice, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.