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| Terror Networks |
| Motassadek 'didn't know about 9/11 plan' |
| 2004-08-11 |
| The man charged with helping the 11 September plotters "knew nothing about the plan", a German court has heard. Summaries of interviews with al-Qaeda suspects in US custody were read out at the trial of Moroccan Mounir al-Motassadek on Wednesday. The US had earlier said it would not allow its al-Qaeda suspects to testify at Mr Motassadek's retrial. Prosecutors had hoped to use evidence from Ramzi Binalshibh to reverse the quashing of Mr Motassadek's conviction. The summaries were faxed to the court by the US State Department. Al-Qaeda suspect Mr Binalshibh told US interviewers that "the only members of the Hamburg cell" were himself and hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah. He said that the activities of the Hamburg group were not known to Mr Motassadek. The summary said that the group was "well known by a number of Arab students" but "Binalshibh said that the people in question had no knowledge and were not participants in any facet of the operative plans of 11 September". Similar evidence from the US led to the acquittal in February 2004 of another Moroccan, Abdelghani Mzoudi, tried on the same charges in Germany. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |