German court frees Moroccan on September 11 charges

A German court unexpectedly freed a Moroccan man on trial for abetting the September 11 plotters after the judge said yesterday that new evidence appeared to exonerate the suspect.

Judge Klaus Ruehle granted a defence motion for the release of Abdelghani Mzoudi after German investigators informed the court of new testimony that the Moroccan did not belong to the Hamburg al Qaeda cell instrumental in the September 11 plot.

The shock move threw into doubt the conviction of another Moroccan, Mounir El Motassadeq, who was sentenced last February to 15 years in a German jail after becoming the first person convicted anywhere in the world in connection with the attacks.

Lawyers said they would seek the immediate release of Motassadeq, who was found guilty on similar charges to those faced by Mzoudi.

Both cases have been closely followed by US officials, and Motassadeq's conviction was hailed by the German government as a major success in the global struggle against Islamic extremism.

Yesterday's dramatic chain of events began when trial judge Ruehle revealed the existence of new evidence from a witness whose identity had not been revealed by German investigators.

He said this witness testified that only suicide pilots Mohamed Atta, Marwan al Shehi and Ziad Jarrah, along with Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, an al Qaeda leader now in US custody, belonged to the core group of Hamburg plotters.

The witness said the four did not include anybody else in their plans for the suicide plane attacks on US cities.

The judge and prosecution both said they had no doubt that the unnamed witness was bin al-Shaibah himself, who was captured in Pakistan in September 2002.

The judge said there were many questions surrounding bin al-Shaibah's testimony. But the court presumed it would not be able to answer these as the US authorities have rejected a request for him to testify and the German government has said it will not hand over US transcripts of his interrogation.