Hamburg 9/11 retrial may collapse
The retrial of the man charged with helping the September 11 terror bombers may collapse, it emerged in Hamburg today.
At a hearing to rule on Mounir el Motassadeq’s request to be freed from jail, Judge Ernst-Rainer Schudt pointed to an appeals court ruling last month that the suspect failed to get a fair trial the first time.
Schudt said that “in the further course of the proceedings it may have to be considered that … the question of closing the case will arise,” the Hamburg state court said in a statement.
It was the first time the court publicly raised such doubts about the government’s case.
El Motassadeq, aged 29, won a retrial after appeals judges ruled he was unfairly denied testimony from Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni in secret US custody who is believed to have been the Hamburg cell’s key contact with al-Qaida.
The Hamburg court heard el Motassadeq’s plea for freedom in a closed hearing today. It said it would deliberate and issue a ruling next week.
El Motassadeq has been in custody since his November 28, 2001 arrest on charges he aided members of the Hamburg al-Qaida cell that included three of the suicide hijackers.
Prosecutors allege he handled financial transactions for cell members to help keep up appearances of a normal student life as they plotted the attacks.
El Motassadeq has acknowledged he knew the cell members but denies any knowledge of the September 11 plot.
He was convicted in February 2003 of more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organisation and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison.
But appeals judges overturned that ruling, ordering a retrial that is scheduled to start on June 16.
