German court gives Moroccan max for 9/11
German court gives Moroccan max for 9/11
HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — A Moroccan convicted as an accessory to murder in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was sentenced Monday to the maximum 15 years in prison, minutes after telling the son of a woman killed that day "my future is ruined."
A German appeals court had convicted Mounir el Motassadeq, a friend of three of the suicide pilots, of the charge in November and sent the case to a state court in Hamburg for sentencing.
The Hamburg judges followed the recommendation of federal prosecutors, who said el Motassadeq deserved the maximum penalty because he knew the hijackers intended to use planes to stage attacks.
Just before Monday's verdict, the 32-year-old defendant spoke with an American whose mother died on board one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center.
Dominic Puopolo Jr., a co-plaintiff in the case, earlier joined prosecutors in calling for the maximum penalty, urging the judges to consider the "human and emotional cost" of the 2001 attacks.
El Motassadeq, a slight bearded man, turned to Puopolo and said "I understand your suffering ... The same thing is being done to me, my kids, my parents, my family — my future is ruined."
Puopolo, granted permission to respond, said he forgave el Motassadeq, and reminded him that he would one day be freed.
"You have a chance to rebuild your life and be back with your family. Others don't," Puopolo said. "Your life is not over, but my mom's is."
Defense lawyers said they may appeal to a European court.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
- simuvac's blog
- Login to post comments
Why?
Why is this man being tried in a German court and not here in the US?
We know why
I believe it has to do with the allegation that his crime took place in Germany. Ironically (or maybe not), the 9/11 Commission was this guy's best defense. Check out this article from the Washington Post.
"An attorney for the Sept. 11 commission testified Tuesday that the conspiracy to fly hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was conceived and planned outside Germany, complicating prosecutors' efforts to convict a Moroccan man for aiding the Hamburg cell that carried out the attacks."
...
"The commission's findings contradict the heart of Germany's case against the Moroccan defendant, Mounir Motassadeq, who is accused of more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization."
I wonder how the prosecutors got around this point:
"But prosecutors have been unable to produce direct evidence that Motassadeq knew about the plot, another crucial point necessary for a conviction."
Sound familiar? But this is the most important fact:
"The judicial panel hearing the case has expressed frustration with what it considers a lack of cooperation from the United States. Requests to interview Binalshibh and Mohammed have been denied, as have petitions for more detailed investigative reports from the FBI and CIA."
Why have these men not been questioned in a court of law? Why is it we only have accounts of what they allegedly said under interrogation? And why is the prosecution of a terrorist connected to 9/11 not a good enough reason to put them in a court room for a few days?
I think we know why.
How did they prove the crime he was accessory to?
It seems they would have to prove that Atta and others in the cell had hijacked the planes and flown them into the buildings. Did they have tapes of them getting on the planes? Did they just take declarations or testimony of CIA or FBI?
I found the answer
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2223152.stm
A criminal conviction was based on summaries of interrogation? That is shocking.
The crime was obviously not proven. I would be very surprised to hear that this is the norm in German courts.
Allegedly, they had the evidence
"Mohammed Atta, the ALLEGED pilot of one of the hijacked planes"
"Motassadek first came under suspicion in November 2001, when German authorities discovered that he had power of attorney over a bank account held by Shehhi, who ALLEGEDLY flew the second plane into the World Trade Center."
"Prosecutors said Motassadek 'maintained intensive contacts over several years' with Atta and other 9/11 SUSPECTS Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah."
Apparently, a person can be convicted of being in the company of persons who are ALLEGED SUSPECTS.
Meanwhile, the Bush Administration is composed of CONVICTS
Watch who you brush up against in the subway, because that person could know someone who once used the same payphone as a guy who once knew an alleged terrorist suspect. That could make you a suspect, you know.
What a travesty of
But the final word has not yet been spoken. There will be another appeal (or two)!
Curiously, precise info is hard to come by. The german homepage of the Court in Hamburg has NO INFO (yet) ... the google-translated info from telepolis is thin.
The motivation behind having german patsies is easy to deconstruct:
It is an insurance against the german government of socialists and greens!
Already in 2001/2002 they could have exposed the whole crime and spoiled the war plans.
A big worry for US military junta in particular:
To keep up the fiction that there was a "german cell" this poor moroccan needs to be afforded the german equivalent of Gitmo.
u2r2h
*** (911 "conspiracy" was in German mainstream television in 2003 check out this link! ... page of the lone conspiracist and an email)