Retrial of Sept. 11 Plot Suspect Nears End in Germany
The only person to be convicted of assisting in the 9/11 plot, Mounir el-Motassadeq, is nearing the end of his retrial by a court in Hamburg, Germany. German authorities tried to get U.S. officials to allow Ramzi bin al-Shib, believed to be one of the masterminds of the plot, to testify in court. The U.S. refused, but has sent new material from its own interrogations of bin al-Shib.
MICHELE NORRIS, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Michele Norris.
MELISSA BLOCK, host:
And I'm Melissa Block.
In Germany, new evidence from the US Justice Department was introduced in the retrial of Mounir el-Motassadeq. He's accused of helping the September 11th hijackers with logistics and of covering up for them when they were away from Germany. From Hamburg, NPR's Emily Harris reports.
EMILY HARRIS reporting:
The new evidence is a six-page document from the US Department of Justice. It summarizes interrogations of two men in US custody accused of planning the September 11th attacks. In court and, later, outside the Hamburg courthouse, Motassadeq's defense lawyer, Udo Jacob, claimed these interrogation summaries destroyed the basis for the prosecution's case.
Mr. UDO JACOB (Defense Lawyer): The prosecution said in the indictment that the plans for the attacks on the 11th of September had been established in Hamburg in 1999. But now we have the proof that the attacks have been planned in Afghanistan.
HARRIS: The timing, he says, is crucial. Motassadeq is accused of being a member of the so-called Hamburg cell of 9/11 plotters. Its mastermind is believed to have been Ramzi bin al-Shibh. He's in US custody, and summaries of his interrogations are part of what was read in court today. According to these summaries, bin al-Shibh says the Hamburg cell didn't actually exist until the year 2000. He has also said that Motassadeq knew nothing of the hijacking plot.
But prosecutors say none of this undermines their indictment that says hijacking plans were laid with Motassadeq's knowledge in Hamburg in 1999. The US Department of Justice warned the German court that bin al-Shibh might have been withholding information or employing counterinterrogation techniques. Still, defense lawyer Jacob says there's no reason for bin al-Shibh to lie about the hijackers or Motassadeq.
Mr. JACOB: Because they are dead already, and everybody knows they were participating. So I think when he is talking about Motassadeq, he should talk the truth.
HARRIS: That's not enough for Christian Weise(ph), a lawyer representing the son of an American woman killed in the attacks. Weise wonders why a high-level accused terrorist would do anything but lie to American interrogators. He's hanging hope on testimony scheduled for next month of an Al-Jazeera journalist who wrote a book and made a video based in part on interviews with bin al-Shibh after the attacks but before he was arrested. Weise says this could provide a different version of bin al-Shibh's story.
Mr. CHRISTIAN WEISE (Lawyer): Because he wasn't arrested at this time. And in the video and the book, it seems that bin al-Shibh was proud to tell about how he was involved in the plot. And I don't know how much bin al-Shibh tells American investigators; we just have these summaries. But I think he told a lot to Al-Jazeera.
HARRIS: What's particularly new in these interrogation summaries is bin al-Shibh's description of another suspected member of the Hamburg cell, Zakariyah Essabar. Bin al-Shibh claims that Essabar was the messenger who delivered the date, 11/9, to a contact in Afghanistan, although bin al-Shibh claims that Essabar knew no details of the plot. Lawyers working with the prosecution say this indicates the cell was bigger than bin al-Shibh admits and provides further circumstantial evidence against Motassadeq.
Essabar is still at large. Motassadeq was found guilty in 2003 but later won a retrial, in part, because the US hadn't provided any evidence from bin al-Shibh. His interrogation summaries read in court today were the second batch introduced in the retrial. The Department of Justice made it clear they were the last. A verdict in Motassadeq's retrial is scheduled for August 19th. Emily Harris, NPR News, Hamburg.
Copyright © 2005 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.