GERMANY: Germany's September 11th retrial could be over almost before it begins after new evidence from US authorities suggested the defendant, Mr Mounir El Motassadeq, "played no role in the attacks".
Mr Motassadeq's lawyers called for an immediate acquittal after the US Justice Department sent faxed excerpts from the interrogation of leading al-Qaeda figures saying that Mr Motassadeq was not part of the so-called Hamburg terror cell.
"We will have to consider what can be drawn from this," said chief presiding judge Ernst Rainer Schudt of the evidence faxed to the court shortly before yesterday's sitting began.
Last year, the same court found Moroccan-born Mr Mounir El Motassadeq (30), guilty of being a key member of the terrorist cell and of acting as an accessory to the murder of the 3,066 people who died in the attacks.
He was released a year later pending a retrial after Germany's highest court ruled that German and US authorities had withheld evidence. The new evidence was drawn from the interrogation by US officials of suspected 9/11 ringleader Ramzi Binalshibh who said the cell was composed of himself and the three pilots. Mr Motassadeq took part in anti-American discussions in the Hamburg apartment of pilot Mohamed Atta, but, Binalshibh added: "Motassadeq was not aware of the activities of the cell."
According to Binalshibh, Mr Motassadeq controlled bank accounts belonging to the pilots but knew nothing of the purpose of the money passing through the accounts.
The reaction to the new evidence yesterday marked a reversal of the positions of the trial's opening day. Then, defence lawyers said it was "highly likely" that information obtained from al-Qaeda figures during interrogation in U.S. custody was gleaned using torture and therefore inadmissible by law.
Yesterday it was state prosecutors casting doubt on the interrogation transcripts. "People are being protected here," said Mr Walter Hemberger, one of the state prosecutors, adding that one cannot "take [the statements] at face value".
Mr Motassadeq could still be found guilty of belonging to an illegal organisation: during the first trial he admitted training at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.