German court takes heat over 9/11 prisoner release

BERLIN (Reuters) – A German court’s surprise decision to
release a jailed Moroccan while he appeals against a terrorism
conviction was criticised on Wednesday by politicians, police
and the American son of a September 11 victim.

Mounir El Motassadeq, a friend of the Hamburg-based leaders
of the 9/11 suicide plane hijacks, was released from prison on
Tuesday after a ruling from the Constitutional Court.

It said he should remain a free man while awaiting the
outcome of his appeal against the seven-year sentence he
received last August for belonging to a terrorist organization.

“It’s deeply disturbing. I’m very disgusted with this
decision,” said Dominic Puopolo Jr, an American who lost his
mother in the September 11 attacks and was a co-plaintiff in
Motassadeq’s trial.

“They’ve made a tremendous mistake … We feel this is a
violent man that’s been let out on to the streets.”

Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy leader of Chancellor Angela
Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) in parliament, said: “This
decision is difficult to understand … I regret it but I have
to respect it.”

Motassadeq, 31, was a friend of three of the September 11
hijackers, including Mohamed Atta, the man who rammed the first
jet into New York’s World Trade Center in 2001.

At the second of two long trials, judges ruled last August
that he was a member of a terrorist group but had not known
enough of the 9/11 plans to be convicted on a second charge of
abetting mass murder.

Both sides have appealed against the seven-year sentence,
with prosecutors seeking 15 years and the defense demanding his
acquittal. He could yet return to jail, depending on the
outcome of the appeals, which are expected to take some months.

“The freeing of alleged terror helper Mounir El Motassadeq
is a depressing sign that legal efforts to prosecute those
responsible for the September 11 attacks are threatened with
failure,” Konrad Freiberg, head of the German police union said
in a statement.

Motassadeq is one of only a handful of men worldwide to go
on trial in connection with the September 11 attacks that
killed nearly 3,000 people.

Germany came under fire from Washington in December after
it released Hizbollah member Mohammad Ali Hammadi, who had
murdered a U.S. Navy diver 20 years before.

In June of last year, an appeals court upheld the acquittal
of Moroccan Abdelghani Mzoudi, who had been accused of
complicity in the September 11 attacks and belonging to a
terrorist group.

(Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan)