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German court takes heat over 9/11 prisoner release

Posted on: Wednesday, 8 February 2006, 09:28 CST

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)

Source: REUTERS

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