Deutsche Presse-Agentur

HAMBURG, 18 January 2004 — German security experts want Sept. 11 plot defendant Abdel-Ghani Mzoudi to be sent home to Morocco, if he is acquitted in court next week, the magazine Der Spiegel reported yesterday.

The weekly said an acquittal was believed likely in the Mzoudi case, with the Hamburg court to deliver a verdict on Jan. 22, in a story released in advance of publication.

If there is an acquittal, security officials still regard Mzoudi as having been involved in the terrorist scene in view of his links with the Hamburg cell of terror pilots and for attending an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in 2000.

“There is no room in Germany for terrorists like him,” Hamburg Interior Senator (minister) commented to Der Spiegel.

Mzoudi, 31, is charged on 3,000 counts as an accessory to murder in the Sept. 11, 2001 plane attacks and for belonging to a terrorist grouping. The prosecution is seeking the maximum 15-year prison term.

The defense demanded an acquittal, saying prosecutors failed to make a compelling case to prove that Mzoudi was actively involved in the Hamburg cell thought to have plotted and carried out the attacks.

The magazine said that Mzoudi, if acquitted, hopes to avoid being sent back to Morocco for fear that he might be arrested there and possibly extradited to the United States. Mzoudi’s residence permit for Germany expired while he was in trial detention and he has applied for an extension to permit him to complete his university studies, Der Spiegel said.

The magazine said his lawyers have apparently abandoned the idea of filing for political asylum, a move they reportedly were mulling after Mzoudi was released from trial custody last month.

The trial is the second Sept.11 plot case anywhere in the world. In February 2003, the same Hamburg court delivered a guilty verdict and 15-year prison term to another Moroccan, Mounir Al- Motassadeq, on identical charges as those pressed against Mzoudi.

The cornerstone of the prosecution case is that Sept. 11 was conceived and led by a cell of eight students from Hamburg who obtained financial and logistical assistance from Al-Qaeda. However, lawyers for Mzoudi insisted that the attack was planned by Al-Qaeda, not by the Hamburg cell, and that the defendant was unaware of what was going on as he pursued his studies.