The US' refusal to allow testimony from a jailed al-Qaeda figure prompted a Hamburg judge on Thursday to order the release of a Moroccan accused of aiding the Sept. 11 hijackers.
The judge acted after reviewing new evidence that Ramzi Binalshibh, a suspected member of the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell that planned and executed the World Trade Center attacks, told US interrogators that only he and the three suicide pilots from the Hamburg cell knew about the attacks before they happened. The judge said that while he had strong doubts about the reliability of the evidence, he could not properly evaluate it without testimony from Binalshibh.
The trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in an American court in connection with the attacks, has also been thrown into doubt by the government's refusal to make captured al-Qaeda operatives available for questioning.
PHOTO: AP
The new evidence will force a quick decision about the fate of another Moroccan, Mounir el Motassadeq, who is the only person anywhere to have been convicted in connection with the attacks. That trial was also dogged by concerns that the US government had not been forthcoming with intelligence relevant to the case.
The man who was freed Thursday, Abdelghani Mzoudi, 31, is charged with acting as an accessory in the deaths of more than 3,000 people in the Sept. 11 attacks. While Ruehle granted the defense lawyers' request for an immediate release, the trial, now in its final stages, will continue.
The new evidence, submitted as a letter to the court from Germany's national police, the Federal Criminal Agency, included the testimony of an unnamed witness who said only four members of the Hamburg cell -- the three suspected to have been the suicide pilots, Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, and an associate, Binalshibh -- knew about the attacks beforehand. "These four people at no time spoke with others about the actual operations or creation of a terrorist cell for inciting a holy war," according to the witness' statement.
But the presiding judge, Klaus Ruehle, told the court that by process of elimination, the witness must have been Binalshibh, a close associate of the hijackers who was arrested in Pakistan exactly a year after the attacks and who remains in US custody.
"We have no doubt that Ramzi Binalshibh is the witness, and assume he was intensely interrogated about the attacks," Ruehle said in court.
The judge's decision also raised questions about the conviction of Motassadeq, who was sentenced this year to 15 years after being convicted on charges similar to those against Mzoudi. His lawyers immediately filed a request for his release and renewed their appeal of his conviction.
"This is a bombshell," said Hans Leistritz, who represented Motassadeq. "It collapses the prosecution's foundation of evidence."
It emerged during the trial of Motassadeq that the US authorities had given information from the interrogations of a number of suspects to German intelligence on strict conditions that forbade revealing details in court. Washington refused requests by the court that Binalshibh be made available for cross-examination.
During both trials, defense lawyers objected that the defendants could not receive fair trials without the testimony of Binalshibh, given his suspected central role in the planning of the attacks and his potential ability to exonerate Motassadeq and Mzoudi.
Ruehle made it clear that although he had doubts about the consistency and veracity of the witness' statements, his decision to release Mzoudi was affected by Washington's refusal to make Binalshibh available.
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
FLYBY: The object, appears to be traveling more than 60 kilometers per second, meaning it is not bound by the sun’s orbit, astronomers studying 3I/Atlas said Astronomers on Wednesday confirmed the discovery of an interstellar object racing through the solar system — only the third-ever spotted, although scientists suspect many more might slip past unnoticed. The visitor from the stars, designated 3I/Atlas, is likely the largest yet detected, and has been classified as a comet, or cosmic snowball. “It looks kind of fuzzy,” said Peter Veres, an astronomer with the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, which was responsible for the official confirmation. “It seems that there is some gas around it, and I think one or two telescopes reported a very short tail.” Originally known as A11pl3Z before
RSS