9/11 suspect 'disturbed'

2005-02-02 17:58

Hamburg - September 11 suicide hijacker Mohamed Atta appeared "psychologically disturbed", one of his former neighbours testified on Wednesday during the retrial of a Moroccan accused of providing logistical support for the attacks.

Indra Andrea Braun, 34, lived next door to Atta in a Hamburg suburb and said she had seen defendant Mounir el Motassadeq visiting him.

Atta was also visited by suicide pilots Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi, and by others suspected of involvement in the 9/11 plot, she said.

Braun was married to an Iranian Muslim and lived in an adjoining building for several years, but said Atta never spoke to her.

"For me he was psychologically disturbed, he had communication problems," she said. "I didn't find him threatening, just strange and distant."

She said she and her husband would try to provoke Atta when they saw him outside his apartment.

'Disgusted'

"My husband would often kiss me on the street," she said. "Atta was disgusted ... my husband did it just to annoy his type."

El Motassadeq, 30, is being retried on more than 3 000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organisation on suspicion he provided logistical support for the Hamburg-based suicide hijackers.

He says he was close friends with Atta and others in the group, but did not know of their plans to attack the United States.

El Motassadeq was convicted in 2003 on the same charges he now faces and sentenced to the maximum 15 years, but a federal appeals court threw out the conviction last March and ordered a retrial.

It ruled that he had been unfairly denied testimony by key al-Qaeda suspects in US custody.

Braun didn't shed more light on el Motassadeq's role, saying he was only one of a group of people around Atta whom she would see in the neighbourhood.

- AP