9/11 plotters 'had trial run'

2003-10-01 16:04

Hamburg, Germany - An FBI agent testified on Wednesday that the key plotters behind the September 11, 2001 attacks had a test run criss-crossing the United States a few days before the suicide plane bombings.

The agent, testifying at the trial in Germany of a Moroccan charged with helping the plotters, said the group flew from the US east coast to the west coast and from there to Las Vegas.

More than 3 000 people died in the 2001 attacks when the hijackers ploughed passenger jets into New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania.

In his evidence, which was strictly limited to published information, the FBI agent said the first of the suicide pilots began flight training as early as 1996.

They were interested only in special manoeuvres, he added. "I know Atta and al-Shehhi wanted primarily to practise approaches, landings and how to turn," nothing else," he told the court in Hamburg, northern Germany.

Mohammed Atta is believed to have been the leader of the hijackers. He and Marwan al-Shehhi and a third pilot, Ziad Jarrah, all lived in Hamburg.

The FBI agent said their flight training was paid for from the United Arab Emirates, from where $110 000 were sent to the United States.

A few days before the attacks the remaining cash, amounting to some $16 000, was repaid.

The prosecution is hoping that the FBI agent's testimony will bolster its case against Abdelghani Mzoudi, a 30-year-old Moroccan student who is only the third person worldwide to stand trial over the attacks.

Mzoudi is charged with accessory to murder in more than 3 000 cases, based on the September 11 death toll, and membership of a terrorist organisation.

The same Hamburg court earlier this year sentenced another Moroccan, Mounir El Motassadeq, to the maximum 15 years in prison on identical charges.

Mzoudi, who has admitted contacts with the hijackers and to signing Atta's will, has denied the charges.

- AFP