September 11 suspect cleared

2004-02-05 13:05

Hamburg, Germany - A Hamburg court on Thursday acquitted a Moroccan man accused of helping the September 11 hijackers after a five and a half-month trial that was only the second anywhere of a suspect in the attacks.

Abdelghani Mzoudi, 31, had no visible reaction, keeping his arms folded and looking down toward the floor as presiding Judge Klaus Ruehle read the verdict to the court.

Prosecutors had sought the maximum 15 years in prison on more than three thousand counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization. Last February, similar evidence secured the maximum sentence against Mzoudi's friend Mounir el Motassadeq - the world's first September 11 conviction.

Federal prosecutors alleged Mzoudi provided logistical support to the Hamburg cell under lead hijacker Mohamed Atta, helping with financial transactions and arranging housing for members to evade authorities' attention. Mzoudi spent time at a terrorist camp in Afghanistan in 2000.

Mzoudi's attorneys denied the charges, saying that while their client was friends with many of the September 11 principals, he knew nothing in advance of the plot to attack the United States.

The acquittal on all counts came after the court rejected a last-minute motion from an attorney representing relatives of American victims of the attacks. The attorney, Andreas Schulz, said his clients had access to "new information" from the US department of justice but that he was "not authorised" to tell the court what it was.

- AP