Freed 9/11 suspect back home
2005-06-21 13:59
Hanover - A Moroccan who was dubiously acquitted of playing a role in the September 11 2001 attacks in United States, has left Germany for Morocco, said his lawyer on Tuesday.
Abdelghani Mzoudi, 32, was acquitted last year of being an accessory to the 9/11 murders and of belonging to a terrorist organisation, but the court in Hambourg specifically refused to rule him innocent, saying it was forced to acquit him because of lack of credible evidence.
Hamburg was a rear base to three of the suicide hijackers in the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.
The federal court of justice confirmed the verdict on June 9, and the state minister of the interior in Hamburg gave Mzoudi 14 days to leave the country after that date, saying that his presence had been tolerated only so long as there was a judicial case against him.
Lawyer Gul Pinar said Mzoudi had left for Agadir in the company of another lawyer, Michael Rosenthal.
Al-Qaeda, Taliban suspects
She said: "We want to be absolutely sure what happens to him", adding that it was likely he would be interrogated by authorities in Morocco, where his family had lined up legal counsel for him.
According to a German security expert, Mzoudi risked being arrested and transferred to the US military camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects were held.
Mzoudi, who studied electronics in Hamburg, moved in the same circles as three of 9/11 hijackers.
He was only the second person anywhere in the world to face trial for the attacks.
The first, Moroccan student Mounir El Motassadeq, was being re-tried after his original guilty verdict was overturned.
Both men had attended al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.