- HAMBURG, Germany (AP) --
A Hamburg court on Thursday acquitted a Moroccan man accused of helping
the Sept. 11 hijackers after a 5-month trial that was only the second anywhere
of a suspect in the attacks.
-
- Abdelghani Mzoudi, 31, had no visible reaction as presiding
Judge Klaus Ruehle read the verdict to the court, keeping his arms folded
and looking down toward the floor.
-
- Prosecutors had sought the maximum 15 years in prison
on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist
organization. Last February, similar evidence secured the maximum sentence
against Mr. Mzoudi's friend Mounir el Motassadeq, the world's first Sept.
11 conviction.
-
- Federal prosecutors alleged Mr. 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. Mr. Mzoudi spent time at a terrorist camp in Afghanistan in
2000.
-
- Mr. Mzoudi's lawyers denied the charges, saying that
while their client was friends with many of the Sept. 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 a lawyer representing relatives of American victims
of the attacks.
-
- The lawyer, Andreas Schulz, said his clients had access
to new information from the U.S. Department of Justice but that he was
"not authorized to tell the court what it was."
-
- © 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
-
- http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20040205.0205germ/BNStory/Front/
|
