SIMONE UTLER
AP
Monday, January 8, 2007
HAMBURG, Germany -- A Moroccan man convicted of aiding three
of the four suicide pilots who committed the Sept. 11 attacks
was sentenced Monday to the maximum of 15 years in prison for
his role in the terror plot.
A German federal appeals court convicted Mounir el Motassadeq
in November of knowingly helping the hijackers and sent the case
to a state court in Hamburg for sentencing.
"Anyone who helped in this has earned stiff punishment,"
presiding Judge Carsten Beckmann said after announcing Monday's
verdict. Defense lawyers said they would appeal.
Shortly before the verdict was announced, the 32-year-old defendant
exchanged emotionally charged words with an American whose mother
died on one of the two planes that crashed into the World Trade
Center.
Dominic Puopolo Jr. fought back tears and held up pictures of
his mother, Sonia Morales Puopolo, an American Airlines flight
attendant, as he joined prosecutors in calling for the maximum
penalty. He urged the judges to consider the "human and emotional
cost" of the 2001 attacks. The American man is a co-plaintiff
in the case under the German court system.
When the court granted El Motassadeq a final chance to speak,
the slightly built, bearded man turned to Puopolo to say: "I
understand your suffering. ... The same thing is being done to
me, my kids, my parents, my family -- my future is ruined."
Puopolo said he forgave el Motassadeq, and reminded him that
he will one day be freed.
"You have a chance to rebuild your life and be back with
your family. Others don't," Puopolo said. "Your life
is not over, but my mom's is."
The federal appeals court had ruled that the Hamburg judges wrongly
acquitted el Motassadeq in 2005 of direct involvement in the attacks,
even though the Hamburg court sentenced him to seven years in
prison for belonging to a terrorist group.
The appeals court convicted el Motassadeq as an accessory to
the murder of the 246 passengers and crew members aboard the four
jetliners used in the attacks, and ordered the state court to
set a new sentence.
El Motassadeq's attorneys said they intended to challenge the
sentence before a federal appeals court. They have already appealed
the conviction to the Federal Constitutional Court, arguing that
the court failed properly to hear evidence from other terror suspects.
It is unclear when that court, Germany's highest, will consider
the complaint.
Defense lawyer Ladislav Anisic said they might also appeal to
the European Court of Justice.
"We have a clear mandate, and that is to ensure that our
client receives the acquittal," he said.
El Motassadeq was a close friend of pilots Mohamed Atta, Marwan
al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah when they lived and studied in Hamburg.
He has acknowledged training at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan
and that he was close to the three hijackers although he insists
he knew nothing of their plans.
However, the federal appeals court said evidence showed el Motassadeq
knew that the men planned to hijack and crash planes. It found
that his actions -- for example, transferring money, and helping
the hijackers keep up the appearance of being regular university
students by paying tuition and rent fees -- facilitated the attacks.
The federal court also said it was irrelevant to el Motassadeq's
guilt whether he knew of the plot's timing, dimension or targets.
Monday's decision was the latest step in a tangled legal saga
that started with el Motassadeq's arrest in November 2001 and
featured two full trials.
He was convicted and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison
in 2003, but that verdict was overturned by a federal court the
following year -- largely because of a lack of evidence from al-Qaida
suspects in U.S. custody.
At a retrial that resulted in the 2005 conviction, the U.S. provided
limited summaries from the interrogation of, among others, Ramzi
Binalshibh, a suspected liaison between the Hamburg hijackers
and al-Qaida.
El Motassadeq has already spent about three years in custody,
time that would count against a final sentence.
Asked by reporters outside the court if he felt German laws were
too lenient, Puopolo said it was "a little bit frustrating"
but praised the work of the prosecutors.
"It's not going to bring my mom back, but it's a part of
a process of closure. I'm glad that I came to Hamburg."
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