Sept. 11 Suspect Gets Seven Years

A German Court today found Mounir el-Motassadeq guilty of membership of the Hamburg terror cell that took part in the 9/11 attacks and sentenced him to seven years. El-Motassadeq was accused of providing logistical help to the Hamburg al Qaeda cell that included 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, but was acquitted of being accessory to Sept. 11 attacks.

Bloomberg reports that the U.S. denied the Hamburg court's request to hear testimony from Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged mastermind of the attacks, who is held by the U.S. at an undisclosed location after his capture in Pakistan in 2002. The U.S. only sent a summary of minutes from his interrogations that indicate El-Motassadeq may not have known about the attacks.

According to CNN, the U.S. Justice Department faxed the German court summaries of the interrogation of two key detainees: Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed:

Binalshibh, believed to be the Hamburg cell's contact with al Qaeda, said "the only members of the Hamburg cell were himself, Atta, al-Shehhi and Jarrah," according to the summary. He also said, "the activities of the Hamburg group were not known to el-Motassadeq."

The group was "well known by a number of Arab students," but "Binalshibh said that the people in question had no knowledge and were not participants in any facet of the operative plans of September 11."

Mohammed is believed to have masterminded the 9/11 plot, and Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian man, is suspected to have been an al Qaeda contact in Germany.

According to the summary, the Justice Department had "doubts" about some of the testimony, but the summary did not elaborate.

Binalshibh also said that while el-Motassadeq had transferred money on behalf of one of the plotters, he did not know for what purpose. Mohammed told interrogators that Binalshibh had not told el-Motassadeq of the details for security reasons.

Binalshibh gave interrogators a list of more than a dozen names of people who he said had no knowledge of and did not take part in any aspect of the 9/11 plan. The list included Zacarias Moussaoui, a suspect being held in the United States.

Motassadeq is one of only six men worldwide who have been tried or have trials pending in connection with the 9/11 attacks.