Morrocan Man Sentenced on Terror Charges, AP/Yahoo, 08/19/2005
German court convicts 9/11 suspect, UPI/WorldPeaceHerald, 08/19/2005
This is an interesting case of Munir Motassadeq, a Moroccan-born German
man who's accused of assisting the 9/11 hijackers. It brings up a lot
of issues from how the US interacts with foreign courts, in this case
German, to how the US's concerns for information secrecy might have
freed this guy and on to the efficacy, in general, of the legal
system's prosecution of terrorism. I follow a bunch of this
stuff, but I comment
very little, unfortunately.
For example, Motassadeq was convicted of 'assisted
murder' in 02/2003 and given 15 years - a sentence which was overturned
by appeal and he was freed. Freed? I'd have thought the US
would've wanted this guy, at the very least, in Gitmo pronto, but free
he was for about a year. Another Moroccan, Abdelghani Mzoudi, a friend of
Motassadeq, was acquitted in a seperate trial (with identical charges) in 02/004.
Free. The prosecutor's request for appeal for Mzoudi was thrown
out.
There were various reports of the levels of political
pressure and non-pressure to have Motassadeq retried, as he has been, as well
as accusations (by the German prosecutors) that the US wasn't being
forthcoming enough to convict Motassadeq. International
cooperation on terrorism, people, please? Kuno Boese, a terrorism
expert at a Berlin university said "That's good. We can't be the
laughing stock of our EU neighbors any longer."
Found guilty of belonging to a terrorist cell, Motassadeq was found
innocent of over 3,000 counts of being an accessory to murder. Whether
there's an appeal, how this case affects Germany's legal
system and other legal implications for prosecuting terrorism are still
open questions.
Spain is currently trying 24 Syrian-born Spanish men accused of being Al Qaeda members (
It's Liberty vs. Security in Spanish Terror Trial,
LA Times, 08/10/2005), 3 of whom are accused of assisting in 9/11, with
a verdict to appear in September. Some info and key people in
this trial: Pedro Rubira, Spain's lead prosecutor; Jacinto Gil, a
defense attorney; investigating judge Baltasar Garzon; key defendant,
Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, alleged head of the Spanish Al Qaeda cell,
'Soldiers of Allah'; co-defendant Driss Chebli - Barakat & Chebli
are accused of arranging a 07/16/2001 planning meeting w/ Mohd Atta in
Spain and having taken video tape of the WTC; co-defendant Taysir
Alouni, an Al Jazeera reporter. Spain has a max of 40 years prison time
for terrorist activites and no death penalty - the prosecutors are
seeking sentences totalling tens of thousands of years.
Further, last month the EU put into effect a Europe-wide arrest warrant
for Al Qaeda suspects. Good, right? Germany found it
unconstitutional and let Mamoun Darkanzali, a Syrian-born German, go
free from the extradition Spain sought for the trial mentioned above. (
EU: Commission says Europe-Wide Arrest Warrant Still Valid,
AKI, 07/18/2005) Darkanzali was accused of being a member of a
terrorist cell and "providing logistics support and financing the
network,
including the purchase of a cargo vessel that he and two others bought
in December 1993 for its leader Osama bin Laden." Free.