HAMBURG, 10 August 2003 — A suspected member of the Hamburg terrorist cell responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington intends to refuse to testify at his trial which opens this week in Germany, his attorney said yesterday.

Moroccan-born Abdelghani Mzoudi, 30, goes on trial in Hamburg this coming Thursday, charged with 3,066 counts of being an accessory to murder and aiding a terrorist organization for his alleged role in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the crash of a hijacked jetliner in Pennsylvania.

The indictment, a 90-page document, was prepared by Chief Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm following Mzoudi’s arrest last Oct. 10.

In a ground-breaking judgment Feb. 19, a Hamburg court convicted Mounir Al-Motassadeq, 28, of being an accomplice to 3,066 murders on Sept. 11, 2001 and also of being a member of a terrorist organization comprising the six original Hamburg plotters.

Unlike Motassadeq, however, Mzoudi will refuse to testify at his trial, said chief defense lawyer Gul Pinar. Pinar added that she will ask the court to allow her to read a prepared statement by Mzoudi explaining his reasons for withholding testimony.

Mzoudi was a friend of Mohammed Atta, one of the terrorist pilots, and had witnessed his will. Investigators believe he provided money at a later stage to members of the group. Atta and two other cell members, Marwan Alshehhi and Ziad Jarrah, were killed in the hijack attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

Mzoudi was also allegedly close to Ramzi Binalshibh, who was arrested in Pakistan last year and is now imprisoned in the United States. He was also a friend of Said Bahaji, who is still at large.

While Motassadeq was the “logistics man” who funneled money to the Hamburg terrorists during pilot training in the United States, prosecutors say Mzoudi was crucial in covering up activities of everyone involved, including Motassadeq.

Mzoudi allegedly was involved in the 9/11 planning to the extent that he knew which sites had been targeted. In the final phase of preparations for the attacks, he took over the cell’s flat on Marien Street in Hamburg to quell suspicion that might arise from its being empty. In fact, the core of the cell, Atta, Alshehhi, Jarrah and Binalshibh, were undergoing training at an Al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan in 2000.