HAMBURG/MADRID, 27 October 2004 — A witness at the retrial of a Moroccan charged with involvement in the Sept.11, 2001 attacks in the United States said yesterday he heard him discussing the plans and had alerted German police and intelligence services.
The court in Hamburg in northern Germany heard the testimony of the man, a 42-year-old restaurant owner, over the objections of the defendant, Mounir El-Motassadeq.
In February 2003 Motassadeq became the first and only person to be found guilty in connection with the Sept. 11 plane bombings in New York and Washington.
He was given a 15-year-prison term for complicity in the attacks and participation in a terrorist organization. But in May an appeal court overturned the verdict and ordered a new trial on the grounds that he had been denied potentially key testimony from an Al-Qaeda operative in US custody.
Motassadeq had already been released on bail in April. The restaurant owner testified that he was present in his restaurant in January 2001 when some members of the team of bombers who struck New York and Washington on Sept. 11 that year met there.
He said they openly discussed their flight-training courses and attacks on US government buildings. He claimed that Egyptian Mohammed Atta, one of the hijackers regarded as the leader of the Hamburg Al-Qaeda cell, had asserted: “We are going to destroy their symbols.”
The restaurant owner, earlier identified by a magazine as Roger L., said he had been worried enough by what he heard to alert the German Federal Criminal Police (BKA) and the country’s intelligence services.
But the court president Ernst-Rainer Schudt cast doubt on the evidence, pointing out that the witness had not approached the police until after Sept. 11, 2001.
Furthermore, he had initially placed the alleged meeting in May 2001 before moving it back to January 2001. The witness, who has a conviction for fraud, acknowledged having told some lies to police during the inquiry.
During his first trial Motassadeq admitted knowing Atta, but denied being aware of his plans. Atta died when the American Airlines plane he and his fellow hijackers had taken over flew into the north tower of the World Trade Center.
Spain Sees Threat From Radicals
Despite dozens of arrests, Spanish police have yet to establish who ultimately ordered the Madrid rail bombings and seven months later are still uncovering new militant threats.
Investigators believe nearly all the perpetrators of the March 11 train attacks that killed 191 people have been captured or killed.
They also believe they have identified three leaders of the attacks, blamed on militants linked to Al-Qaeda.
But there is no consensus on whether the bomb suspects acted on their own or took orders from someone.
More sleeper cells are presumed to exist. Nearly all the suspects identified are North Africans who easily blend in with a half a million others living and working in Spain.
In a reminder of ongoing security threats, police last week arrested eight men suspected of plotting to blow up the High Court with a truck bomb. Ten others were suspected of cooperating from jail.
The probes are among nine separate investigations opened by Spain’s High Court into purported radicals. So far 50 people have been charged and another 58 jailed on suspicion of belonging to armed groups.
“The threat is still present here as it is in other European countries. There are 15 million Muslims in Europe, and if one in 10,000 has sympathy (for the militant movement), then there is a mass of possible recruits,” said Juan Aviles, director of a Spanish research institute dedicated to internal security.
Four known train-bombing suspects remain at large, as do seven from the most recent case. There are worries remnants of the cell may try to regroup and strike again.
“They are going to try again, but it is becoming more and more difficult because Spanish intelligence has plenty of information about them,” said Rafael Calduch, president of the think-tank International Strategic Analysis.
