22/12/2006
By Claudia Rach
Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Mounir el-Motassadeq, a member of the German terrorist cell that helped carry out the Sept. 11 attacks, has appealed against his guilty verdict to Germany's highest court, the Constitutional Court said today.
The appeal, filed by el-Motassadeq's defense lawyers Udo Jacob and Ladislav Anisic, was lodged Dec. 15, Ditlind Weinland, a spokeswomen of the Karlsruhe-based court, said today in an interview.
The appeal concerns the ruling of the Hamburg Higher Regional Court that found the 32-year-old Moroccan guilty of being a member of the Hamburg terror cell and the one of the Federal Court of Justice, Weinland said.
The Federal Court of Justice, Germany's highest criminal court, on Nov. 16 found el-Motassadeq guilty of abetting the murders of more than 200 people because he knew that one or more planes would be hijacked and crashed and that people would be killed.
Jacob said right after the ruling that it was based on the wrong facts. The court didn't consider the testimony of two witnesses, including that of suspected al-Qaeda leader Ramzi Binalshibh, Jacob said, according to the Sueddeutsche on Nov. 21. Both witnesses said that the three suicide pilots around Mohamed Atta had originally planned to fight in Chechnya and that el-Motassadeq as well as an acquitted suspect, Abdelghani Mzoudi, didn't know of the Sept. 11 plans, Sueddeutsche said back then.
``We have the same facts'' as in the Mzoudi case, Anisic said in Karlsruhe on Nov. 16. ``We now have an address where Binalshibh can be summoned -- Guantanamo'' and we will continue to pursue an acquittal until Binalshibh can testify in person in court because he ``has exonerated our client,'' he said.
The Federal Court of Justice asked the Hamburg court to reassess El-Motassadeq's seven-year jail sentence. The retrial will start on Jan. 5 and the court is scheduled to rule on the case on Feb. 5. The maximum penalty he faces is 15 years in prison.
SOURCE: Bloomberg
|
