Alleged 9/11 Terrorist on Trial in Germany
H A M B U R G, Germany, Aug. 18 -- Federal prosecutor Matthias Krauss' opening statement was short but not sweet: "Abdelghani Mzoudi is charged with 3,066 counts of accessory to murder and with being a member of a terrorist organization."
Mzoudi, 30, was a close friend of Mohamed Atta — suspected of being the ringleader of the suicide hijackers who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
Krauss told a Hamburg courtroom the Moroccan played a crucial role in providing logistical support to Atta and his Hamburg al Qaeda cell in the Sept. 11 plot.
"It is beyond doubt that his actions were designed to support the Sept. 11 terror attacks," Krauss said Thursday.
The defendant, with a full beard and dressed in a dark blue sweater, listened quietly to the charges against him. His lawyers have told the court that he will not testify in his own defense.
However, he did answer the judge's questions about his personal background and his upbringing in Morocco.
"My mother taught me the good values of Islam: honesty, not to steal and not to kill," he said, "and my father took me to our neighborhood mosque to pray since I was 7 years old."
The 92-page indictment alleges Mzoudi helped to conceal the whereabouts of Atta, as well as the whereabouts of the other suicide hijackers Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ramsi Binalshibh, a Yemeni in U.S. custody. Binalshibh is believed to have been the Hamburg cell's key contact with Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terror group.
Mzoudi is also accused of taking care of financial matters for Hamburg cell member Zakariya Essabar while Essabar was at an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.Essabar disappeared shortly before Sept. 11, 2001 and is wanted by Germany on an international arrest warrant.
"Mzoudi allowed the suicide hijackers Al-Shehhi and Atta to use his Hamburg mailing address while they were in the U.S. taking flight lessons," Krauss told the court. "He was such close friend of Atta that he signed Atta's will."
