9/11 suspect walks free from court after US refuses to allow witness to testify

[Skunk]

You would think that the US authorities would see the wisdom in giving their full cooperation in the trial of a 9/11 suspect...

A German court has acquitted a Moroccan man accused of assisting three of the 11 September hijackers.
Abdelghani Mzoudi had admitted being a friend of the three men while they lived in Hamburg, but denied any prior knowledge of the US attacks in 2001.

The verdict was delayed for several hours after a lawyer representing 9/11 victims asked to submit new evidence.

Mr Mzoudi, 31, had faced charges of aiding and abetting the murder of several thousand people.

He was also cleared of a lesser charge of being a member of a terrorist organisation.

In December, Mr Mzoudi was released from custody for the remainder of the trial after a statement emerged from an unnamed source that was widely believed to be Ramzi Binalshibh, another alleged member of the cell currently in US custody.

It said the Hamburg cell consisted only of Mr Binalshibh and the three suicide hijackers.

Prosecutors launched a last minute challenge on Thursday saying a fresh look at Mr Binalshibh's evidence could back their case instead.

The lawyer, Andreas Schulz, urged the court to contact the US Justice Department to try to obtain Mr Binalshibh's evidence.

But Judge Klaus Ruehle rejected the challenge, saying that the US authorities had not allowed Mr Binalshibh to testify during the trial so transcripts of his interviews could not be used.

In his summing up, he told Mr Mzoudi the verdict was not a cause to celebrate.

The judge said the court reached its decision not "because it was convinced of the innocence of the accused, but because there was not enough evidence for a conviction."

BBC News

[pritchke]

I found this odd. You would think that the US would have done all they could to convict this guy especially if he is guilty.

The judges seem to feel that he is guilty but that can't do anything because of the lack of evidence that he knew anything.

The US has other motives in not releasing the information???
1) The information needed to be kept confidential as it posed a security risk
2) They plan on keeping a close eye on him, hoping he will lead them to other terrorist.
3) They plan to send over an operative to knock the guy off.
4) They really don't have any extra information to give

Anyway these are four ideas that I could think of for with holding the information to convict him.

I think this thread would have drawn more attention.



[ 02-05-2004, 04:00 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

[Rokenn]

Or the intelligence they have would implicate people that the Administration does not want implicated, like the 28 missing pages in the report issued a few months ago [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Timber Loftis]

Or maybe we realized the member of the cell in custody over here (well, erm, at Gitmo) was not credible, had little information, and would not really help to convict the guy.

And, you know, there's always the possibility he's innocent.

Add these to Pritchke's list and you've got a well-rounded list of possibilities.

Of course, the whole exercise of identifying the possibilities reveals the most frustrating thing: our lack of information. But, on this topic I don't see how we citizens can have adequate information without risking antiterrorism efforts.

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Of course, the whole exercise of identifying the possibilities reveals the most frustrating thing: our lack of information. But, on this topic I don't see how we citizens can have adequate information without risking antiterrorism efforts.

You said a mouthful there TL