Germany Files Terror Charges

BERLIN —  Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges Wednesday against the only suspect in their custody linked to the Hamburg terrorist cell accused of carrying out the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mounir Motassadeq, a 28-year-old Moroccan, will face trial “because of his participation in the terror attacks,” the office of Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm announced in a statement that did not specify the charges. Nehm planned a news conference for today to disclose details.

Motassadeq was a frequent visitor to the Hamburg apartment of hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, and his name appeared last fall on a U.S. list of 370 people or associations suspected of assisting terrorists. He was arrested Nov. 28 after investigators discovered he had a power of attorney over a bank account held by Al-Shehhi and had been a witness to Atta’s last will and testament--a document replete with extremist religious expressions and paranoid comments.

In a statement at the time of Motassadeq’s arrest, Nehm’s office said the suspect managed the bank account for Al-Shehhi from May to November 2000 and that “large sums of money were regularly transferred into this account.... According to our information, these funds were used to help members of the terrorist group.”

The payments were made to support the plotters during their stay in the U.S. for flight training, investigators said.

Atta, a 33-year-old Egyptian, is believed to have piloted the hijacked American Airlines Boeing 767 that on Sept. 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. That attack was followed about 20 minutes later by the crash of a United Airlines 767 into the South Tower; Al-Shehhi, 23, of the United Arab Emirates, was believed to have been at the controls.

Another Hamburg associate, 26-year-old Ziad Samir Jarrah of Lebanon, died aboard a United Airlines Boeing 757 that crashed in rural Pennsylvania after passengers apparently stormed the cockpit in an attempt to overpower the terrorists.

In interviews before his arrest, Motassadeq denied any role in the attacks and insisted that he knew the suspects only from occasional encounters in Hamburg at the Al Quds mosque they all frequented. But sources involved in the investigation say the Moroccan is pictured with the Sept. 11 figures in 1999 photos taken at the wedding of another suspect, Said Bahaji, who is now a fugitive.

Motassadeq, an electrical engineering student, attended the same Hamburg Technical University department where Atta and Al-Shehhi were students. His apartment was just a few blocks from the Marienstrasse hangout where the elaborate planning for the terrorist strikes is believed to have taken place under Atta’s supervision.

International arrest warrants have been issued by Nehm’s office for three other suspected collaborators from the Hamburg cell: Bahaji, 27, a German citizen of Moroccan descent; Ramzi Binalshibh, 30, of Yemen; and Zakariya Essabar, 25, of Morocco. All are wanted for allegedly providing support for the suicide pilots.

Authorities are still investigating whether Motassadeq’s two years of work as a janitor at Hamburg’s airport might have given him access to secure areas or means of creating false identifications. German media reported last fall that police sweeps of suspected terrorist hide-outs in other areas of the country turned up airline uniforms and security badges that might have helped terrorists gain access to planes.

Although German intelligence officials in Hamburg have been under intense pressure from FBI agents and other U.S. authorities to round up anyone suspected of aiding the hijackers, Motassadeq is the only one who has been kept for more than brief questioning. Two other men, however, were put under surveillance after their associations with suspects came to official attention.

Both men, who are of Syrian origin, have been questioned. One has since fled to his homeland and is now the subject of an extradition case.