9/11 suspect loose

last updated 8 January 2015

Hamburg, Germany

A German judge ordered that a Moroccan man suspected of involvement in the 9/11 attacks be freed, saying the U.S. government’s refusal to allow the testimony of a jailed al Qaida operative left him no choice. Abdelghani Mzoudi, 31, was accused of helping Mohammed Atta and the other two hijackers from the Hamburg cell. But Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a high al Qaida figure who was arrested in Pakistan in 2002, has told interrogators that nobody besides the three pilots and himself were aware of the hijacking plot, so Mzoudi could not have known he was aiding criminals. The judge said that Mzoudi would not have a fair trial unless bin al-Shibh could testify in his defense, and the U.S. wouldn’t allow that because of security concerns.