A GERMAN court yesterday convicted a Moroccan student of belonging to the al-Qaeda cell responsible for the attacks on America of September 11, 2001, but acquitted him of direct involvement in the murder of nearly 3,000 people.

Mounir al-Motassadeq, 31, was sentenced to seven years in prison for membership of a terrorist organisation, but the judge ruled that the more serious charges were not proven, in part because of a failure by the US authorities to co-operate with the prosecution.

In a three-hour judgment, read out before a court in Hamburg, Judge Ernst-Rainer Schudt said that the US Justice Department had refused to co-operate fully with the German court.

“How are we supposed to do justice to our task when important documents are withheld from us?” the judge asked.

Although Washington did send transcripts of interviews with two al-Qaeda members in American custody, Judge Schudt complained that the testimony was incomplete and that the two witnesses should have been interviewed in person.

Al-Motassadeq, an electrical engineering student at the Technical University in Hamburg, had been sentenced in 2003 to 15 years for his alleged role in helping to prepare the September 11 attacks. But the verdict was overturned on appeal last year.

During the retrial he admitted that he had trained at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and was close to three members of the September 11 cell, Mohammad Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah. Judge Schudt dismissed as “absurd” al-Motassadeq’s claim that he had attended the training camp run by Osama bin Laden to learn shooting, swimming and other skills required by good Muslims. “They were not tourist camps,” the judge said.

Instead, the thin, bearded and softly spoken Moroccan played an important role in running the financial affairs for the Hamburg cell and covered for them when they left for America. The judge said the defendant must have known that they were plotting an attack but that there was no evidence he knew the details and that he appeared “too lightweight” and “too soft” to be directly involved.

He said “a general knowledge or an inkling” was not enough to prove he was an accessory to the deaths of thousands of people.

The conviction on the lesser charges was hailed as a victory against terrorism by the German authorities, who were embarrassed last year when another Moroccan defendant facing the same charges had his conviction overturned and was set free. Families of the September 11 victims also welcomed yesterday’s conviction as justice for those who died.

Dominic Puopolo, whose mother, Sonia Morales Puopolo, died on the plane hijacked by Atta, said: “I am concerned that we are missing something, but I do not want to let it take away from today’s tremendous victory and to have put this dangerous man off the streets.”

Al-Motassadeq, a father of two, listened impassively to the verdict and was taken into custody at the end of the hearing. His lawyer said that he would appeal against the conviction.

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