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Mounir el-Motassadeq is driven from one helicopter to the other at Hamburg airport, in northern Germany.
(AP)
One of only two people who has been tried and sentenced in connection with the September 11 terrorist attacks is again a free man – and returns to his native Morocco.
Mounir el-Motassadeq embarked on a plane in Frankfurt on Monday after being sentenced more than a decade ago to be a member of a terrorist organization and an accomplice in the murder of 246 passengers and crew members. four airliners used during the attacks.
"It's good to know that Mr. Motassadeq is missing from the country," the Associated Press told Interior Minister of Hamburg Andy Grote.
El-Motassadeq was released shortly before serving his 15-year prison sentence on condition that he agreed to deportation to Morocco.
"This measure will allow us to stop it immediately when it sets foot on German soil," said Frauke Köhler, spokesperson for the federal prosecutor's office, at Deutsche Welle.
We do not know what awaits the 44-year-old when he arrives in Morocco.
Moroccan Mounir el-Motassadeq waits before his trial in a court in Hamburg.
(AP)
The only other person sentenced in connection with September 11 – co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui – is serving a life sentence without parole at ADX Florence, in the same center that houses the Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Ted Kaczynski, and other Al Qaeda agents. , like Richard Reid "bomber shoe".
Other men involved in the planning of the attacks found themselves in a legal deadlock, leaving the families of the victims more and more frustrated, some claiming that justice had not yet been done.
In the el-Motassadeq case, German courts had stated that he was aware that Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah – three of the 9/11 pirates – were planning to take control and crush the planes, even though he may not know the plot details.
According to the Associated Press Press Agency, el-Motassadeq helped "monitor the back of the attackers and conceal them" by helping them retain the appearance of university students paying tuition and fees. rent and transferring money.
El-Motassadeq admitted to having trained at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, but had insisted that he was unaware of his friends' plan to attack the United States.
"I swear by God that I knew the assailants were in America," he had shouted in German accented at a sentencing hearing. "I swear by God that I did not know what they wanted to do."
A helicopter carrying Mounir el-Motassadeq takes off from Hamburg prison.
SEPTEMBER 11 TRACERS: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Originally arrested in Hamburg in November 2001, el-Motassadeq was convicted in 2003 for membership of a terrorist organization and for thousands of murder charges – taking into account the victims on the ground – thus becoming the first person sentenced for September-related charges. 11. He was sentenced to a maximum of 15 years in prison.
However, a German federal court overturned this verdict in 2004, mainly because of the lack of evidence from Al-Qaeda suspects detained in the United States, and sent the case back to Hamburg.
After a new trial in 2005, el-Motassadeq was again found guilty of membership in a terrorist organization. But he was acquitted of complicity in murder after the court had found that he did not have enough evidence showing that he was aware of the plot of the pirates in the air.
El-Motassadeq had been sentenced to seven years in prison at the time, but had been released in early 2006 until his appeal could be heard, according to the associate president.
Later that year, the federal court quashed the acquittal of Judge El-Motassadeq on the murder charge, stating that the evidence showed that he knew the conspirators had planned to hijack and steal. crush aircraft. It has, however, limited the number of charges to 246 people killed on board aircraft and the 15-year sentence has been reinstated.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
