[ad_1]
BERLIN (Reuters) – A Moroccan pirates associate on September 11 will leave a German prison for deportation after serving most of his 15-year prison sentence for organizing 2011 attacks on US targets, announced Monday the authorities.
On October 15, 2018, the Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq is escorted to the airport of Hamburg. He was released from prison after serving 15 years in prison for helping pirates organize the September 11, 2001 attacks on US targets. REUTERS / Fabian Bimmer
Mounir El Motassadeq belonged to a group of radical Islamists based in the port city of Hamburg, in northern Germany, and had contributed to the occurrence of suicide attacks against hijacked airliners having killed near of 3,000 people.
Led from the maximum penalty of 15 years in 2007 for complicity in mass murder, Motassadeq is one of only two men convicted to date for involvement in the plot.
"Everything is going according to plan," said a spokesman for the Hamburg Interior Ministry, without giving any more details, except to say that the release of Motassadeq was allowed from 15 October he was immediately expelled.
Photographs showed a man with covered eyes led by two armed policemen to a helicopter. The German media announced that he would be taken to Frankfurt to be deported to Morocco, where his family lives.
The spokesman in Hamburg could not say exactly when his sentence was going to end. German media announced that it was to remain behind bars until November or early next year.
At his 2007 trial, his lawyers claimed that Motassadeq knew nothing about the 9/11 plot. Prosecutors said he played a central role in the suicide bombing of Mohammed Atta's group by managing the finances of some members of the cell.
The Hamburg authorities have stated that they will confirm the expulsion once it has taken place.
Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Edited by Mark Heinrich
