German court clears 9/11 suspect

[MIKE BURN]

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Thursday, February 5, 2004 Posted: 6:07 AM EST (1107 GMT)



HAMBURG, Germany (CNN) -- A Moroccan man accused of assisting the September 11 hijackers has been cleared by a German court due to a lack of evidence.



Abdel-Ghani Mzoudi was charged with more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder, based on the death toll in the suicide hijackings in the United States. He faced up to 15 years in jail if convicted by the five-judge panel.



Presiding Judge Klaus Ruehle denied a last-minute request on Thursday from Andreas Schultz, the lawyer representing relatives of 9/11 victims.



Schultz told the judge that the U.S. Justice Department might share new information linking Mzoudi to the attacks. He had asked for a postponement of up to a month to evaluate the new information.



Mzoudi's lawyers said he had spent time at an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in 2000 and knew Hamburg cell members while they lived in the city, but denied he was involved in the 9/11 plot.



German law enforcement officials had expected the acquittal because of a lack of evidence but continued to insist the accused was guilty.





(Mzoudi arriving at court in January)



"For us it is clear Mzoudi is part of the Islamistic scene in Hamburg," Heino Vahldieck, chief of the Hamburg Federal Criminal Office, told CNN. "He has been part of the scene, he is still part of the scene."



Terror experts are worried the case demonstrates the West is ill equipped to defend itself.



"It is a war. In a war situation you need special laws and al Qaeda finds that it can operate wonderfully well in the democratic free society because they can move about freely and the courts cannot convict them," M. J. Gohel of the Asia Pacific Foundation told CNN.



Mzoudi's lawyers said his problems would remain whether or not he was freed.



They said Mzoudi was afraid German authorities may deport him to Morocco where U.S. agents could try to snatch him. He is also aware, they say, of rumors that al Qaeda might try to liquidate him to ensure he never talks.



Meanwhile, after resisting the idea for months, the White House has granted an extension to U.S. lawmakers investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks.



Sources say the Bush administration had long opposed the move, fearing a negative judgment on the eve of the presidential election.

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