[lbo-talk] 9/11 Suspects (Anybody But Kerry the Dole of 2004?)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>[lbo-talk] Re: Anybody But Kerry the Dole of 2004?
>C. G. Estabrook galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu, Fri May 7 10:43:10 PDT 2004
<snip>
>[Chomsky on Afghanistan.] The major issues scarcely even arose, 
>beginning with the obvious one: What is the justification for 
>bombing Afghanistan? The official reason, announced when the bombing 
>began, was that Afghanistan was refusing to turn over Osama bin 
>Laden to the US (overthrowing the Taliban regime was an 
>afterthought, added after several weeks of bombing). The people of 
>Afghanistan was informed that they would be bombed until the Taliban 
>accepted this demand. Taliban requests for evidence were dismissed 
>with ridicule, as were tentative offers of extradition. Eight months 
>later, the head of the FBI testified to the Senate that the US still 
>did not know who was responsible for 9-11. US intelligence 
>"believed" that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, but implemented 
>and financed elsewhere. In brief, US intelligence confirmed that the 
>bombing of Afghanistan was the "supreme crime" condemned at 
>Nuremberg: violent aggression, without credible pretext.

Chomsky was right.  So far, no one directly responsible for the 
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 
September 11, 2001 has been arrested in Afghanistan.  Meanwhile, the 
only man convicted in the attacks got released in Germany due to 
Washington's refusal to allow Ramzi Binalshibh, who had been arrested 
by the Pakistani police in Karachi and is now under US custody, to 
testify.

*****   Hamburg court frees 9/11 suspect
Wednesday, April 7, 2004 Posted: 9:01 AM EDT (1301 GMT)

HAMBURG, Germany (CNN) -- The only suspect convicted in the September 
11, 2001 attacks in the United States has been released from a German 
jail, pending a retrial.

A Hamburg court Wednesday ordered the release of Mounir El 
Motassadeq, 30, after he was granted a mistrial last month.

El Motassadeq was released on condition he remain in Hamburg and 
report to police twice a week.

A new trial is scheduled to begin June 16.

In a statement, the court said El Motassadeq "is no longer an urgent 
suspect in the charge of accomplice to murder, but only as a member 
of a terrorist organization."

The Moroccan had been serving a maximum 15-year prison term in 
Hamburg since a court convicted him in February 2003.

However, an appeals court ruled March 4 that El Motassadeq was denied 
a fair trial because the U.S. government refused access to a key 
witness in its custody.

El Motassadeq consistently denied the charges during his 
three-and-a-half-month trial.

He was found guilty of providing logistical support for the Hamburg 
al Qaeda cell that included lead September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, 
who piloted one of the two airliners that crashed into the World 
Trade Center in New York.

His lawyers asked the appeals court for acquittal or a retrial, 
alleging their client was wrongly convicted because the United States 
refused to allow court testimony by Ramzi Binalshibh, thought to be 
the Hamburg cell's key contact with al Qaeda.

Binalshibh was captured in Pakistan on the first anniversary of the 
September 11 attacks and is in U.S. custody.

-- CNN's Berlin Bureau Chief Stephanie Halasz contributed to this report.

<http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/04/07/motassadeq.retrial/>   *****
-- 
Yoshie

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