Abdelghani Mzoudi

Abdelghani Mzoudi (born December 6, 1972 in Marrakech ; sometimes also written Abdul Ghani Mzoudi ; Arabic عبد الغني مزودي, DMG ʿAbd al-Ġanī Mazūdī ) is a Moroccan citizen who was suspected in Germany of being involved in the attacks of September 11, 2001 . However, after a sensational trial, he was finally acquitted.

Abdelghani Mzoudi was arrested on December 10, 2002 on the basis of an arrest warrant from the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice on October 9, 2002 and on May 9, 2003 by Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm before the State Security Senate of the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg on account of membership in a terrorist organization and aiding and abetting for murder accused in at least 3,066 cases. He was charged with participating in the planning of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as a member of al-Qaeda . In the circumstantial trial, Mzoudi's involvement could not be proven, so that he was released from custody before the proceedings were concluded and acquitted in February 2004. The criminal proceedings, which lasted from August 14, 2003 to February 5, 2004, attracted international attention.

Details of the process

Hanseatic OLG

accusation

In the indictment presented to the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court on May 9, 2003, the prosecution assumed that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were carried out by an al-Qaeda-influenced network of violent fundamentalist Islamists who wanted to bring the jihad to the United States. In Hamburg, a terrorist cell, to which Mohammed Atta , Marwan Alshehhi and Ziad Jarrah , who died in the attacks belonged, participated in the planning, preparation and implementation of the attacks. Other members of the Hamburg terror cell are said to have been Ramzi bin asch-Schaiba , Mounir al Motassadeq , Zakariya Essabar and Said Bahaji .

The alleged terrorists are said to have decided by early summer 1999 at the latest to kill several thousand people by using airplanes in an attack. Following the plan of the crime alleged in the indictment, Mzoudi is said to have stayed in an al-Qaeda training camp from April to July 2000. The cell members are said to have met with Osama bin Laden and discussed the details of the attack.

Mzoudi is said to have been privy to the plans of the assassins until the very end. Together with al Motassadeq and Bahaji, he had covered the absence of the remaining members of the terrorist group. He also took care of Essabar's finances while he was said to have been in Afghanistan in 2000 . Mzoudi is also said to have taken care of the apartments of several members of the terrorist cell.

process

The criminal proceedings against Abdelghani Mzoudi were opened on August 14, 2003 before the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court. After the Federal Criminal Police Office presented a fax at a court hearing on December 11, 2003, which weakened the suspicion against Mzoudi, the arrest warrant was overturned. In the letter, a person who was not named stated that, apart from the pilots, only bin asch-Schaiba had knowledge of the attacks in Hamburg. The court assumed that only bin al-Schaiba himself could have made the testimony.

Mzoudi admitted to be friends with Mohammed Atta and to have rendered him auxiliary services, but denied knowledge of the planned murders. A verdict was due to be pronounced on January 22, 2004, but new findings from the public prosecutor postponed this.

Important potential witnesses to the trial were unable to testify because the United States' intelligence services had them in their custody and did not release them. The US authorities refused, among other things, Ramzi bin al-Shaiba's testimony. The President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Heinz Fromm, exonerated Mzoudi because, according to the information from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the attacks were not planned by a group of Hamburg students. Rather, the attacks were prepared by the top management level of the terrorist organization al-Qaida from Afghanistan.

Upon receiving the letter on December 11, 2003, US Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed , without producing any evidence, that Mzoudi had supported the terrorists. He cannot understand how Mzoudi could be released. Ashcroft claimed the United States had a legal system that safeguarded the rights of the accused and the protection of national security. Mzoudi's defense attorney Gül Pinar indirectly accused the German authorities of withholding exonerating documents: “There must have been some authority in the German apparatus in which someone could not agree with his conscience that such an exonerating document should remain under lock and key and therefore convict an innocent person will “, she said in an interview with Junge Welt .

After the document emerged, a socialist website published speculation that Otto Schily and John Ashcroft were seeking the release of Mzoudi so that he could be kidnapped by the CIA , similar to Muhammad Haidar Zammar , after deportation to Morocco .

The higher regional court then came to the conclusion that there was no terror cell in Hamburg.

Mzoudi's defense made an urgent motion against the threatened deportation, which was granted. The Federal Criminal Police Office then presented the former CIA agent under the code name "Hamid Reza Zakeri", who also worked for the Iranian secret service, as a surprise witness. He warned the security authorities of an attack on September 10, 2001. Zakeri has also announced that Iran was involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks. Western intelligence agencies know that Zakeri does not take the truth exactly.

Abdelghani Mzoudi was acquitted on February 5, 2004 because the accused could not be proven. The acquittal was confirmed on June 9, 2005 by the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe.

Individual references and sources

1. ↑ Federal Prosecutor General raises further charges for participation in "11. September"
2. ↑ Press release: BGH: The arrest warrant against Abdelghani Mzoudi is repealed ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ^ Heise.de: Fax from the BKA
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ulrich Rippert : Justice on the leash of the secret services . Ed .: WSWS . January 29, 2004.
5. ↑ Georg Mascolo and Holger Stark: GAU in the courtroom , Spiegel from December 15, 2003
6. ↑ Jürgen Elsässer : US pressure on Hamburg justice? ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) . In: young world . January 2, 2004.
7. ↑ Birgit Gärtner: But not a Hamburg terror cell! Ed .: heise.de. December 20, 2003.
8. ↑ Ralf Wiegand: The spy who came out of the twilight . New witness in the Mzoudi trial. In: SZ . January 22, 2004 ("The witness who suddenly appeared claims to have worked as a secret agent for the CIA and charges the defendant Mzoudi. But the judges find the Iranian's statements strange.").
9. ↑ NN: Alleged double agent burdens Mzoudi heavily . In: Der Spiegel . January 30, 2004.
10. ↑ Birgit Gärtner: Reaching the limits of finding the truth - heise.de, February 5, 2004
11. ↑ Birgit Gärtner: Mzoudi trial: acquittal confirmed by the BGH - heise.de, June 9, 2005
12. ↑ juris.bundesgerichtshof.de: acquittal in the proceedings against Abdelghani Mzoudi final