Court Rules to Keep 9/11 Aide in Prison

A court ruled Monday that the only convicted Sept. 11 suspect will remain in prison despite new evidence that freed a fellow Moroccan being tried on the same charges, a lawyer in the case said.

Mounir Motassadeq was convicted in February on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization for helping suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Samir Jarrah. A Hamburg court sentenced him to the maximum 15 years in prison, and his appeal will be heard by a federal court in January.

The court decided it would not rule on the new evidence while the appeal was pending, saying the verdict was unlikely to be overturned.

The evidence also has to be treated with different weight when being judged after a conviction, it said.

Motassadeq could seek a retrial based on the evidence after the appeal has been heard, though there is little possibility of success, the court said.

Motassadeq, 29, said he felt helpless when he was told he would remain in a Hamburg prison, his lawyer said.

“He said, ‘This can’t be, I’m being kicked around like a ball,’ ” Josef Graessle-Muenscher said.

On Friday, the same panel of judges cleared Abdelghani Mzoudi, a friend of Motassadeq’s, of the same charges.

The court said Mzoudi had to be given the benefit of the doubt after German federal investigators provided new information.

The evidence, a statement believed to be from a Yemeni named Ramzi Binalshibh, said that only Binalshibh -- the Hamburg cell’s presumed contact with Al Qaeda -- and the three Hamburg-based suicide hijackers knew of the plot.

Binalshibh is in U.S. custody.