Bin Laden’s Ex-Bodyguard Is Taken Off Lists of Terrorists

A former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden, recently freed from prison in Germany, has been removed from the United Nations and U.S. terrorism blacklists in a rare move that follows months of German lobbying in Washington.

The delistings of Shadi Abdalla are a victory for Berlin, which values him as a key informant against other suspected militants on trial and has given him a new identity and placed him under police protection.

A U.N. website said he was the fifth person, and the first in more than two years, to be removed from its list of militants, whose assets all U.N. member states must freeze.

“To my knowledge this is the first and only case where a convicted terrorist who has served his prison sentence ... has been delisted,” a German official said Tuesday.

A U.S. Treasury spokeswoman said Abdalla, 28, was also removed from the United States’ list of “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons.”

“Information available to us shows that Abdalla no longer supports terrorist activity and is helping German authorities to prosecute suspected terrorists. Abdalla’s cooperation is ongoing, and he is providing authorities with extensive, credible information,” she said.

Abdalla’s lawyer, Ruediger Deckers, said his client could now get financial support from authorities and open a bank account, measures that were illegal while he was blacklisted.

Deckers said the U.S. had filed an official request for Abdalla to testify against Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the U.S. in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks.

Last year Abdalla was convicted of planning attacks on Jewish targets in Germany, but he was freed in November after serving slightly less than a year of his four-year sentence.

The U.N.’s “1267 Committee,” which oversees sanctions against people and groups associated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, said Abdalla, a Jordanian, was deleted from its list Dec. 23. The U.S. delisting occurred the same day.