9/11 hijacker friend seeks halt to sentence hearing

HAMBURG, Germany, Jan 5 (Reuters) Lawyers representing a Moroccan friend of the September 11 hijackers demanded today the suspension of a hearing to decide his sentence for being an accessory to mass murder.

Mounir El Motassadeq, a member of a group of radical Arab students in Hamburg who organised the 2001 attacks in which nearly 3,000 people died, faces up to 15 years in prison.

The Hamburg court could rule on his sentence at any of five hearings which run through to February 5. No decision is expected today.

His lawyer accused the court of being unconstitutional because it was set up specifically for the hearing and demanded its suspension.

''We are dealing with an extraordinary court which has been formed exclusively for El Motassadeq,'' Ladislav Anisic told German broadcaster N24.

''It is made up of various legal people and the criteria used for choosing them are completely unclear ... what is happening here goes against our constitution.'' Motassadeq, 32, who was in court today, is one of only two people convicted of involvement in the September 11 attacks.

The other is Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a U S court in May 2006.

Germany's top appeals court in Karlsruhe found Motassadeq guilty last November of abetting the murder of 246 passengers and crew who died on four planes that crashed on September 11.

That overturned a 2005 ruling which convicted him of belonging to a terrorist organisation but cleared him of abetting mass murder.

Motassadeq's lawyers insist he knew nothing about the plot to fly hijacked planes into the New York and Washington targets.

Prosecution lawyer Walter Hemberger rejected the arguments presented by Motassadeq's lawyers, saying the court had been set up to deal with the case swiftly as other courts were busy.

Motassadeq has been held in jail awaiting sentence.

The complex and drawn-out case has strained Berlin's relations with Washington in past years as German courts tested how far the United States would go in giving sensitive evidence.

REUTERS AKJ HT1838