Friend of 9/11 hijackers to be sentenced in Germany

HAMBURG, Germany, Jan 8 (Reuters) A Moroccan friend of the September 11 hijackers appeared in a German court today facing a prison sentence of up to 15 years after being found guilty of abetting mass murder.

Mounir El Motassadeq, a member of a group of radical Arab students in Hamburg who helped organised the 2001 attacks, is one of only two men convicted of involvement in the plot which resulted in the death of nearly 3,000 people.

In November, Germany's top appeals court in Karlsruhe found the 32-year-old guilty of abetting the murder of 246 passengers and crew who died on four planes that crashed on September 11, 2001.

The decision overturned a 2005 ruling which convicted Motassadeq of belonging to a terrorist organisation but cleared him of the more serious charge of abetting mass murder.

Prosecutors successfully argued in November that under a ''division of labour'' within the group led by suicide hijacker Mohammed Atta, Motassadeq ran the financial affairs of other cell members and covered up their absence from Germany before the attacks.

Motassadeq's lawyers say he was a low-tier member of the group and that he knew nothing about the plot to fly planes into targets in New York and Washington.

Although the Hamburg court said last week that a decision on sentencing would come today, the hearings were delayed repeatedly as Motassadeq's lawyers submitted petitions aimed at suspending it.

They have argued that the sentencing should not take place before the Federal Constitutional Court rules on an appeal filed last month against the November conviction. It was unclear whether the sentencing would be delayed beyond today.

The 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.

Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent who received a life sentence from a U.S. court in May 2006, is the only other person convicted of links to the attacks.

REUTERS BDP KN2124