ARAB-EUROPEAN RELATIONS - Oct. 22 - Motassadeq Admits Al Qaida Training & Funds Transfer.

Speaking on the opening day of his trial in Hamburg, Mounir Al Motassadeq (a 28-year-old electronics student from Morocco accused of direct involvement in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks) admits having undergone a 3-week military training in Al Qaida camp in Kandahar, Afghanistan. (He has previously denied visiting Afghanistan). He says: "I learned that [Osama] Bin Laden was responsible for the camp and had been at the camp sometimes. I didn't know that before, and didn't meet him". The training, which took place between late May and early Aug. 2000, was free, but the entire trip cost DM2,000 (1,023). He travelled overland from Karachi, Pakistan, on a journey that was in part organised by the former Taliban regime. Motassadeq says the Sept. 11 hijackers Mohammad Atta and Marwan Al Shehhi had helped plan his trip. In the camp Motassadeq met two other Hamburg students facing terrorism-related charges in Germany. He denies charges of being an accessory to murder on over 3,000 counts and membership of a terrorist organisation. Motassadeq's lawyers say visiting such a camp is insufficient evidence to be found guilty of these charges. They say that "thousands of people made pilgrimages to these training camps", and while some of them were "fighters" in conflicts in Afghanistan and elsewhere, others "returned to their professions or training without taking up terrorism". Motassadeq says he had first met Atta in 1996. He adds: "Atta never spoke about any attacks", although he wanted to fight alongside Muslim rebels in Chechnya. Prosecutor Walter Hemberger, summarising the 89-page indictment, says Motassadeq was a "co-ordinator" of the Hamburg terror cell, adding: "He was involved in the plans of the assassins, and ensured the group had sufficient financial resources". He tended the bank account of one of the hijackers and paid bills and college fees on behalf of the hijackers, Hemberger says. On Oct. 23, Motassadeq testified that he had transferred $2,500 from Germany to Yemen for the use of one of the suicide pilots but believed it was to support his military training in Afghanistan and not pay for flight school in the US. Motassadeq said he had transferred the money to a Yemeni who informed him by fax that Marwan Al Shehhi, a hijacker, "needed it". Motassadeq said that in Aug. 2000 he received a fax from Ramzi Binalshibh, a key member of the cell now in US custody, that Shehhi needed money from the hijacker's account over which Motassadeq had power of attorney. The defendant said he believed Shehhi was at Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan because he ultimately wanted to fight in Chechnya. Shehhi was in fact attending a flight school in the US.