El Motassadeq denies charges

HAMBURG, Germany -- A Moroccan student accused of aiding the Hamburg terrorist cell involved in the Sept. 11 attacks testified at the start of his trial Tuesday that he attended a training camp run by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.\nAs the first trial of a Sept. 11 suspect got under way in a Hamburg state court, defense attorneys issued a statement saying Mounir el Motassadeq, 28, "continues to deny" charges of belonging to a terrorist organization and more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder.\nEl Motassadeq denied traveling to Afghanistan when police questioned him after his arrest last year. But his defense revised the account after he testified Tuesday that he last saw Mohamed Atta, the lead Sept. 11 suicide hijacker and ringleader of the Hamburg al Qaeda cell, in May 2000 "when I planned to go to Pakistan, Afghanistan."\nIn later questioning by the court, el Motassadeq admitted he had attended a camp outside the Afghan city of Kandahar.\n"I learned that bin Laden was responsible for the camp and had been at the camp sometimes," he said. But, he added, "I didn't know that beforehand and I didn't meet him either."\nEl Motassadeq said he had learned to use a Kalashnikov rifle and did fitness training, but had not participated in training on the use of explosives.\nHe insisted he had not discussed the trip with members of the Hamburg cell, but said he met two other suspected members during his three-week stay--fellow Moroccans Zakariya Essabar and Abdelghani Mzoudi, the only other Sept. 11 suspect in German custody.\nEl Motassadeq's lawyers said the Afghan trip "proves nothing," arguing that thousands went to such camps without necessarily becoming terrorists.\nProsecutors allege that he helped the Hamburg cell with logistical support leading up to Sept. 11. When suicide pilots Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah left Hamburg in 2000 to begin flight training in Florida, el Motassadeq stayed behind, filtering money through an account to al-Shehhi in the United States, according to the indictment.\nEl Motassadeq told investigators he paid utility, rent and school bills for al-Shehhi, but transferred no money to the United States, according to his defense team.\nA calm el Motassadeq told the Hamburg state court Tuesday that he first met Atta in 1996 when he started studying in Hamburg, and they often talked about religion and politics--including the situation in the Palestinian territories and Chechnya.\nAsked by Presiding Judge Albrecht Mentz whether there had been any indication that Atta planned violence, el Motassadeq replied: "In my opinion, it is no solution."\n"Perhaps Atta was of a different opinion," he added. "But Atta never spoke about any attacks."\nEarlier, el Motassadeq listened with no visible sign of emotion as prosecutor Walter Hemberger read out a summary of the indictment.\nEl Motassadeq sat facing prosecutors with his two attorneys and an Arabic translator beside him, leaning into a microphone as he answered the judge's questions in German. Initially making nervous hand gestures, el Motassadeq appeared to relax during two sessions of questioning.\nAtta, he said, had helped him and Mzoudi to find an apartment.\nEl Motassadeq said that Atta had spoken of Chechnya, and added that "I know that he wanted to travel there and fight alongside" Chechen rebels.\nEl Motassadeq was arrested in Hamburg two months after the attacks. Mzoudi was arrested in the city this month on charges of supporting a terrorist organization.\nGermany's chief federal prosecutor, Kay Nehm, has said the hijackers knew by October 1999 they would attack the United States with airplanes, but that the idea likely originated elsewhere in the al Qaeda network.\nAll were united by "hatred of world Jewry and the United States," Nehm said in August.