Sept. 11 suspect, nabbed in Hamburg, ordered held for trial

Friday, October 11th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

BERLIN (AP) _ A German federal judge Friday ordered a Moroccan man suspected of providing logistical support to the Hamburg cell of Sept. 11 plotters be kept in detention to await trial, a spokeswoman for prosecutors said.

Abdelghani Mzoudi, a 29-year-old Moroccan citizen and Hamburg resident, did not respond to the accusations against him during a hearing lasting several hours at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, said Frauke Scheuten, a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office.

After a year under investigation, Mzoudi was arrested in Hamburg Thursday on charges he supported a terrorist organization. But investigators believe he was a full member of the al-Qaida cell, with close ties to suicide pilots Mohammed Atta, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi.

Chief prosecutor Kay Nehm said Thursday that authorities believe they can build a case charging him as an accessory to murder, like Mounir el Motassadeq, the only other person arrested in Germany in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks.

El Motassadeq's trial begins Oct. 22 in Hamburg. No date has been set for a trial of Mzoudi.

German investigators brought Mzoudi in for questioning in July when they raided an Islamic bookstore in Hamburg believed to be a meeting place for fundamentalists planning new attacks.

But they lacked sufficient evidence to arrest him until a witness this summer placed Mzoudi in Afghan training camps at the same time as fellow Moroccans el Motassadeq and Zakariya Essabar, both also suspected of making logistical arrangements for the cell.

Mzoudi helped in two ways, Nehm said, by making three transfers in late 2000 or early 2001 from his bank account to Essabar, who was intended to be one of the pilots but failed to get a U.S. visa for flight training, and in helping to find an apartment for al-Shehhi in Hamburg in May 2000.