German High Court: 9/11 Conspirator’s Sentence Too Light
Charles Johnson
Thu Nov 16, 2006 at 9:06 am PST • Views: 243
I was just about to write a post about the appallingly light sentence handed down in Germany for convicted 9/11 conspirator Mounir al-Motassadeq, when LGF reader American Viking emailed the link to this story: German Court: Sept. 11th conspirator let off too lightly.
Karlsruhe, Germany (dpa) - Germany’s High Court scolded judges Thursday for letting off Mounir al-Motassadeq too lightly for conspiring in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.
Appeal judges ordered a limited new trial, where the evidence from the previous trial will stand and only the penalty must be decided.
Last year the Moroccan student was sent to jail for seven years for being a member of the Hamburg terrorist cell led by Mohammed Atta and two other suicide pilots. But he was acquitted at trial of being an accessory to 3,000 murders of plane and building occupants.
Appeal judges rebuked the court for that partial acquittal, although the court had been convinced that Motassadeq, 32, at least premeditated the killings of the 246 occupants of the four jets that were hijacked and crashed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
They quashed the partial acquittal and imposed a conviction for being an accessory to 246 murders. The High Court said judges in Hamburg, Germany must now reconsider the penalty for this expanded conviction.
Presiding Justice Klaus Tolksdorf said: “At the new hearing, the conviction cannot be questioned.” Only the penalty was at stake.
Frank says: