Abdelghani Mzoudi was found not guilty of being an accessory to murder in about 3,000 deaths in New York and Washington. The 31-year-old electrical engineering student also was acquitted of charges he belonged to the terrorist cell run by hijacker Mohamed Atta and others who trained in Afghan camps.

Mzoudi was freed after Judge Klaus Ruehle dismissed a last-minute motion to introduce new evidence from a lawyer representing families of Sept. 11 victims.

The verdict means that one of the two men tried in Germany for helping plot the 9/11 attacks will go free. The second man, Mounir Motassadeq, also a Moroccan, was convicted last year and sentenced to 15 years in prison. But legal experts believe his case will likely be overturned on appeal because the evidence used against him was almost identical to that against Mzoudi.

The Japan Times Weekly: Feb. 14, 2004
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