Mounir al-Motassadeq, who was convicted for involvement in the September
11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, appealed yesterday against his
sentence.
Motassadeq was sentenced on Monday by a German court to a 15-year
imprisonment.
The trial took place at a high-security court in the northern German city of
Hamburg, where Motassadeq had lived.
Reports reaching here from Hamburg quoted Federal Prosecutor Walter Hemberger
as saying on Monday that Motassadeq plotted the deaths of people of many
nationalities including Germans and he deserved the toughest punishment under
German law.
However, Motassadeq, who was a close friend of the three suicide attackers in
the "9.11" terrorist attacks, insisted again that he was innocent.
"There never was a terrorist organization in Hamburg," he said.
Motassadeq was first convicted in 2003 and then in 2005 of being a member of
a terrorist group.
Early in 2006, federal appeal judges added more conviction of accessory to
the murder of 246 people on the four hijacked planes on September 11, 2001.
Motassadeq first came to Germany in 1993 and moved to Hamburg in 1995, where
he studied electrical engineering in college.
