9/11 investigator testifies in German trial

HAMBURG, Germany – Lead Sept. 11 pilot Mohamed Atta may have been involved in the plot to attack the United States earlier than is widely believed, a U.S. investigator who helped write the 9/11 Commission Report said Tuesday at the retrial of a Moroccan accused of aiding the hijackers.

The testimony by Dietrich Snell could bolster prosecutors’ contention that suicide hijackers Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah and their alleged accomplice Ramzi Binalshibh formed a terrorist organization in Germany before going to Afghanistan in 1999 to train at one of Osama bin Laden’s camps.

Mounir el Motassadeq, 30, is accused of providing logistical support to the group. He risks 15 years in prison on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization.

Snell, a New York prosecutor who led the team of investigators behind the U.S. Sept. 11 commission’s report to Congress last year, said he had no hard evidence to back up his suspicion.

“In the report, we did point out the possibility, due to the lack of evidence of the whereabouts of Mohamed Atta, that he may have traveled to Afghanistan previously,” Snell told the panel.