BERLIN, Nov. 19 -- The U.S. Justice Department has refused to allow two prime terrorism suspects, including one held by American authorities at a secret location, to testify in the trial of an alleged member of the Hamburg cell that led last year's Sept. 11 attacks, a court in Hamburg said today.
"Ramzi Binalshibh and Zacarias Moussaoui are unavailable" was the only explanation offered about the two sought-after witnesses in a Nov. 15 letter to the Hamburg court from the Justice Department.
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The court announced the U.S. decision today without comment. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Washington Post.
Defense attorneys for Mounir Motassadeq, a 28-year-old Moroccan facing more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder for his alleged supporting role in the attacks, had requested Binalshibh's testimony. Separately, the court had requested the appearance of Moussaoui, who has come to be known as the "20th hijacker" and who is facing capital charges in federal court in Virginia for complicity in the attacks.
Binalshibh, a Yemeni captured in Pakistan on the first anniversary of the attacks and later whisked out of that country by the CIA, allegedly became a key backroom organizer for the Hamburg group after being repeatedly refused a visa to enter the United States. The refusals foiled his ambition to pilot a plane on Sept. 11, 2001, according to U.S. and German officials.
U.S. officials, sources said, want to squeeze every possible piece of information from Binalshibh before he is brought before any proceeding -- possibly his own trial before a military tribunal. Moussaoui, who is acting as his own attorney, has also requested that he be allowed to question Binalshibh in Virginia.
The German government, which first issued an international arrest warrant for Binalshibh, dropped its request that he be returned to Germany after his arrest in Karachi. Officials here are unlikely to be ruffled by the U.S. decision, as German intelligence sources said they are being informed by their American counterparts about what Binalshibh is saying under interrogation.
"We are fully briefed on Binalshibh," said a senior German intelligence official, stressing that there is solid and continuing cooperation between American and German federal agencies. U.S. and German officials said Binalshibh is providing useful information but also is prone to overstate his own importance in al Qaeda.
Motassadeq's attorneys immediately criticized the U.S. decision on Binalshibh's testimony as a blow to their client's right to a fair trial.
"This rejection shows that the U.S.A. is refusing to investigate the truth," said Hans Leistritz, one of Motassadeq's attorneys. "That is a hindrance to the trial. Binalshibh can prove, with his testimony, that . . . our client had nothing to do with this planning."
The attorneys had requested the appearance of Binalshibh to support the defense argument that Motassadeq, a veteran of an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan who moved in the same circles as the Hamburg-based hijackers, was nonetheless unaware that his acquaintances were planning strikes against the United States.
Motassadeq's attorneys have also requested the appearance of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and Mouhamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian and former resident of Duisberg, Germany, who is also believed to be in secret U.S. custody after being turned over to American officials by the Mauritanian government, sources said.
Washington has not responded to those requests, Motassadeq's lawyers said.
Slahi, also a veteran of al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, is related through marriage to Mahfouz Ould Walid, also known as Abu Hafs the Mauritanian, who is at large and believed to have assumed a more significant role within al Qaeda since Sept. 11, 2001, according to Arab intelligence sources.
The Justice Department in its letter did offer the testimony of Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian convicted of planning to bomb Los Angeles International Airport during millennium celebrations.
"The United States Department of Justice will allow the Hamburg court . . . to come to the United States to take the testimony of Ahmed Ressam," read the letter.
It is unclear what Ressam, who was already in U.S. custody when the Hamburg group was first in Afghanistan in early 2000, can say that is relevant to the trial of Motassadeq.
Ressam has admitted to undergoing terrorist training in Afghanistan, including training in chemical warfare, but U.S. officials have said they believe he is not a sworn member of al Qaeda.
Canadian and U.S. officials suspect that Slahi may have authorized Ressam to undertake millennium celebration attacks and that he later went on to play some role in the Sept. 11 hijackings.
Special correspondent Souad Mekhennet in Hamburg contributed to this report.
