Encounter on a Train Led Hamburg Cell to Bin Laden

The U.S. government has refused in the past to allow access to Binalshibh, citing national security concerns. U.S. officials have provided summaries of his statements to German intelligence agencies, but only on condition that they not be used in the courtroom.

German legal experts said the court will be hard-pressed to accept the argument that the interrogation reports cannot be included in the trial, given that they have already been made public in great detail by the Sept. 11 commission.

"It's simple and easy," said Ulrich von Jeinsen, a German lawyer representing families of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. "If the U.S. doesn't cooperate and this information remains classified, then Motassadeq will go free. It is a very critical situation."

There are signs that German authorities are bracing for a defeat. Last month, officials in Hamburg filed papers seeking the deportation of Motassadeq and another Moroccan defendant scheduled for trial later this year. The officials said they acted out of concern that the men could remain in the country if acquitted.

Kay Nehm, Germany's chief federal prosecutor, visited Washington in April in an attempt to persuade Justice Department officials to provide more access to captured al Qaeda suspects for the trial. He said the response was not encouraging.

"I met with a great deal of understanding," he said in a statement last month. "But they gave me to understand that there were restrictions which went way beyond the authority of the people I was talking to." A spokeswoman for Nehm's office called the lack of information from the United States "a black hole," but said prosecutors were still hoping for a breakthrough.

If Motassadeq is found not guilty, legal experts said, the German government will likely drop its case against another alleged member of the Hamburg cell, Abdelghani Mzoudi. He was acquitted in February on similar charges, but prosecutors have appealed.

While the Sept. 11 commission presented the most detailed account yet of how the Hamburg cell formed and allied itself with al Qaeda, much remains unclear.

For instance, German and U.S. investigators had initially placed great emphasis on the role played by Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a 300-pound auto mechanic known as a leading Islamic radical in Hamburg who had fought in Afghanistan and favored violent jihad. Investigators said he inspired formation of the Hamburg cell and provided a link to the al Qaeda leadership.

But according to the Sept. 11 commission, it was another man who pushed the Hamburg crew in al Qaeda's direction: a Mauritanian businessman named Mohamedou Ould Slahi.

Citing statements given by Binalshibh, the commission reported that Masri, the mystery man on the German train, urged the Hamburg radicals to contact Slahi when they expressed interest in finding a way to join Islamic fighters who were resisting Russian forces in the breakaway region of Chechnya.

They did, and Slahi invited them to visit him in the German city of Duisburg, where he was running an import-export business.

According to the commission, Slahi advised the men that it was difficult to slip across the border into Chechnya. He encouraged them instead to go to Afghanistan. He assisted with their travel plans and arranged for them to meet operatives for al Qaeda in Pakistan, who in turn arranged a private meeting between Binalshibh and bin Laden in December 1999.

The trip to meet bin Laden prompted the Hamburg contingent to swear allegiance to al Qaeda. It also resulted in an immediate assignment: to lead and plan the Sept. 11 hijackings in the United States.

Slahi was well known to U.S. and German intelligence agencies as an al Qaeda follower, but neither government was aware that he was living in Germany, according to the commission. He was later identified by U.S. investigators as having aided in the creation of a cell in Canada that was to carry out the plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport during the 2000 millennium celebrations, which was ultimately foiled.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Slahi was arrested in West Africa. He disappeared after that and is now reportedly in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Hamburg court has asked the Justice Department for more information about Slahi in preparation for the upcoming trial. The Sept. 11 commission's report did not cite any statements made by Slahi.

There are other suspected members of the Hamburg cell who could provide insight into the operations of the group but who remain at large.

Zakariya Essabar, an Islamic extremist from Morocco who was close to the cell leaders, left Hamburg for Pakistan on Aug. 30, 2001, so he could notify the al Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan that the U.S. hijackings were imminent, according to the commission. German authorities have a warrant for his arrest, but his whereabouts are unknown.

Said Bahaji, a German citizen of Moroccan ancestry, shared an apartment with two members of the cell in Hamburg. He also left Germany shortly before the attacks, flying to Pakistan on Sept. 3, 2001. He is also wanted as a fugitive in Germany. Letters and e-mails that Bahaji recently sent to relatives in Germany have been traced to Pakistan by German law enforcement officials.

Special correspondent Shannon Smiley contributed to this report.