thursday, april 8, 2004
world
me university daily kansan
11A
WAR ON TERROR
Sept.11 suspect freed; not enough evidence
The Assoiciated Press
HAMBURG, Germany — The only Sept. 11 suspect ever convicted walked out of jail yesterday smiling and laughing, freed less than 2 1/2 years into a 15-year sentence after judges ruled the evidence was too weak to hold him pending a retrial.
Mounir el Motassadeq, whose conviction on charges of aiding the Sept. 11 plotters was overturned last month, seemed euphoric as he left the Hamburg court building with two friends and his lawyer. He said nothing but laughed as reporters peppered him with questions.
The 30-year-old Moroccan, who had been behind bars since his November 2001 arrest, headed home to his apartment in a Hamburg suburb to be reunited with his wife and two children.
Explaining their decision, the judges said evidence for the main charges against el Motassadeq more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder — was no longer "urgent" because they lack testimony from an Al Qaeda suspect in U.S. custody. El Motassadeq was ordered to stay in Hamburg and report to police twice a week.
The accessory to murder charges remain in force, along
"We don't want to see people who are involved in a conspiracy to kill our loved ones go free."
Stephen Push Founder, Families of Sept. 11
with a charge of membership in a terrorist organization. But freeing the Motassadeq was a fresh blow to Sept. 11 prosecutions after the same court acquitted his friend and fellow Moroccan Abdelghani Mzoudi, of identical charges in February.
The court's decision infuriated a spokesman for Americans whose relatives were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. Stephen Push said he remained convinced of el Motassadeq's guilt.
"We don't want to see people who are involved in a conspiracy to kill our loved ones go free," said Push, a founder of the New York-based Families of Sept. 11 group. Push's wife was aboard the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
"These people should be in prison," he said by telephone from Virginia.
In Washington, State Depart
ment deputy spokesman Adam Erell expressed disappointment over el Motassade's release.
"We believe the evidence against him is strong and we believe he is a dangerous guy," Ereli said.
El Motassadeq has acknowledged training at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and being close friends with Hamburg-based suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shhehi and Ziad Jarrah. He has denied knowing of the plot to attack the United States.
He had been held in a red-brick Hamburg prison since being convicted in February 2003 of giving logistical help to the Hamburg Al Qaeda cell.
An appeals court last month threw out el Motassadeq's conviction and ordered a retrial starting June 16. It said he was denied a fair trial because the United States would not grant his lawyers access to his friend Ramzi Binalsibh, a Yemeni captured in Pakistan and now in American custody.
Binalsibh is believed to have been the Hamburg cell's main contact with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, and defense lawyers said he might have been able to testify that el Motassadeq was not involved in the plot.
NATURAL DISASTER
Flood in Mexican town kills 34; survivors come back to ruins
The Associated Press
PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico — Skies once filled with threatening clouds cleared and the cleanup of the destruction caused by flooding that killed 34 people got under way in this town on the U.S. border.
Even as hundreds began picking up the pieces of their damaged homes and water-logged belongings, many of their neighbors were burying loved ones.
Bulldozers rumbled through the streets, and soldiers and city employees tossed debris into garbage trucks, doing their best to pick through the rubble of toppled cars, demolished buildings and smashed furniture.
Torrential rain beginning Sunday night caused the Escondido River to overflow, triggering flash flooding that damaged 600 homes, destroyed 150 others and left 2,000 people in makeshift shelters.
Electricity had been restored to a portion of Villa de Fuente, the working class neighborhood hit hardest by the floods, said Marcela Aguirre, a spokeswoman for Piedras Negras, a town of 200,000 some 150 miles southwest of San Antonio, Texas.
The federal government prom
"We made our living from that store but all that is left is the sign. But at least we all made it out alive."
Manuel Gallegos Flood survivor
Flood survivor
ised an initial allocation of more than $3 million to rebuild damaged homes and replace lost belongings. Social Development Department Josefina Vazquez announced Tuesday, after touring the area.
"Some of the houses should be relocated," Vazquez told W Radio yesterday morning. "They can't go back to constructing on the river's edge, because it is a very high-risk zone."
Officials said they hoped to complete their damage assessment by Saturday.
When 36-year-old Manuel Gallegos returned to his home Tuesday, he found the roof had been blown off and all that was left was a muddy table and chairs that had been scattered around.
family's makeshift store, which had been part of the house, was swept away.
Gallegos had shared the dwelling near the river's edge with his elderly parents and sister. The
"We made our living from that store but all that is left is the sign," Gallegos said as he pointed to a beer sign attached to a yellow post laying on the ground. "But at least we all made it out alive."
Not far away, dozens gathered in Piedras Negras public cemetery, holding flowers and weeping as Marina Esparza, a 33-year-old housewife, and her 6-year-old daughter were buried.
The two drowned after the truck their family was riding in was flipped over by the rushing current. Esparza's husband and four boys survived.
A few feet away, Raymundo de Luna buried his grandmother, 84-year-old Graciela Hernandez, his mother, Asuncion Scott, 70, and sister, 47-year-old Ofelia Scott. The three drowned after water trapped them in their home.
"My mother yelled to climb on the rooftop," de Luna said. "My nephews and I went up there and then climbed a tree, but (the three victims) weren't able to make it."
De Luna said he and his nephews clung to a tree for six hours before they were rescued by helicopter.
Iran plans to build nuclear plant soon
The Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria — Iran will start building a nuclear reactor in June that can produce weapons-grade plutonium, diplomats said yesterday. Although Tehran insists the heavy-water facility is for research, the decision heightens concern about its nuclear ambitions.
The diplomats told The Associated Press that Iran informed the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency last year of its plans to build a reactor, and Iranian officials have previously suggested the reactor was already being built.
The diplomats said construction had not yet begun and that Iranian officials announced the June start date for the first time during talks Tuesday in Tehran with Mohamed ElBaradel, director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.
One diplomat said the planned 40-megawatt reactor could produce enough plutonium for a nuclear weapon each year, an amount experts commonly say is 8.8 pounds.
With Iran open about its desire to build the facility, the diplomats said the Iranian decision to go ahead with the plan was not an overt example of Tehran backtracking on pledges to dispel suspicions it is pursuing nuclear weapons.
Still, it "sends a bad signal at a time all eyes are on Iran," one of the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
International scrutiny of Iran's nuclear program has been growing since the IAEA discovered last year that Tehran had not disclosed large-scale efforts to enrich uranium, which can be used in nuclear warheads.
Traces of weapons-grade uranium found by inspectors and evidence of suspicious experiments led to a series of critical resolutions by the IAEA's board of governors.
Iran argues that it needs the reactor to produce radioisotopes for medical research. But spent fuel rods from the planned reactor can be reprocessed to produce plutonium — also used for nuclear warheads — although the facility would be subject to IEAA inspections and other controls intended to make sure no plutonium is created.
The United States and other countries may seize on Iran's plans as further evidence that the Islamic Republic is not serious about quelling suspicions about its intentions.
"We feel strongly that there is no need for indigenous heavy water in Iran," said a Western diplomat, also speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's not necessary and highly suspicious."
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