Mzoudi Likely To Be Deported If Acquitted

Likely to leave court as a free man on Thursday after an unidentified government source testified he was not part of the group planning the attacks, Mzoudi might soon find himself on a plane heading to northern Africa. “There’s no place in Germany for terrorists like him,” Hamburg’s Interior Minister Dirk Nockemann, the city state’s top security official, told German newsmagazine Der Spiegel.

National security experts for the federal government have also been calling for Mzoudi’s deportation, according to the weekly journal: They’re convinced that the 31-year-old at least belonged to the terrorist cell’s outer circle and list as proof his 2000 trip to an al Qaeda terrorist training camp in Afghanistan.

Trying to stay in Germany

Mzoudi has been trying to remain in Germany and finish his studies at university, fearing he might be arrested in Morocco or face extradition to the U.S. According to Der Spiegel, he has applied for a new residence permit as his old one expired during his time in jail. A plan to apply for asylum has been dropped by his lawyers, the magazine reported.

On Dec. 11, Mzoudi was released from custody based on the testimony of an anonymous witness, believed by some to be Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the masterminds behind the attacks, who is now in U.S. detention.

The Hamburg court is expected to announce its decision on Thursday. Mzoudi’s lawyers have called for his acquittal, arguing that their defendant didn’t know anything about plans for the Sept. 11 attacks by the Hamburg cell around Mohammed Atta, who flew one of the planes into the World Trade Center.

Federal prosecutors on the other hand are asking the court to sentence Mzoudi to 15 years in prison for membership in a terrorist organization and abetting more than 3,000 cases of murder.