US Denies Germany Access to 9/11 Defendants

[Annie]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...=/nm/20040810/ts_nm/security_germany_trial_dc

U.S. Denies German 9/11 Trial Access to Prisoners

13 minutes ago

HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - The United States will not allow German judges to question its al Qaeda prisoners in the retrial of a September 11 suspect, a Hamburg court was told on Tuesday.

In a letter to the German embassy in Washington, read out in court, U.S. authorities said they had to protect the sources and methods of their security services.

The letter said that "interactive access" to such prisoners could hamper their interrogation and lead to critical secret information, including about terrorist threats, being divulged.

 

[Annie]

Hmm, new article:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm..._re_eu/germany_sept_11_trial&cid=518&ncid=716

HAMBURG, Germany - U.S. authorities have pledged to provide evidence at the retrial of the only Sept. 11 terror suspect ever convicted, a sign of progress compared to his first trial, a judge said Tuesday.

The pledge came in a U.S. State Department letter read out as the retrial began of Mounir el Motassadeq, a 30-year-old Moroccan charged with aiding the three Hamburg-based suicide hijackers.

Replying to the Hamburg state court's request for testimony by key al-Qaida operatives in U.S. custody, the letter said it would not be possible for them to testify in person, but the United States would provide unclassified summaries, apparently of interrogations.

"This is a bit of progress," trial judge Ernst-Rainer Schudt said in court.