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9/11 ACCUSED: Pilots Backed Chechnya
Tuesday, October 29, 2002
(17:39 GMT)
Reuters

The accused acknowledged on the opening day of the trial a week ago that he had attended an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan in 2000 to learn to fire Kalashnikov rifles. But he said that was to fulfil a demand of Islam to be trained in the use of weapons and not for any specific attack.

HAMBURG, Germany -- Reuters
A Moroccan charged with supporting the September 11 suicide hijackers told a German court that some alleged plotters had wanted to fight against Russians in Chechnya.

Mounir El Motassadeq, the first suspected 9/11 conspirator to stand trial, said that the men headed to Afghanistan to train, and planned to fight in Russia's breakaway republic.

The four were Mohammed Atta, Marwan Al Shehi and Ziad Jarrah, who the U.S. says were pilots for three of the 9/11 hijacked planes, and Ramzi Bin Al Shaibah, an alleged accomplice arrested in Pakistan last month.

"Atta, Al Shehi, Bin Al Shaibah and Jarrah wanted to go to Chechnya because of the massacre that the Russians were carrying out," Motassadeq told the court, divided in two by a bullet-proof glass screen.

* Islam AG
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2002 © Reuters, Ltd.

Dan