Terror-cell Suspect Visited Dutch City Often

Terror-cell Suspect Visited Dutch City Often

Germans track money from Saudi Arabia

The Baltimore Sun
September 2, 2002

A member of the Hamburg terrorist cell that planned the Sept. 11 terror attacks visited this southern Dutch town a number of times before the attacks, said German and Dutch authorities.

The Dutch secret service also confirmed yesterday that German authorities were investigating the trail of money that flowed through here from Saudi Arabia to finance possible terrorism operations.

A spokesman in the German federal prosecutor's office declined to comment, and it is not clear whether a link has been established between the suspected Hamburg cell member, Mounir el-Motassadeq, who is on trial in Germany, and the Saudi money.

But the investigation underscores concern that charities based in Saudi Arabia, where 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers originated, have provided financing for international terrorism.

Vincent van Steen, a spokesman for the Dutch secret service, said Motassadeq, who is being tried on mass murder charges related to Sept. 11, visited Eindhoven in 1999 for a religious gathering, possibly with others from the Hamburg cell.

Germany's top prosecutor, Kay Nehm, has said Motassadeq, a Moroccan who is accused of providing logistical support for Mohamed Atta and others in the Hamburg cell, embraced fundamentalism after visits to the Netherlands.

Newspaper reports also have indicated that another of the Sept. 11 pilots, Marwan el-Shehhi, took a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Miami on May 2, 2001, after spending two weeks in the Netherlands.

According to the Eindhovens Dagblad, a local newspaper, which referred to an unnamed intelligence source working with information from American investigators, Motassadeq received cash from an Eindhoven mosque that had been diverted from funds provided by "Saudi financiers."

Motassadeq reportedly withdrew the money from a bank account that had been set up to finance a new mosque in town. He then returned to Hamburg with the money, which he used to help pay for flying lessons for some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, the newspaper said.

Van Steen said the secret service had no evidence confirming the report.

The secret service has been conducting a more general investigation into Saudi charities since the late 1990s. According to van Steen, it has been investigating whether charities have helped recruit warriors for Islamic terror missions. "It may be possible for radicals to infiltrate these organizations and use the channels in ways we do not want," he said.

Dutch authorities say recent arrests in Eindhoven and other cities resulted from investigations of recruitment activities, forgery and financing for terrorist operations.

Meanwhile, authorities in Yemen and Pakistan held more people suspected of terrorism. In San'a, Yemen, authorities questioned three al-Qaida suspects who were detained after a firefight that killed two alleged members of the terror network, an official said yesterday.

Two Yemeni soldiers and a woman were wounded in the gunfire late Friday, which erupted when security forces stormed a one-story house in the suburb of Rawdah.

In Karachi, Pakistan, police arrested two suspected members of an Islamic extremist group early yesterday amid a crackdown on a domestic terrorist organization accused of bombing the U.S. Consulate and being involved in other attacks.

The men, suspected members of Harkat ul-Mujahedeen Al-Almi, were arrested in separate raids, provincial Police Chief Syed Kamal Shah said.

Police arrested three people belonging to the group Friday, accusing them of plotting suicide attacks against Pakistani politicians and foreign diplomats. Five others were taken into custody in pre-dawn raids Thursday and seven others were arrested Wednesday.

In addition to the June car bombing of the U.S. Consulate, Al-Almi has been blamed for a suicide car bomb in May that killed 11 French engineers and three Pakistanis, including the bomber, and aborted plots to attack U.S.-based restaurants McDonald's and KFC in the city.

They also are accused of plotting to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf when he visited the city in April.

Also, in Oslo, Norway, the leader of a Kurdish extremist group with suspected ties to al-Qaida is willing to talk to U.S. investigators, his lawyer said in a letter to the U.S. Embassy.

Lawyer Arvid Sjoedin said in the letter sent Friday that his client Mullah Najm al-Din Faraj Ahmad, who is being detained in the Netherlands, wants the talks to be held in Norway, where he was given refugee status in 1991.

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