Sept. 11 Conviction
November 16, 2006
In a previous verdict from a lower court in Hamburg, judges had convicted Mounir El Motassadeq, a Moroccan living in Germany, of membership of a terrorist organization but not of accessory to murder.
But on Thursday, presiding judge Klaus Tolksdorf overturned decided that Motassadeq was guilty of the more serious charge.
The case will now go back to Hamburg for a sentencing review which could see the jail term more than double from seven years to 15.
Motassadeq was freed on bond last February pending the appeal and has been at large ever since. But prosecutors say they may now seek his immediate imprisonment.
Harsher sentence
Motassadeq was given a seven-year prison sentence for the lesser charge of membership of a terrorist organization.
Federal prosecutors appealed that verdict, saying it was too lenient.
The decision on Thursday represents a stiffer penalty for the 32-year-old father of two children who knew a number of the September 11 attackers, including the supposed leader of the suicide cell Mohammed Atta, while they were students together in Hamburg.
Tolksdorf said the new trial should decide "the appropriate sentence for the act and his guilt" but would not examine any fresh evidence or hear new witnesses.
A long legal battle
The verdict is the latest step in a marathon legal process.
At his first trial, he was sentenced to 15 years in jail in 2003 for abetting the murder of more than 3,000 people in the suicide hijackings on New York and Washington and for belonging to a terrorist organisation.
That verdict made him the first person to be convicted for playing a role in the attacks, but it was overturned by federal judges in March 2004 on the grounds that US authorities had refused to allow the court to question top Al-Qaeda suspects being held in US custody.
In his retrial, the court found there was no evidence to show that Motassadeq had been directly involved in the September 11 attacks.
But he was found to have handled bank transfers for members of the cell while they were pursuing flight training in the United States and to have helped cover up their whereabouts.