Terror team
May 3, 2011
For years, a small group of Islamists in the northern German city of Hamburg prepared for the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States that killed more than 3,000 people. Some had met while studying at a polytechnic and a technical university in Hamburg.
The members of the group
Mohamed Atta was from Egypt and arrived in Hamburg in 1992 to study city planning at the technical university.
Marwan al-Shehhi was from the United Arab Emirates and studied shipbuilding. He came to know Atta in a language course.
Ziad Jarrah from Lebanon studied aircraft building at the polytechnic university, where Zakariya Essabar was also studying. Essabar lived temporarily with Atta and Yemeni Ramzi Binalshibh.
German Moroccan Said Bahaji and the Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq studied electrical engineering in the city, where they got to know Atta.
Stirred to holy war
The students frequently visited Hamburg's Al Quds Mosque where many radicalized Islamists would meet, among others the well-known preacher Mohammed El Fazazi who repeatedly called for holy jihad against the "infidels" and democracy.
The meeting place of the group was at Atta's apartment in the Hamburg district of Eissendorf, where he lived for some time with Essabar, Binalshibh and Bahaji.
Here, plans were forged to kill as many people as possible in their coordinated attacks on the United States. Some of the group visited al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
Firm plan of attack
There, the plans for the attack really began to take shape and Atta, al-Shehhi and Jarrah visited the USA in 2001 to gain American pilot licenses. Essabar, who wanted to join them, was unable to attain a visa.
It was Atta and al-Shehhi who flew the planes into each of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Ziad Jarrah was involved in the hijacking of the United Airlines aircraft that crashed in Pennsylvania after some passengers on the plane fought back.
Essabar, Bahaji and Binalshibh disappeared shortly before the attacks but Binalshibh was arrested in 2002 in Pakistan and extradited to the United States. After being held for several years in an undisclosed location, he was transferred to the US detention facility at Guantanamo, where he will this year appear before a special military court. Essabar and Bahaji are still on the run.
El Motassadeq on trial
El Motassadeq was arrested shortly after the attacks and appeared in court several times in Germany. In the first trial to take place in February 2003, he appeared before the Hamburg Higher Regional Court, accused of being an accessory to murder in more than 3,000 cases and as member of a terrorist organization. Found guilty, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The verdict was overturned by the Federal Court of Justice on grounds of a lack of evidence.
Statements from the fugitive Bahaji and the jailed Binalshibh exonerated Motassadeq. He did not belong to the inner core of the group and had nothing to do with the attacks, they said. In a review of the trial in 2007, the judge refused to believe this and Motassadeq was again sentenced to 15 years in prison.
German shock
The discovery of the Hamburg cell proved shocking to many Germans, in particular the presence of Islamic jihadists in their country and that they had lived inconspicuously as "sleepers" for so long.
With time, it also became known that the security services had some members the group in their sights even before the September 11 attacks, without ever knowing the true level of danger they posed.
Author: Rachel Gessat / rc
Editor: Martin Kuebler