9/11 helper to be released, deported from Germany
August 10, 2018
Mounir el-Motassadeq, currently serving a 15-year sentence for membership in a terror organization and accessory to murder, will be released from prison in the northern city of Hamburg in mid-October instead of November in order to facilitate his immediate deportation to Morocco, authorities said on Thursday.
Read more: Morocco: A risky migration partner for the EU
"This measure will allow us to arrest him immediately should he set foot on German soil again," Frauke Köhler, a spokesperson from the Federal Prosecutors Office, told DW.
El-Motassadeq, 44, was arrested in Germany shortly after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States and convicted after a multi-year legal process.
The Moroccan Justice and Foreign ministries did not respond to DW's request for comment on what steps, if any, they would take when el-Motassadeq arrives in Morocco.
Read more: German cabinet declares Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria 'safe'
While not questioning the legal basis for el-Motassadeq's deportation, Abdul Rahim Manar al-Sulaimi, the director of the Atlantic Center for Strategic Studies and Security Analysis in Rabat, told DW that the move could be problematic because Germany may not provide all relevant security intelligence to Moroccan authorities.
cw/sms (AP, dpa)