Prosecutors sum up case

German prosecutors demanded the maximum jail term of 15 years yesterday for a Moroccan man accused of backing the September 11 attacks in the first trial anywhere of an alleged plotter.

Mounir El Motassadeq is charged with being an accessory to 3,045 murders in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001 and of belonging to the Hamburg-based al Qaeda cell said to have led the suicide assault.

Prosecutors summed up their case in four-and-a-half hours yesterday, saying the 28-year-old Moroccan student was aware of the hijackers' plans and provided logistical back-up, including money transfers, from Germany.

The defence will sum up its case next Wednesday. The judges are expected to deliver their verdict and possible sentence a week later.