HAMBURG, Germany, Aug 18 (AFP) - A Moroccan being retried for involvement in the September 11 attacks, Mounir El Motassadeq, did not appear to be a fanatic, a witness told a German court Wednesday, changing previous testimony.
"I did not notice any remarkable change in him towards becoming fanatical," the witness, Ahmed Maglad, a 30-year-old student from Sudan, told the court in Hamburg, northern Germany.
Motassadeq became the first man convicted over the suicide hijackings in the United States in February 2003 when the Hamburg court found him guilty of 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership of a terrorist organisation.
But he was granted a new trial by a federal tribunal this March because it ruled he had been deprived of evidence that could potentially exonerate him, due to US refusal to allow the Al-Qaeda suspects in its custody to testify.
Maglad was the first witness called to the stand during the first trial and at the time had described Motassadeq as "blatantly Islamist".
On Tuesday, another witness, Shahid Nickels, repeated his first-trial allegations that Motassadeq belonged to the "close circle" of Muslim men around the Hamburg-based ringleader of the hijackers, Mohammed Atta.
Nickels said Motassadeq, 30, held "fifth place" in the hierarchy of the so-called Hamburg cell which produced three of the 19 hijackers.
Motassadeq has always denied the charges. He has said he had no knowledge of any terror plans and that his friendship with the hijackers was coincidental.