Moroccan indicted in 9/11 attacks

MADRID, Spain — A Moroccan fugitive sought in connection with the March 11 train bombings in Madrid was indicted Wednesday on charges of helping to plan the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States — the first suspect linked to both attacks.

Amer Azizi, 36, helped organize a meeting in northeast Spain in July 2001 that key plotters in the U.S. attacks, including suicide pilot Mohamed Atta, used to finalize details, Judge Baltasar Garzon said in the indictment.

Azizi also was included in an indictment Garzon handed up last September against al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and 34 other terror suspects. Azizi was charged then with belonging to a terrorist organization. Bin Laden and nine others were charged with planning the Sept. 11 attacks.

In the new indictment, Azizi is charged with multiple counts of murder — "as many deaths and injuries as were committed" on Sept. 11, 2001 — for helping to plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Azizi provided lodging for people who attended the July 2001 meeting in the Tarragona region of Spain and acted as a courier, passing on messages between plotters, Garzon said in the indictment.

According to a U.S. congressional investigation, Atta flew to Madrid in July 2001, where authorities believe he met with co-conspirator Ramzi Binalshibh to discuss the plot. Binalshibh, who provided money to many of the hijackers, is now in U.S. custody at an undisclosed overseas location. The U.S. investigation did not mention the presence of any other conspirators in Spain.

Wednesday's indictment described Azizi as the right-hand man of Imad Yarkas, jailed in November 2001 on charges of leading a Spain-based al-Qaida cell that allegedly provided financing and logistics for people who planned the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Garzon said the new indictment is based on information provided by authorities in Britain, Turkey and the United States.

Azizi had a "direct connection with al-Qaida leaders in Afghanistan who were responsible for the attacks," Garzon charged.

In a separate order Wednesday, Garzon said he had identified a person previously known as Shakur, who was indicted last year along with bin Laden on charges of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks. Garzon said new police information showed Shakur was Fakid Hilali, a 35-year-old Moroccan detained in Britain since last September for immigration problems. He called for his extradition.