Why all the criticism of the German court's decision to release Mounir el Motassadeq on bail? Many of the articles we've seen make it sound like he was convicted of participating in the 9/11 attacks, sentenced to 15 years and released after 2 1/2--when, if you read the small print, he was convicted of participating in the 9/11 attacks, sentenced to fifteen years, and then his conviction was overturned because the U.S. denied access to a potentially exculpatory witness. If his conviction was overturned, it's like it never happened. The 15 year sentence is void, as if it was never imposed. Now he stands charged with, but not convicted of accessory to commit murder,so the Court released him on bail pending trial, with orders to stay in Hamburg and report to the police department twice a week. That's appropriate.

An appeals court last month threw out el Motassadeq's conviction and ordered a retrial starting June 16, saying he was denied a fair trial because the U.S. government refused access to his friend Ramzi Binalshibh - a Yemeni captured in Pakistan on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

....El Motassadeq, 30, has acknowledged training at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan and being close friends with Hamburg-based suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah. But he has denied knowing of the plot to attack the United States....[Prosecutors] say the former electrical engineering student used his power of attorney over al-Shehhi's bank account to pay rent, tuition and utility bills, allowing the plotters to keep up the appearance of being normal students in Germany. He also signed Atta's will. El Motassadeq explained both as things he simply did for friends.

Sounds to us like a defensible case. We agree with his lawyer that the U.S. should open its files and allow the defense access to the witnesses and related reports.