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Osama’s son ‘forewarned Iran of 9/11’, says defector

BERLIN: An Iranian defector, preparing to testify in Germany’s second major September 11 trial, said on Tuesday that a son of Osama bin Laden had personally told Iranian leaders of the planned attacks on US cities in 2001.

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi rejected the accusation, saying the defector was not credible and had invented his story.

The defector, who goes by the cover name Hamid Reza Zakeri, told Reuters in a telephone interview that al Qaeda had forewarned Tehran of the attacks because it wanted Iran’s help in sheltering its leaders afterwards.

“I’m not saying that Iran had a hand in it (September 11). I’m saying that Iran knew about it,” Zakeri said.

“Iran would be the safest place for al Qaeda because it wasn’t a country where the US could directly or indirectly intervene” to seize al Qaeda leaders on the run after the planned attacks, he added.

Zakeri says he is a former intelligence official who defected in July 2001 and tried to warn the United States, through its embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, that a major attack would take place on or about September 10.

The Iranian foreign minister, asked about the defector’s assertions, told a news conference on Tuesday: “This is untrue. He has made up this information... he has made it up for fraudulent purposes. He wants to make money and his views are of no value.”

Western intelligence sources have privately voiced scepticism about Zakeri’s accusations, but German prosecutors have taken them seriously enough to call him as a key trial witness.

He is due to testify for the prosecution on Friday in the case of Abdelghani Mzoudi, a Moroccan accused of conspiring with the al Qaeda “Hamburg cell” which provided three of the September 11 suicide hijackers. Another Moroccan, Mounir El Motassadeq, was convicted in Germany on similar charges last year but will hear the outcome of his appeal on Thursday.

Speaking by mobile phone from an undisclosed location, Zakeri said he had handled security arrangements in January 2001 for a visit of about 30 al Qaeda members to Iran, led by Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Zakeri said he had previously seen Zawahiri several times since 1996 at camps used by the militant group Hizbollah in Iran. The talks took place southeast of Tehran, lasted four days and were headed on the Iranian side by a representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he said.

Four months later, in May 2001, Zakeri said he had been ordered to collect a VIP delegation arriving by army helicopter at a special base east of the Iranian capital.

This time the guest was Osama’s son Saad bin Laden, accompanied by three bodyguards. Zakeri said the visit lasted three days and included late-night talks with Khamenei, ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and three other top leaders.

Zakeri said he was not part of the discussions and not privy to details of the September 11 plot or the targets, but added: “I knew in general that there was an operation being prepared against Israel and the United States for September 10.”

He said he passed a warning to a CIA official in Baku, but “they didn’t take me seriously”.

Zakeri said he had not wanted to testify in the Mzoudi case, but had been drawn in after telling German investigators he had received information by email from someone else relating to al Qaeda activity in Germany.

He said he was under close German police protection after contacts in Iran had warned him his life was in danger.

“They said: ‘They sent the people already, and they are very close to the door.’ I know what that means. It means they are very close to kill me. But already I informed the German authorities and the German police... I’m all right, hopefully I’m safe,” he said. —Reuters

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