US News

Germans weasel in on 9/11 trial

Fearing for the lives of the 9/11 fiends, the German government will send a team of observers to the New York terror trials to make sure evidence by its agents doesn’t lead to the death penalty.

Germany, which bans the death penalty, will have a team at the trial of admitted atrocity mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed (right) and four of his al Qaeda henchmen. The evidence gathered by German investigators could lead to death sentences.

In fact, it’s unlikely US prosecutors have any chance of convicting the 9/11 monsters without the Germans’ proof, an attorney for one of the suspects said yesterday.

A conviction “would scarcely be possible without evidence from Germany,” the lawyer, who represents Ramzi Binalshibh, told the German broadcast network Deutsche Welle. The network did not identify the lawyer.

Three of the four pilots who carried out the 9/11 attacks had formed a cell while living in Hamburg, Germany.

German investigators handed over evidence for the trial on the condition that it could not be used to support a death sentence — which the US government has said it intends to seek if the five are found guilty.

President Obama last week said that he expects Mohammed will be put to death.

But Germany’s Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger told Deutsche Welle, “In this case, we will observe very closely that the given assurances are kept.”

It’s unclear how evidence gathered in Germany could be distinguished from that gathered elsewhere.

No trial date has been set for the five terror thugs, who are to be shipped from Guantanamo Bay to New York.