German officials frustrated by legal wins of al-Qaeda suspects

As the US continues to keep suspected al-Qaeda members in legal limbo at its Guantanamo Bay detention centre, recent efforts to jail alleged Islamists in Germany by more conventional methods have failed spectacularly.

This month, a German appeals court overturned the only conviction made in connection with the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. It was the latest in a series of setbacks for German authorities trying to prosecute individuals thought to have al-Qaeda ties.

Germany has been a focal point in the global campaign against the group since investigators determined several of those involved in the attacks on New York and Washington lived in the northern German city of Hamburg.

Mounir el Motassadeq, 29, a Moroccan suspected of aiding members of the Hamburg terror cell, was sentenced in February last year to 15 years in prison for being an accessory to commit 3,066 murders and a member of a terrorist organisation.

But on March 4, Germany's Federal Court of Justice granted Motassadeq a retrial after a panel of judges ruled key evidence might have been withheld.

'It was really less Germany's fault and more the reluctance of US authorities to share evidence that botched things,' said Michael Byers, an international law expert at Duke University.