Germany Urges U.S. to Drop Death Penalty Prosecution

    Germany's interior minister, Otto Schily, urged the U.S. to drop its plans to seek the death penalty against Zacarias Moussaoui, who has been charged with involvement in the September 11 terror attacks.  Germany has refused to turn over its intellingence files on Moussaoui, a French citizen, as long as the U.S. insists on pursuing the death penalty in the case. Oct. 26, 2002.

Germany Urges U.S. to Drop Death Penalty Plan

By PHILIP SHENON

ASHINGTON, Oct. 25 � Germany's interior minister urged the Bush administration today to drop its plans to seek the death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in an American court with involvement in the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

 The minister, Otto Schily, suggested that the move might be the only way to end the dispute over Germany's failure to provide the United States with its intelligence files on the terror suspect.

Mr. Schily, who oversees Germany's domestic security agencies, said his government maintained a "whole file" on Mr. Moussaoui, a 34-year-old French citizen.

 But in a gathering with reporters after meetings here this week with his counterparts at the F.B.I. and C.I.A., Mr. Schily said German law barred the release of the intelligence files to the United States if American prosecutors continued to press for Mr. Moussaoui's execution.

 "The principle is we can't provide information which would lead to the death penalty," Mr. Schily said. "We have to stick to our Constitution. You have to stick to your laws."

 He added: "The best solution would be if American authorities would say, O.K., we are not sentencing him to death. But we don't know if that is possible." He said Germany had received a formal request from the United States several months ago for the intelligence information and had not yet issued a formal reply.

 He suggested that the two governments might still be able to reach an agreement on sharing the German intelligence evidence before Mr. Moussaoui's trial, which is scheduled to begin in June, but he did not explain how that could be done. "Wait and see," he said. "We have got time."

 A Justice Department spokesman, Brian Sierra, said the department had no immediate comment on Mr. Schily's remarks. "We say what we say in court," Mr. Sierra said.

 Mr. Schily, who noted that he was personally opposed to the death penalty, would not offer details of the information contained in the German intelligence files on Mr. Moussaoui, but other German and American officials suggested that the information was extensive.

 Mr. Moussaoui is accused of telephone contacts last year with the terrorist cell in Hamburg, Germany, that carried out the attacks, and of receiving $14,000 in wire transfers in the months before the attacks from a Hamburg-based ringleader of the plot.

 Mr. Moussaoui was arrested in August in Minnesota after arousing the suspicion of his instructors at a flight school. His trial is to take place in Alexandria, Va., outside Washington.

 Intelligence-sharing in criminal cases involving the death penalty has long been an issue between the United States and its Western European allies. France has also suggested that it will not share evidence with American prosecutors pursuing the Moussaoui case, citing the Justice Department's plans to seek the death penalty.

 The dispute with Germany over the files comes at an awkward time in the larger relationship between Washington and Berlin, with senior Bush administration officials still angry over the campaign tactics of Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der, who won re-election last month in part by campaigning on his opposition to an American-led war against Iraq.

 Mr. Schily insisted that whatever the tension between the two nations, there was close and improving cooperation on law-enforcement issues and in combating terrorism. "The Moussaoui case is a problem," he said. "but if you look at the whole system of cooperation, it's an excellent cooperation � in all dimensions."