The US State Department on Tuesday made a last moment U-turn and agreed to hand over German authorities key evidence related to the retrial of a Moroccan suspect behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a German judge said.

German federal prosecutors received a written notification from the US State Department only minutes before the retrial of Mounir El Motassadeq began on Tuesday, Hamburg State Court Judge Ernst-Rainer Schudt said.

But the US State Department still refused to allow two suspects,who are in custody in the United States, to testify before the Hamburg State Court, Schudt said.

The evidence will help German prosecutors win the retrial of Motassadeq, charged with providing logistic support to al-Qaida cell in Hamburg.

On Monday, Motassadeq's lawyer Josef Graessle-Muenscher issued a statement, saying "we intend to file a request for all charges to be dismissed on the basis of lack of evidence."

Graessle-Muenscher said his client will also withhold all testimony in the retrial proceedings.

However, Chief Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm said he is confident of winning the retrial.

Motassadeq, 30, was studying in Hamburg where he became a friend of Mohammed Atta, who was also a foreign student in Germany and later flew one of the two hijacked planes into New York's World Trade Center in 2001.

Early last year, the Hamburg State Court sentenced Motassadeq to 15 years in prison.

But the Federal Constitutional Court, Germany's supreme court, turned down the sentence in March, ruling that Motassadeq should be retried because prosecutors failed to provide key evidence.

Source: Xinhua