Question: How many years of prison was Mounir el-Motassadeq sentenced to for the September 11 hijacking?
About the article "September 11 attacks", section "Other al-Qaeda members".

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Mounir el-Motassadeq (Arabic: منير المتصدق; born April 3, 1974) was accused of being a member of al-Qaeda and of assisting some of the organizers of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
He was initially convicted of involvement in the attack, but his sentence was set aside on appeal, then reinstated on further appeal.
On January 8, 2007 he was sentenced to serve 15 years by the German court.
Motassadeq first came to Germany in 1993 and moved to Hamburg in 1995, where he studied electrical engineering in college.
Little is known of his activities at this time, but he did move into the Hamburg cell apartment owned by Mohamed Atta and lived in by many other people who would later go on to lead the September 11, 2001 attacks.
On May 22, 2000, Motassadeq flew to Istanbul, and from there to Afghanistan.
He soon returned.
When the four 9/11 leaders went from Germany to Afghanistan to train, Motassadeq remained in Germany.
German police were able to wiretap Motassadeq, but apparently did not discover any incriminating information.
He maintains his innocence.
""There never was a terrorist organization in Hamburg,"" he said.
At Motassadeq's trial, Aysel Sengün, the girlfriend of one of the hijackers, Ziad Jarrah, was called to testify her relationship with Jarrah and his role in the plot.
Motassadeq maintained he did not know and the trial never established that Motassadeq had advanced knowledge of the details of the attacks.
Nevertheless, he had assisted their plot by paying their tuition and rent to keep up their appearance of being students.
He is said to be friend of hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah and "a member of their "prayer group"".
In February 2003, he was convicted in Germany of 3,066 counts of accessory to murder.
He was convicted in direct relation to the September 11 attacks, but the conviction was rejected on appeal.
Though the German Justice Ministry pressed the United States to allow Ramzi bin al-Shibh to testify, the U.S. refused, and the verdict and sentence were set aside.
Motassadeq was re-tried and convicted on August 19, 2005 of "membership in a "terrorist organization".
That conviction was also rejected in appeal.
On February 7, 2006, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court ordered an early release of Motassadeq.
The highest court of Germany ruled there was an absence of proof that Motassadeq was informed about the September 11 terrorist plot.
On November 15, 2006, the German Federal Court of Justice ruled on the appeals: They considered the evidence as sufficient to prove that Motassadeq knew about and was involved in the preparation of the plan to hijack the planes and is hence guilty of accessory in 246 counts of murder.
This is the number of victims that died in the planes but does not include the victims on ground.
The "Oberlandesgericht" (state high court) in Hamburg then took up the trial again in order to decide on the sentencing.
Two days later, the Federal Court of Justice also revoked the release order and Motassadeq was arrested again.
On January 8, 2007, he was sentenced by the "Oberlandesgericht" Hamburg to 15 years in prison.
The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany did not accept to revise his case.
On May 2, the German Federal Court of Justice rejected a plea for revision.
His lawyers are currently thinking about both calling upon the European Court of Human Rights and trying to get the case reopened – his two ultimate legal choices left.
Ahmad Wali Siddiqui whose interrogation triggered a 2010 terror alert was a friend of Motassadeq since 1997 who also patronized the mosque attended by many other Hamburg-based 9/11 plotters.
The al-Quds or Taiba mosque was closed down by officials in August 2010 because it became an attraction for Muslim extremists. 
Mounir El Motassadeq, a Moroccan living in Germany who belonged to the Hamburg cell apartment owned by Mohamed Atta and lived in by many other people who would later go on to lead the September 11, 2001 attacks, in February 2003 was convicted in Germany of over 3,000 counts of accessory to murder in direct relation to the September 11 attacks, but the conviction was rejected on appeal.
Though the German Justice Ministry pressed the United States to allow Ramzi bin al-Shibh to testify, the US refused, and the verdict and sentence were set aside.
Motassadeq was re-tried and convicted on August 19, 2005 of "membership in a "terrorist organization".
That conviction was also rejected in appeal.
[http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nL19618150],[http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2005/08/19/Moroccan_convicted050819.html],[http://www.suntimes.com/output/terror/cst-nws-cell20.html],[http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,1552975,00.html]On February 7, 2006, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court ordered an early release of Motassadeq.
The highest court of Germany ruled there was an absence of proof that Motassadeq was informed about the September 11 terrorist plot.
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4690712.stm]On November 15, 2006, the German Federal Supreme Court ruled on the appeals: They considered the evidence as sufficient to prove that Motassadeq knew about and was involved in the preparation of the plan to hijack the planes and is hence guilty of accessory in 246 counts of murder.
This is the number of victims that died in the planes but does not include the victims on ground.
The "Oberlandesgericht" (state supreme court) in Hamburg then took up the trial again in order to decide on the sentencing.
Two days later, the Federal Supreme Court also revoked the release order and Motassadeq was arrested again.
On January 8, 2007, he was sentenced by the "Oberlandesgericht" Hamburg to 15 years in prison, the maximum sentence possible under German law.
The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany did not accept to revise his case.
On May 2 the Federal Court of Justice of Germany rejected a plea for revision.
His lawyers are currently thinking about both calling upon the European Court of Human Rights and trying to get the case reopened - his two ultimate legal choices left.
[http://de.wikinews.org/wiki/Revision_im_El-Motassadeq-Prozess_abgewiesen 
In "Substitution for Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed" from the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, five people are identified as having been completely aware of the operation's details.
They are bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Abu Turab al-Urduni and Mohammed Atef.
To date, only peripheral figures have been tried or convicted for the attacks.
On September 26, 2005, the Spanish high court sentenced Abu Dahdah to 27 years in prison for conspiracy on the 9/11 attacks and being a member of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda.
At the same time, another 17 al-Qaeda members were sentenced to penalties of between six and eleven years.
On February 16, 2006, the Spanish Supreme Court reduced the Abu Dahdah penalty to 12 years because it considered that his participation in the conspiracy was not proven.
Also in 2006, Moussaoui, who some originally suspected might have been the assigned 20th hijacker, was convicted for the lesser role of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism and air piracy.
He is serving a life sentence without parole.
Mounir el-Motassadeq, an associate of the Hamburg-based hijackers, is serving 15 years for his role in helping the hijackers prepare for the attacks.
The Hamburg cell in Germany included radical Islamists who eventually came to be key operatives in the 9/11 attacks.
Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Said Bahaji were all members of al-Qaeda's Hamburg cell.
Following al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, terrorist attack against the United States, Germans were surprised to learn that the mastermind of the strike and several accomplices previously had been living in Hamburg.
Since then, Germany has been a reliable partner in the United States-led War on Terrorism, according to the U.S. Department of State.
German courts have a very high standard of proof, which has made it difficult for authorities to convict or deport terrorist suspects.
In February 2003, a Hamburg court convicted Mounir el Motassadeq of aiding and abetting the conspiracy and sentenced him to the maximum available term of 15 years.
However, in March 2004, the German supreme court overturned this conviction, which was the first in the world related to the 9/11 incident, for lack of evidence and remanded the case for retrial.
Finally, in August 2005, a Hamburg court re-convicted el Motassadeq and sentenced him to a seven-year prison term.
In another case, years of procedural maneuvers were required before the German judicial system finally succeeded in October 2004 in deporting an Islamic extremist, the so-called “Caliph of Cologne,” to Turkey.
In yet another case, in July 2005 a Syrian-German terrorist suspect was released from custody after the German supreme court ruled that he could not be extradited to Spain under a European Union arrest warrant because this step would violate Germany’s Basic Law.
In August 2006, the German government disclosed a botched plot to bomb two German trains.
The attack was to occur in July 2006 and involved a 21-year-old Lebanese man, identified only as Youssef Mohammed E. H. Prosecutors said Youssef and another man left suitcases stuffed with crude propane-gas bombs on the trains.
The explosives failed to detonate because of a "technical defect," according to the German federal prosecutor.
If they had, the police said, a "high number" of passengers would have been killed.
Prosecutors said it was likely the would-be bombers were not acting alone and may have been motivated by anger over the war in Lebanon, in which the German government has agreed to play a limited, peacekeeping role.
Prosecutors also said Lebanon’s military intelligence agency had offered German authorities "decisive" information that led to Yousef's arrest.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/21/world/europe/21cnd-germany.html?ref=world] 
The Hamburg cell () or Hamburg terror cell () was, according to U.S. and German intelligence agencies, a group of radical Islamists based in Hamburg, Germany that included students who eventually came to be key operatives in the 9/11 attacks.
Important members included Mohamed Atta, who led the four hijacking teams in 2001 and piloted American Airlines Flight 11; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who conspired with the other three members but was unable to enter the United States; and Marwan al-Shehhi, who piloted United Airlines Flight 175.
Less important members included Said Bahaji, Zakariya Essabar, Mounir el-Motassadeq, and Abdelghani Mzoudi.
Ziad Jarrah, who piloted United Airlines Flight 93, and failed to hit an unknown target in Washington D.C. is also listed in the Hamburg cell.