I wonder if this has any merit:

On what had been the eve of his widely expected acquittal, the trial of the second person charged by German authorities as an accomplice of the Sept. 11 hijackers was thrown into turmoil Wednesday after prosecutors disclosed the existence of a surprise witness purporting to link Iran to the hijackings.

The mysterious witness, who goes by the name Hamid Reza Zakeri and claims to have been a longtime member of the Iranian intelligence service, is said to have told German investigators that the Sept. 11 plot represented what one termed a "joint venture" between the terrorist group Al Qaeda and the Iranian government.

Sources familiar with Zakeri's story, greeted with skepticism by some German intelligence officials, say he also implicates the defendant, a 31-year-old Moroccan and former student named Abdelghani Mzoudi, as a knowledgeable participant in the hijacking plot.

"If the story was true, the consequences would be remarkable," said one senior intelligence official, who observed that Zakeri's account comes nearly 2 1/2 years after Sept. 11, 2001, and "looks a little bit constructed."

We shall see.