Cooperativeresearch - In September 2000, Luai Sakra enters Germany seeking asylum, using the name “Louia Sakka” (one of several ways his name is transliterated). He moves with his wife and two children to a government asylum dormitory in a small town in central Germany while waiting for a verdict. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 8/15/2005; Agence France-Presse, 10/27/2005]

After his 2005 arrest in Turkey, Sakra will confess to helping some of the 9/11 hijackers. He will claim to have helped some of the 9/11 hijackers while in Bursa, a city in Turkey 60 miles south of Istanbul. [Washington Post, 2/20/2006]

But he will also say that he knew Mohamed Atta, which presumably would take place during Sakra’s time in Germany. He will warn the Syrian government about the 9/11 attacks one day before they happen and evidence will suggest he was an informant working for the CIA and other governments. He will later admit meeting Asaf Shawkat, head of Syrian intelligence, in Germany, but it is not known when this meeting took place. [BBC, 11/10/2005]

Sakra is indicted in Jordan for allegedly supporting planned attacks around the turn of the millennium. His 2001 Jordanian indictment reads, “Current residence: Germany, on the run.” It is not clear if Jordan communicated with the German government about his whereabouts at this time. He will be convicted in absentia in Jordan in early 2002 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Meanwhile, in Germany he loses his asylum appeal and leaves the country on July 24, 2001. His family flies to Syria around the same time. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 8/15/2005]