9/11 terrorist back on the streets... and treated like a hero: Freed early from his cell, the twisted money man behind attack that killed 2,996 is mobbed by well-wishers back home in insult to those who died (2 Pics)

Mounir el-Motassadeq being escorted to a police helicopter A terrorist who was described as the “treasurer” for the 9/11 hijackers has...

Mounir el-Motassadeq being escorted to a police helicopter

A terrorist who was described as the “treasurer” for the 9/11 hijackers has been released from jail early and was flooded with well-wishers on his return home to Morocco.

Mounir el-Motassadeq, one of only two men to be jailed for the attack that killed almost 3,000 people in 2001, served less than 15 years.

The 44-year-old was friends with ringleader Mohamed Atta, who crashed a plane into one of the Twin Towers and was part of the Hamburg Al Qaeda cell who planned the atrocity.

The only other man convicted over 9/11, Zacarias Moussaoui, is serving six life sentences in a maximum security prison in the US after admitting to being part of the plot.

According to the Mail Online, El-Motassadeq has returned to the Dawdiyat neighbourhood in Marrakesh and was spotted laughing with a friend on the way back from the mosque.

He is living in a three-storey house the belonged to his father, it is reported.

One neighbour said: "We are very happy. The neighbours were not afraid to find out he was back.

"During the first and second day after he was released the streets were full of people coming to see him.

"His family were coming from different cities to greet him.

“They were really happy that he is back. His mum was crying tears of joy.

"His siblings were really happy."

The neighbour also said she had known him for years and his parents were “pious and kind” people.

The neighbour, called Hyat, added that El-Motassadeq’s Russian wife, who is a Muslim convert, also lives in the house with his mother and their two children, aged 18 and 17.

Motassadeq smiling on the deportation flight 

The pair also have another child, aged 12, that was born before he was jailed.

El-Motassadeq was released on October 15 on the agreement he would be deported from Germany to Morocco.

From Frankfurt, he was flown on a commercial flight to Casablanca flanked by two officers and was snapped grinning while sat on his seat among the public.

El-Motassadeq is banned from re-entering Germany until 2064.

Hamburg's interior minister Andy Grote said: "It's a good feeling to know that Mr Motassadeq is out of the country."