Moroccans

Germany's highest criminal court Thursday found a Moroccan man with close ties to the Sept. 11 hijackers guilty of being an accessory to mass murder in a case marked by overturned verdicts, frustrated prosecutors and diplomatic strains between Washington and Berlin. The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe reversed a lower court ruling that found Mounir Motassadeq guilty only of belonging to a terrorist organization.

As vacationing Europeans were baking on their southern beaches in August, Said Maarouf and a companion boarded a jet ski on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar. They were dreaming of a new life in Spain, just half an hour away across the choppy water. He came back to his Moroccan hometown in a coffin. Mohammed, his friend and fellow migrant, is still missing at sea. A third man on the jet ski, an immigrant smuggler acting as their guide, also has disappeared.

The document that federal agents handed to Yassine Ouassif to justify his deportation contained startling language: "The United States government has reason to believe that you are likely to engage in terrorist activity." Ouassif was in exclusive company. Since Sept. 11, only five people have faced that ominous charge. Ouassif was about to become the sixth. The slip of paper offered no details on what was behind the accusation.

JEFFREY CHODOROW, the New York restaurateur who locked horns with Rocco DiSpirito in the infamous reality series "The Restaurant," may be a hardheaded businessman, but he's also something of a romantic. Others have gazed upon the legendary 1923 Hollywood Athletic Club in all its glorious decrepitude and dreamed of reviving it. The Sunset Boulevard Mission Revival building was built as a private men's club by the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino and Cecil B. DeMille.

NAILS polished? Check. Hair, after hours of work, looking suitably comme il faut? Check. Faux tan achieving the proper shade of dark gold? Bra strap not showing? Everything tucked in that should be? Grab a gossamer shawl to cover the shoulders, should the evening turn chilly, and, with the latest brutally ugly but swooningly expensive bag tucked under the arm, make your entrance at Social Hollywood.

IF you're a grumpy perfectionist, read no further. You'll never have a chance to appreciate BBC Cafe's many virtues. It's a unique restaurant, a real expression of a community, and if you're not yet an initiate, its quirks can make your head spin.

The first female European Muslim convert to commit a suicide bombing in Iraq was a former bakery worker from a middle-class Belgian family who joined her husband in an extremist network that sent them to fight and die, authorities said Thursday.

THANKS to the impressions of a few crew members working on a film shoot in Morocco ["Down, Dirty in Morocco," Oct. 16] describing Moroccans as people who "don't understand sarcasm," "don't think ahead" and "are mysteriously devoid of the impulse for self-improvement," some Los Angeles Times readers' view of Morocco and Moroccans can now be shaped to fit a largely simplistic and negative mold. This is insulting and objectionable to me and some 30 million other Moroccans. Lost in translation to the crew members is Morocco's burgeoning democracy, a free and independent press, progressive civil institutions, moderate Islam, a constitution that gives women equal rights, and cool and festive Casablanca and Marrakech night scenes.

SOMEDAY I would like to see the Empty Quarter in the Arabian Desert; the Syrian trading entrepot Aleppo; the ancient Persian capital of Esfahan; Central Asia's Tien Shan mountains; Borobudur Temple on the island of Java; the Vale of Kashmir in the Himalayas; Mecca; all the great sights of Dar al-Islam, historically a broad swath of Eurasia and Africa that was converted and colonized by followers of Muhammad.