At Satellite Courthouses, 9/11 Relatives Will Watch Moussaoui's Sentencing

Mastermind of 9/11 says 34 took part in the attacks

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0603290178mar29,1,2047672.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

(Gold9472: BUUUUUULLSHIT. Tell me why.)

By Josh Meyer
Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times
Published March 29, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has told his interrogators that at least 34 people were "participants" in the attacks, including a mysterious Jordanian who supposedly prepared 10 of the hijackers for their grisly task by training them to butcher camels and sheep with Swiss Army knives.

Mohammed's statements were read aloud in court this week during the sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person ever charged as a co-conspirator in the attacks.

During his interrogations, Mohammed broke down the participants in the Sept. 11 attacks into six groups, each having differing levels of involvement in the plot or prior knowledge of it, according to a 58-page summary read aloud in court Monday.

Among the few in the top tier was Abu Turab Al-Urduni, a Jordanian who, according to Mohammed's testimony, had "full knowledge" of the plot because of his job as trainer of 10 of the "muscle" hijackers tasked with commandeering the planes, subduing the pilots and keeping the passengers at bay.

Abu Turab, as he was referred to in the summary, also trained the hijackers in bombing and train hijacking so they wouldn't be certain what their real assignment would be once they reached the U.S., Mohammed said. That way, if they were caught, they wouldn't be able to tip off authorities that the plot involved plane hijackings.

The disclosures, if true, are significant in that one of the more senior conspirators of the Sept. 11 attacks has until now never been identified publicly.

A U.S. intelligence official familiar with the continuing Sept. 11 investigation said Abu Turab was killed by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in late 2001.

For 9/11 Lies, Must He Die?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/29/opinion/courtwatch/main1454637.shtml

(Gold9472: What's good for the goose...)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 30, 2006

Moussaoui's lies, or his truths, are not in themselves enough to make him eligible for the death penalty. The government also must have proved that if he had told the truth about Sept. 11, the feds would have been able to foil the plot.

Make sure you pay attention and keep this straight, because so long as we both shall live, we are never, ever going to see a constellation like this again in a high profile death penalty case.

Put another way, the Sept. 11 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui - the most important capital case of its time, one that's been surreal and ironic from the start - reached new heights (or depths, depending upon your point of view) of the absurd Wednesday afternoon here in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.

In a trial in which they seek the death penalty against a man solely for lying, federal prosecutors have asked jurors to believe that Zacarias Moussaoui was telling the truth when he said Monday that he was a key component of the plot for the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Defense attorneys, meanwhile, told those same jurors that their client, whose life they have doggedly fought to spare, is a "homicidal liar" who is still scheming and plotting with malice against America and all it stands for, including the very system of justice which has brought us all to this time and place.

For long stretches during closing arguments, therefore, it was difficult to tell for sure which attorneys were arguing for which side. The feds, who must establish as a matter of law that Moussaoui lied to authorities when he was arrested in August 2001, now are relying heavily upon his candor as a surprise witness to prove that he is eligible for the death penalty in this case.

The defense, which told jurors all along that Moussaoui is - as defense attorney Edward MacMahon put it Wednesday, a "hanger-on" - is now asking jurors to go tough on him and not give him the satisfaction he seeks from dying as a martyr.

Jurors got their instructions from the judge late Wednesday afternoon. They also should have gotten some Ritalin - so complex are the bank shots, crosscurrents and psychological eddies being offered to them by the lawyers.

Moussaoui, in his own pathetic way, succeeded in tying up the case on appeal for more than four years and now - in just a few weeks on trial - he has proven himself capable of twisting around the lawyers responsible for his fate. It's no wonder that MacMahon, the defense attorney, called the happy but inept warrior "manipulative, and obviously so."

Prosecutor David Raskin started the afternoon's sermons by emphasizing his best evidence — really his only good evidence - the creepy defendant himself, and the jaw-dropping statements that Moussaoui made to jurors earlier in the week.

"Zacarias Moussaoui came to this country to kill as many Americans as he could," Raskin told the jury, adding that "he killed people by lying and concealing" the Sept. 11 plot. Those people would be "alive today," said Raskin, if Moussaoui "had told the truth" when he was arrested in Minnesota on immigration charges on August 16, 2001.

We proved to you, Raskin told the jury, that Moussaoui "lied with lethal intent." But here is where the prosecution seemed to travel to Wonderland.

If Moussaoui so gleefully lied way back when, why should anyone believe he is telling the truth now? If, as Raskin pointed out, al Qaeda training manuals teach wannabe terrorists how to lie to achieve their goals, why should anyone believe that Moussaoui has thrown out the book? Yet that is precisely what Raskin asked jurors to believe when he emphasized the importance of Moussaoui's in-court admissions.

"He is not making this up," Raskin told jurors, just moments after stating that Moussaoui is a master at making "false statements designed to deceive." Trust his allegiance to al Qaeda and the terror plot, he told the panel, even as he reminded them that "al Qaeda teaches people to lie."

Raskin's argument at this point reminded me of an old line that lawyers dream of using but rarely do: 'Were you lying then, or are you lying now?' In a capital case, in which proof beyond a reasonable doubt is the name of the game, can the government win once someone is forced to ask that question of its star witness?

Moussaoui's lies, or his truths, are not in themselves enough to make him eligible for the death penalty. The government must also have proved that people died on Sept. 11 as a result of those lies, and in order to make that case it must have established that the feds would have foiled the plot - if only Moussaoui had been candid when federal agents were querying him about his goal of learning to fly jumbo jets despite being unable to find his way around an airfield.

This is the point that drew the most attention during the course of the trial, and it is the point that brings into play all the incompetence our government displayed in the days before Sept. 11 - when we all cared about was who killed Chandra Levy.

On this point, prosecutors could only say, tepidly, that had Moussaoui told the truth when arrested, "the government would have that valuable information and would have used it to prevent the attacks or at least part of the attacks."

In Raskin's view, it is "a no-brainer, ladies and gentlemen," that the feds would have tracked down at least three of the four pilot hijackers had Moussaoui only given them a few more clues.

When Moussaoui was arrested, Raskin argued, the government needed, in order to foil the plot, only "specific intelligence about the catastrophe that was about to occur" - specific intelligence Raskin said Moussaoui had, but did not share. Moussaoui instead "chose al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and as a result 2,971 people are dead," said Raskin, his voice rising.

When it was MacMahon's turn, the defense attorney immediately attacked the credibility of his own client, who reportedly spent more time on the witness stand (three hours) than he had conversing with his attorneys over four years of representation.

Moussaoui was "never slated, other than in his dreams" to be a part of the Sept. 11 plot, MacMahon quickly told jurors, and the government cannot prove the hypothetical question of what might have happened in advance of Sept. 11 had Moussaoui merely come clean. "He's told so many stories in the past, that he's simply not worthy of belief, MacMahon said. He's a "grafter," the attorney added, and even al Qaeda was scammed by his tricks.

Of his client, MacMahon had plenty more to say. Moussaoui always thinks he is "more important and more involved" than he really is, the defense attorney said, and he is trying to "write a role for himself in history" while at the same time trying, with his outbursts, to "trigger bias and prejudice" among jurors.

In that, said MacMahon, as in everything else in Moussaoui's life, "he will fail." I have heard many defense attorneys describe their clients in less-than-cheery terms. I don't think I have ever before heard an attorney call their client a pathetic loser, especially in a capital case where defense attorneys usually talk about the high value of every human life.

Of the government's claim that all would have been rosy on Sept. 11 had Moussaoui been honest, MacMahon ridiculed the notion that the government could have connected the dots.

To argue this point, MacMahon cited the testimony of current and former high-ranking government officials like Condoleeza Rice and Richard Clarke, whose testimony appeared at the trial in the form of videotaped snippets from the Sept. 11 Commission hearings.

Rice, who was National Security Advisor on Sept. 11, told the panel under oath that the failure to foil the terror plot was "a structural" one that did not depend upon any single bit of evidence. Clarke - the counterterrorism chief, and the most candid of officials after 9/11 - told the Commission (and therefore jurors) that it is impossible to go back and figure out what might have happened before Sept. 11, because it's simply too "speculative."

MacMahon then asked jurors to be better than Moussaoui believes they can be: to send him and his terror buddies a message that their bitter and unfounded prejudices against Americans are just that.

"You are not the hateful, vengeful enemies that Mr. Moussaoui thinks you are," MacMahon told the panel, challenging them not to lower themselves to his client's base level. "There is no evidence," said MacMahon, that "anything Moussaoui ever did or said caused death" on Sept. 11.

So there you have it. The government that Moussaoui hates so much wants jurors to embrace his testimony — and he ends up being the prosecution's star witness at his own trial. Meanwhile, the lawyers trying to save his life call him a failure at everything in life except for lying, and ask jurors to believe a half dozen other terrorists who say Moussaoui was the only one of the deadly gang who couldn't shoot straight.

At the center of it all is a confessed al Qaeda operative, who couldn't figure out a way to involve himself in a terror attack, but who instead finds himself at the mercy of his own, self-proclaimed worst enemies.

If I had not seen and heard the closing arguments with my own eyes and ears, I would never have believed it.

Giuliani to testify for U.S. at 9/11 trial
Jury also to hear cockpit voice recorder from United flight 93

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/LAW/04/05/moussaoui/

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Rudy Giuliani, who led New York through its darkest days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, will be among the first witnesses when the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui resumes on Thursday, CNN has learned.

In addition, the lone cockpit voice recorder recovered from the four hijacked planes will be played publicly for the first time, the judge has ruled.

Giuliani, the former mayor of New York who some consider a possible presidential candidate in 2008, will testify about the impact of 9/11 as a witness for the government.

Besides the 2,749 lives lost as the twin towers of the World Trade Center burned and fell, prosecutors intend to show how the attacks disrupted New York's government and economy. The deaths of 343 firefighters also are part of that evidence.

Giuliani may offer compelling testimony about a fire rescue unit captain who died, Terry Hatton. Hatton's wife, Beth Petrone, was Giuliani's executive assistant for 17 years, and Giuliani officiated at the couple's marriage.

Moussaoui's attorneys and federal prosecutors met behind closed doors Wednesday with U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema to finalize the emotional evidence that will be introduced in the coming weeks.

Brinkema ordered that jurors can hear the cockpit voice recorder from United Flight 93 -- the Newark to San Francisco flight that crashed in a reclaimed coal field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Relatives of the 40 passengers and crew who have heard the 31-minute tape say it confirms a heroic uprising in which passengers turned on the hijackers.

Prosecutors invited Flight 93 families to hear the tape at a special briefing in 2002, when the Moussaoui trial was originally scheduled to begin.

Jurors already have heard a partial transcript of American Airlines flight attendant Betty Ong telling the airline's customer service center about stabbings and the spraying of mace near the front of the plane as the first plane headed toward the Trade Center.

"We can't even get up to business class right now 'cause nobody can breathe," Ong said at the start of the four-and-half-minute call.

Life or death decision
The jury found Moussaoui eligible for the death penalty on Monday, concluding that lies he told federal agents interrogating him a month before the attacks directly contributed to some of the nearly 3,000 deaths on September 11.

The panel of nine men and three women must now decide whether Moussaoui should die by injection, the only form of execution permitted in the federal system.

Moussaoui, 37, a French national of Moroccan descent, admitted last year that he conspired with al Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for September 11, to hijack and crash planes into prominent U.S. buildings.

Until he testified at his trial, Moussaoui insisted he had no role in the plot or advance knowledge of specific plot details.

But on the witness stand, Moussaoui said he knew in advance of the plan to crash planes into the World Trade Center and was to pilot a fifth plane into the White House on September 11.

Moussaoui's self-incriminating testimony severely damaged the defense case. His attorneys suggest that Moussaoui hopes to become an al Qaeda martyr.

10 'aggravating factors'
The pain and suffering of the 9/11 families is one of 10 "aggravating factors" prosecutors will set out to prove to justify a death sentence. The physical and emotional harm to survivors is another. As many as 40 witnesses are prepared to testify about the attack's impact on them and their families.

The federal death penalty statute requires the government to prove that Moussaoui's lies to protect the terror conspiracy caused grave risk of death and were committed in a heinous, cruel, depraved manner with substantial planning and premeditation.

Additionally, prosecutors intend to prove Moussaoui shows no remorse and exploited educational opportunities in a free society for violent means when he trained at U.S. flight schools.

Besides the deaths, prosecutors intend to show that the attacks disrupted the functions of the Pentagon and of New York's government and economy.

Meanwhile, Moussaoui's mother is not expected to testify for the defense, CNN has learned. Aicha el-Wafi recently wrote the judge, but the letter's contents have not been disclosed.

El-Wafi, 59, a retired telecommunications worker who lives in southern France, attended three days of the trial's first phase. In an interview with CNN that week, she said she feared her son would be made "a scapegoat" for September 11. (Watch Moussaoui's mother describe "political" trial -- 2:22)

"He's right to choose death instead of staying and dying like a rat in a hole," el-Wafi told French 2 television after the verdict, according to a translation.

Moussaoui's defense team is planning witnesses and evidence about their client's mental health. They may include a pair of Washington psychiatrists who were in court to observe Moussaoui's testimony.

One defense expert has concluded that Moussaoui suffers from a thought disorder, probably schizophrenia, according to court papers.

A social worker is expected to describe Moussaoui's troubled family history and their mistreatment as North African immigrants in France.

CNN's Kevin Bohn and Justine Redman contributed to this story.

I can't understand for the life of me why the death penalty is necessary for Moussaoui.

Supposedly, he's the only living link within the U.S. borders between the 9/11 attacks and his co-conspirators. Wouldn't it be better to keep him alive, extract as much information from him as possible? As years go by, the worst that could happen would be not getting any relevant info about Al Qaeda. The best would be tripping up Zac a little and getting more out of him.

But, the bloodthirsty crowd has spoken. Off with his head! His death will most assurdely avenge the atrocities of 9/11....

Moussaoui Jurors Hear Flight 93 Tape

http://www.sierratimes.com/rss/newswire.php?article=/news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060412/ap_on_re_us/moussaoui&time=1144851561&feed=us

Posted: Wednesday April 12,2006 - 07:19:21 am

By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer 8 minutes ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Federal prosecutors seeking the execution of Zacarias Moussaoui figuratively placed the jury aboard doomed Flight 93 for its last searing moments, playing a recording in which a passenger begs the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, "Please, don't hurt me" and another cries "I don't want to die."

The United Air Lines flight crashed in a Pennsylvania field as passengers tried to retake the plane — according to a cockpit voice recording played publicly Wednesday for the first time — as the jury weighed whether to recommend the death sentence for Moussaoui, an admitted terrorist conspirator.

The recording began with the hijackers' voice clearly stating "ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain ... we have a bomb on board, so sit."

For the next few minutes, passengers are repeatedly told, 'Don't move," "Shut up" "Sit," and "down down down."

An air traffic voice says, "Is that United 93 calling?"

A translation of the hijackers' Arabic words was provided to the jury. At one point a hijacker is heard to say "In the name of Allah, most merciful, most compassionate."

There's a voice in the cockpit saying "Please don't hurt me. Oh God!" Then a few seconds later somebody says "I don't want to die!" three times.

Then there are what sound like groans in the cockpit. Then in Arabic a couple of minutes later, a voice of a hijiacker says "Everything is fine. I finished." He said that around the time that the plane is turning back toward Washington.

As the jury heard the recording, prosecutors played a video presentation that simultaneously showed the flight path, speed and heading in a mockup similar to a flight simulator.

In the final minutes of Flight 93, passengers attempted to retake the plane at which point the hijackers crashed it into the western Pennsylvania field. The plane had been headed for the U.S. Capitol, according to Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. The jury deciding his fate has already declared him eligible for the death penalty by determining that his actions caused at least one death on 9/11.

Even though he was in jail in Minnesota at the time of the attacks, the jury ruled that lies told by Moussaoui to federal agents a month before the attacks kept them from identifying and stopping some of the hijackers.

Now they must decide whether Moussaoui deserves execution or life in prison.

Defense lawyers say the jury should spare Moussaoui's life because of his limited role in the attacks, evidence that he is mentally ill and because his execution would only play into his dream of martyrdom.

After several days of testimony related to the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the focus shifted Tuesday to the Pentagon, where the jury saw some of the most gruesome evidence in the trial.

Several photos showed badly burned bodies, facial features still discernible. Defense lawyers objected unsuccessfully to their display.

Lt. Col. John Thurman testified that when the Pentagon was hit, he thought a bomb had exploded, then later described a sensation similar to an earthquake as the plane moved under his second floor office.

Thurman crawled through the office, unable to lift his head above the carpet because the smoke was too intense. He said he felt an overwhelming need to take a nap and "that's when it hit me: I'm going to die. And I got very angry. Angry that terrorists would take my life on the same day my parents were getting their first grandchild" (from his sister).

"I realized I had to get out. I pushed file cabinets with all of my strength and found an opening," Thurman said.

Thurman left the Pentagon coughing up black soot and was taken to a hospital. He fully recovered from his injuries after a weeklong hospital stay that included a medically induced coma.

"I feel incredibly lucky," he said. "But there's guilt about getting the lucky break."

Also on Tuesday, the judge issued an order requiring an unidentified individual to be produced for testimony. The order apparently applied to would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid — defense lawyers issued a subpoena last week seeking his testimony. Prosecutors had opposed the subpoena.

Moussaoui testified previously that he and Reid were going to hijack a fifth plane on Sept. 11 and fly it into the White House. The defense lawyers, who have tried to discredit their client's credibility, have said Moussaoui is exaggerating his role in Sept. 11 to inflate his role in history.

Moussaoui no longer wants death penalty

http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-04-13T184319Z_01_N13382229_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-MOUSSAOUI.xml

By Deborah Charles
Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:43 PM ET

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) - September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui said on Thursday that he no longer wanted to be executed as the death penalty was not in line with Islamic teaching, but doubted his testimony held any sway with the jurors considering his sentence.

Moussaoui, 37, who pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy in connection with the September 11 attacks, pulled back from statements made several times over the past four years that indicated he would welcome a death sentence.

His lawyer Gerald Zerkin showed him a filing he made to the court in August 2002 in which he said the "greatest jihad in Islam is to speak the truth in front of the tyrant and be executed for it."

Moussaoui said he no longer wanted to include the "and be executed" part of that statement, because he had consulted Islamic books and decided that violated Muslim religious beliefs.

Taking the stand for the second time at his sentencing trial against the advice of his lawyers, he criticized his court-appointed defense team and said their strategy should have included the argument that jail was a better punishment since execution would reward him with martyrdom.

Defense lawyers have tried to persuade the jury that he is mentally unstable with delusions of importance in al Qaeda and should not be sentenced to death.

But Moussaoui, a French citizen, has refused to cooperate with those lawyers and was asked by one of them if he thought his attorneys were in a conspiracy to kill him.

"I thought you had not my best interests at heart," said Moussaoui," he said in response to a question Zerkin. "First you are American, second you are Jewish."

One of his major complaints was that he was never given a Muslim attorney.

BARGAINING CHIP?
Moussaoui said in court last month that he was supposed to fly a fifth plane into the White House as part of the al Qaeda hijacking plot. This testimony contradicted his previous claims that he was not meant to be part of the September 11 hijacking, but was supposed to be in a second wave of attacks.

Many observers thought his testimony solidified the prosecution's case that he was involved in the deaths of 3,000 people on September 11.

Moussaoui, dressed in a green prisoner jumpsuit and white cap, said on Thursday his earlier comments had made little difference.

"I thought about ... the consequences for me saying I was a part of 9/11. I decided to just put my trust in God and tell the truth and time will tell," he said.

"Even without my testimony, taking into account the emotion of the case, there was definitely a chance I would be found eligible for death," he said.

He also said he would try to convince a jury that if they sentence him to life instead of executing him they might be able to save American lives if he could be used as a bargaining chip.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema allowed Moussaoui to act as his own lawyer for more than a year early in the case, but eventually revoked the right after he continued to file inflammatory motions with the court attacking her, his lawyers and U.S. officials.

Reid Won't Testify at Moussaoui Trial

http://www.kfmb.com/stories/story.46645.html

Last Updated:
04-15-06 at 10:37AM

Al-Qaeda terrorist and would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid will not be testifying at the death-penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema on Friday vacated the order she had previously issued requiring Reid to testify for the defense at Moussaoui's trial.

Brinkema gave no substantive explanation for her order. She cited a letter written Friday by Moussaoui's court-appointed lawyers and a motion filed by the federal public defenders in Boston who represented Reid. Both the letter and the motion by Reid's lawyers are sealed, though.

Reid is serving a life sentence in Colorado after a failed try to blow up an American Airlines flight in 2001.

Moussaoui testified last month at his death-penalty trial that he and Reid were going to hijack a fifth plane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House.

That testimony came after years of denying any specific role in 9/11. Moussaoui had previously said he was part of a separate al-Qaeda plot, and written testimony from Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed asserting that Moussaoui was never part of the 9/11 plans but was instead to be in a second wave of attacks.

Moussaoui's defense lawyers have suggested Moussaoui fabricated his story about Reid and their role in the 9/11 plot in an effort to sabotage his own defense and achieve martyrdom through execution. The lawyers also indicate that Moussaoui is trying to inflate his role in history.

Defense lawyers had hoped that if Reid would disavow any knowledge of Moussaoui's claim, thus bolstering their argument that Moussaoui was lying when he claimed he was to have been one of the 9/11 pilots.

On Thursday, though, Moussaoui took the stand for a second time and elaborated that Reid had was on a "need-to-know basis" and had not yet been informed of al-Qaeda's plans for Sept. 11. Thus any denial by Reid may have been a moot point in light of Moussaoui's most recent testimony.

Moussaoui, in his testimony Thursday, referred to Reid as his "buddy" from the al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and said the two had tried to exchange letters while in prison.

Although plans to have Reid take the witness stand have been abandoned, it is possible that lawyers will craft a written statement or stipulation that will contain some of what Reid would have said.

Calls to Reid's lawyers in Boston were not immediately returned Friday.

Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. The jury deciding his fate has already declared him eligible for the death penalty by determining that his actions caused at least one death on 9/11.

Now they must decide whether Moussaoui deserves execution or life in prison.

The trial resumes Monday and Brinkema said the jury may begin deliberations early next week.

Man who helped spare Unabomber at 9/11 trial

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2139236,00.html

By Sam Knight and agencies
4/18/2006

The courtroom battle to understand the mind of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker", will intensify today when one of America's most renowned psychologists claims that the al-Qaeda member is a paranoid schizophrenic.

The fate of Moussaoui, who faces the death penalty after confessing that he was a co-conspirator in the September 11 attacks, rests on whether his defence lawyers can convince the jury in Alexandria, Virginia, that their client is mentally ill and has exaggerated his role in the atrocity.

Crucial to their argument is the testimony of Dr Xavier Amador, an professor in clinical psychology at Teacher’s College, Columbia University, who has analysed the mental health of, among others, Ted Kaczynski ("The Unabomber"), and Russell Weston, who killed two police officers on Capitol Hill in 1998 in what he described as an attempt save the world from cannibalism.

Kaczynski was spared the death penalty while Weston's criminal trial was delayed indefinitely after he refused to take drugs that would control his delusions and allow him to stand trial.

Taking the stand yesterday afternoon, Dr Amador, the author of five books, including I am Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help!, said that he believed "Mr Moussaoui suffers from schizophrenia and it is a paranoid subtype".

Today Dr Amador is expected to expand on the diagnosis, which has been made after examining four years of outbursts and letters by Moussaoui, who has refused to to be assessed by psychologists.

Moussaoui, a 37-year-old French citizen of Moroccan descent, has insisted that he is sane throughout the death penalty phase of his trial. Last week, Robert Spencer, a federal prosecutor, asked him if he was "crazy", to which he replied: "Thank God, I am not."

But his defence team are attempting to prove otherwise, saying that Moussaoui's violent upbringing at the hands of his abusive father in Paris created a vulnerable, fragile man who was easily swayed to extremist Islam when he encountered radical preachers in London.

Moussaoui's two sisters, who both receive treatment for mental illness, have told the court their brother was "a little sweetheart" who had been terrorised by his father. Yesterday, one of Moussaoui's guards told the jury that the admitted al-Qaeda member dreams of being pardoned by President Bush and moving to London to write a book.

Moussaoui Prosecutors Doubt Part of Claim

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060420/ap_on_re_us/moussaoui

By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 41 minutes ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Prosecutors acknowledged on Thursday the government has no evidence to support — and actually doubts — part of Zacarias Moussaoui's dramatic courtroom confession that he was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks: His claim that shoe bomber Richard Reid was to be on his team.

Thanks to legal maneuvering outside court, the potentially damaging concession reached the jury in a decidedly undramatic way: It was part of a stipulation agreed to by the government and read to the jury in the monotone voice of defense lawyer Alan Yamamoto.

The disclosure came shortly before the defense rested its case for sparing the life of the 37-year-old Frenchman. Testimony in the trial concluded after prosecutors presented their only rebuttal witness, psychiatrist Raymond Patterson, who examined Moussaoui. Patterson disagreed with defense experts who testified the terrorist conspirator is a paranoid schizophrenic.

On Monday, jurors who must choose execution or life in prison for Moussaoui will hear closing arguments and begin deliberations.

The windup of testimony in the 1 1/2-month roller coaster trial covered several issues:

_Seven more people who lost relatives in the attacks testified on Moussaoui's behalf about how they have devoted their lives to reconciliation rather than vengeance. The defense called 13 victim relatives over two days to try to blunt the impact of nearly four dozen victims and relatives whose heart-rending testimony for the prosecution had some jurors wiping their eyes.

_The defense read another government-approved stipulation acknowledging that six al-Qaida operatives who directly planned and put in place the Sept. 11 plot, including mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and planner Ramzi Binalshibh, are in U.S. custody and have not been charged. Some Sept. 11 families have criticized the government for charging only Moussaoui, whom they consider marginal, and not major players such as Shaikh Mohammed.

The concession about Reid went directly to the argument between prosecutors and defense lawyers over Moussaoui's credibility since he testified March 27. He stunned the courtroom that day by recanting his four-year-old claim of having nothing to do with Sept. 11. Instead he said he was to have hijacked a fifth jetliner, with Reid, that day. Previously, Moussaoui claimed his planned attack on the White House was part of a later plot.

Since Moussaoui testified, the court-appointed defense team — with whom he does not cooperate — has portrayed him as a delusional schizophrenic who lied either to achieve martyrdom through execution or to enhance his role in history.

Prosecutors have tried to shore up Moussaoui's reputation. They argue he is not insane but a committed Islamic fundamentalist jihadist who finally confessed his role and determination to kill Americans.

Defense lawyers tried to bring Reid to court from federal prison, where he is serving life for attempting to detonate a shoe bomb on a trans-Atlantic flight in late 2001.

That bid was thwarted in motions still sealed from the public. But defense lawyers were able to obtain the government's agreement on the statement about Reid.

"No information is available to indicate that Richard Reid had pre-knowledge of the Sept. 11 operation or was instructed by al-Qaida leaders to conduct an operation in coordination with Moussaoui," it said.

Reid named Moussaoui as the beneficiary in his will and two FBI analysts concluded that was an unlikely decision for him to make if they were going to be on a joint suicide mission, the statement said.

The two FBI analysts also concluded it was unlikely Reid was part of a Sept. 11 plot with Moussaoui because Reid spent May to September 2001 traveling in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, Turkey and Amsterdam and The Hague in the Netherlands. All Sept. 11 participants were in the U.S. by July 2001, the statement said.

During the government's rebuttal, Patterson testified his examination of Moussauoi found "exaggerations of traits we all have," but "not a major mental illness."

`In jargon: he's a character," Patterson said.

He dismissed items cited by defense doctors, such as an incident in which he spat on a defense doctor more than a dozen times while refusing to submit to an examination. "I describe that with the clinical term `pissed off,'" Patterson said, noting Moussaoui claimed guards manhandled him earlier that day.

Moussaoui's often vituperative and incoherent written court motions and his dream that President Bush will release him were not evidence of the disorganized thinking or delusions of schizophrenia, Patterson said. Rather, he said, they were a part of "fighting his war, using them as propaganda."

The jury earlier found Moussaoui eligible for execution. Although Moussaoui was in jail on Sept. 11, the jury ruled that lies he told federal agents before Sept. 11 kept them from identifying and stopping some of the hijackers.

No evidence of 9/11 plotter's role

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18889479-2703,00.html

April 22, 2006

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia: The US Government has admitted there was no evidence to back Zacarias Moussaoui's dramatic courtroom confession that he was to have been a key player in the 9/11 attacks.

The revelation, at the al-Qa'ida plotter's death penalty trial, undercut Moussaoui's claim that he and British shoebomber Richard Reid were to have hit the White House with a fifth hijacked jet in the September 11, 2001, attacks.

It came on the final day of evidence in the gruelling, emotional trial. On Monday, jurors will be handed the task of deciding whether Moussaoui should be put to death over the strikes, which killed almost 3000 people. Prosecutors yesterday targeted defence claims the Frenchman was a paranoid schizophrenic, suffering from delusions, and called a forensic psychiatrist, who denied he was mentally ill.

U.S. seeks to keep evidence from 9/11 families
Prosecutors ask Moussaoui judge to reconsider order

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/04/26/moussaoui.aviation/index.html

From Phil Hirschkorn
Wednesday, April 26, 2006; Posted: 4:16 p.m. EDT (20:16 GMT)

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Prosecutors asked a judge to rethink granting 9/11 families suing airlines access to evidence gathered for the criminal case against al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema's April 7 order requires prosecutors to provide copies of all unclassified aviation security documents to attorneys representing September 11 families in a civil lawsuit pending in New York.

Prosecutors called the order "unprecedented" and urged Brinkema to withdraw it. The motion was filed by Chuck Rosenberg, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Brinkema's order would allow the families' attorneys access to "highly sensitive" law enforcement documents and could compromise the continuing investigation into the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The inquiry is "the largest criminal investigation in our nation's history, which is still ongoing," the motion says.

"This order will likely provoke negative consequences for numerous criminal cases in the future," prosecutors said. Rosenberg requested a May 19 hearing.

American and United airlines each lost two passenger jets to al Qaeda hijackers on September 11, 2001.

Among the 65 plaintiffs in the civil case is Mike Low, whose daughter, Sara, was a flight attendant on the first plane to strike the World Trade Center. He testified as a government witness in the criminal case.

The plaintiffs sued the airlines for wrongful death in 2002, rather than accept compensation from a federal fund that gave $7 billion to families. Brinkema agreed with their attorneys that legislation creating the victims compensation fund protected the rights of nonparticipating families to bring a negligence claim.

In their motion, prosecutors argued that the aviation security documents are specially selected materials provided to a small group of attorneys cleared to handle sensitive evidence in the Moussaoui case.

"The government never contemplated this material would be disclosed more widely for use in private civil litigation," the motion says.

Ron Motley, an attorney who successfully argued for access to the documents last month, said he would reply to the government's motion next week.

"We have not asked the government to give the 9/11 victims one single thing they didn't provide to Moussaoui's lawyers," Motley said.

The order would require the government to begin turning over copies of documents two weeks after a verdict is returned in Moussaoui's trial.

The plaintiffs have struggled with the Transportation Security Administration to obtain pre-September 11 aviation security documents.

"It is amazing what some agencies think is secret," Brinkema said before issuing her order last month. "As a culture, we need to be careful not to be so wrapped up in secrecy that we lose track of our core values and laws."

The families' pursuit was triggered by the revelation early in the Moussaoui trial that TSA lawyer Carla Martin improperly coached witnesses. Martin, who had prepared aviation security documents and witnesses in the case, sent witnesses transcripts and commentary by e-mail, even though a court order required scheduled witnesses to ignore the proceedings.

Martin's e-mail chain revealed she had been communicating with airline attorneys, and the families' attorneys suspected collusion.

"could compromise the continuing investigation into the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks"

Who's?

"The inquiry is "the largest criminal investigation in our nation's history, which is still ongoing."

According to who? CERTAINLY not the Government. Ok, if the investigation is still ongoing, then why won't you accept the MOUNTAINS of evidence we have collected?

Judge doesn't believe Moussaoui claims

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/nation/14484077.htm

MATTHEW BARAKAT
Associated Press
5/3/2006

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The judge presiding over Zacarias Moussaoui's sentencing told trial lawyers that she doesn't believe Moussaoui's claims on the witness stand that he knew advance details of the Sept. 11 plot.

"I still think that Moussaoui was not accurate in a lot of what he said about how much he knew about what was going to happen with which particular buildings and when," U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said during a closed hearing on April 21 outside the jury's presence. Transcripts of the hearing were released Tuesday.

Moussaoui's bombshell testimony on March 27, in which he took the stand against the advice of his court-appointed lawyers and claimed a direct role in the 9/11 plot after years of denial, revived a moribund prosecution case. Defense attorneys have argued that Moussaoui lied on the stand either to inflate his role in history or antagonize the jury into making him a martyr through execution.

Specifically, Moussaoui claimed that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were to have flown a fifth plane on 9/11 into the White House, and that he also knew the World Trade Center towers were targeted.

Brinkema made her comment during a debate over jury instructions. She defended a technical ruling in favor of the defense as a way of "evening the playing field" in response to her concerns about Moussaoui's testimony.

Even though jurors have no way of knowing about Brinkema's editorial comment presuming they obey rules against following news coverage, prosecutor David Novak objected to her remark.

"With all due respect, that's the jury's decision to decide whether they found him to be credible or not," Novak told Brinkema.

A separate transcript released Tuesday revealed that defense attorneys tried unsuccessfully to remove a juror from the panel after she expressed fears that the media would harass her after the trial concludes.

The unidentified female juror said that a coworker had deduced she was on the panel even though the jury is anonymous. She also said during the April 17 hearing - before deliberations began - that she fears losing her privacy.

Defense lawyers said she should be replaced because her fears might influence her decision, but Brinkema kept the juror on the panel after she said her concerns would not affect her decision.

Meanwhile, the jury headed into a seventh day of deliberations Wednesday without reaching a verdict on whether to sentence the Sept. 11 conspirator to death or life in prison.

The nine men and three women have so far deliberated more than 35 hours. The jury does not plan to deliberate on Thursday afternoon and Friday so that one juror can attend his parents' 50th wedding anniversary and another can attend a school ceremony for his daughter.

Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country in the Sept. 11 attacks. The jury previously found Moussaoui eligible for execution after more than 16 hours of deliberations in late March and early April.

Although he was in jail on immigration violations on Sept. 11, the jury ruled that lies he told federal agents the month before the attacks kept them from identifying and stopping some of the hijackers.

Jury spares 9/11 plotter Moussaoui
9/11 trial ends after wrenching images, heartbreaking testimony

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/LAW/05/03/moussaoui.verdict/

From Phil Hirschkorn
Wednesday, May 3, 2006 Posted: 2039 GMT (0439 HKT)

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui should spend the rest of his life in prison for his role in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, a federal jury decided Wednesday.

The nine men and three women returned their verdict on the seventh day of deliberations after reliving the September 11 attacks through weeks of harrowing testimony and evidence.

U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema will formally sentence Moussaoui Thursday at 10 a.m.

Jurors sent a note Wednesday afternoon indicating they had reached a verdict. The jury had two choices -- death by injection or life in prison.

During the trial's monthlong penalty phase, jurors heard the voices of the doomed office workers at New York's World Trade Center calling 911 for help and listened to the first public playing of the cockpit voice recorder of United Airlines Flight 93.

They watched videos of victims leaping to their deaths from the flaming twin towers. They were shown images of charred remains found in the rubble of the trade center and at the Pentagon in northern Virginia, about 10 miles from the Alexandria courthouse where the trial was held.

And they twice heard from an unrepentant Moussaoui, who said he is willing to kill Americans "any time, anywhere." (Full story)

First 9/11 conviction in U.S.
Moussaoui, 37, a Frenchman of Moroccan heritage, is the first person convicted in the United States for his role in the attacks. Nearly 3,000 people died when hijacked passenger jets crashed into the trade center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

Although he was behind bars on September 11, Moussaoui pleaded guilty last year to terrorism conspiracy.

Three of the six conspiracy counts made him eligible for the death penalty: committing acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, destroying aircraft and using planes as weapons of mass destruction.

The purpose of the eight-week trial was to determine Moussaoui's punishment. Jurors first found that Moussaoui's lies to federal investigators a month before the attacks furthered al Qaeda's plot and directly resulted in at least some 9/11 deaths, making the defendant eligible for execution. (Full story)

In the trial's second phase, jurors weighed factors such as the heinousness of the crime and its impact on the victims' families against Moussaoui's background and mental health.

About 30 family members of 9/11 victims, along with attack survivors and emergency responders, described how their lives have been changed. One after the other, widows and widowers, fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and friends shared heart-wrenching stories of loss.

Perhaps the trial's most dramatic moment came when prosecutors played the cockpit voice recorder from Flight 93. It made clear passengers' efforts to retake control of the aircraft before the hijackers crashed it outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania. (Full story)

Defense focuses on mental illness
Defense attorneys focused on Moussaoui's mental health, calling experts who diagnosed him as a delusional paranoid schizophrenic. The jury heard that Moussaoui's troubled family history includes two sisters and an abusive father who suffer from mental illness. (Full story)

Moussaoui's friends from France and England, where he earned a business school degree in the early 1990s, described a young man with a big smile who enjoyed life. But Moussaoui underwent a transformation, falling under the spell of Muslim radicals who targeted recent converts such as him at a mosque in London's Brixton section, according to the defense.

"You could see the disdain on his face, " said mosque chairman Abdul Haqq Baker in a videotape played for the jury. "He was very keen to implement whatever drive was given to him for jihad."

On the stand, Moussaoui said he knew in advance of the plan to hijack passenger jets and fly them into the World Trade Center. He said he was supposed to hijack a fifth plane and fly it into the White House with Richard Reid, known as the shoe bomber.

Reid is serving a life sentence for attempting to set off a bomb hidden in his sneakers on a flight from Paris, France, to Miami, Florida, that was safely diverted to Boston, Massachusetts.

A statement from Reid, backed up by the FBI, contradicted Moussaoui's testimony that the two men were supposed to hijack a plane together. (Full story)

Moussaoui shows no remorse
On the witness stand, Moussaoui displayed a complete lack of remorse for the 9/11 deaths, saying he was sorry only that the attacks weren't more lethal.

"I just wish it could have gone on the 12th, the 13th, the 14th, the 15th, the 16th, the 17th. We can go on and on," Moussaoui said. "Like they say, no pain, no gain."

His attorneys asked the jury not to give him the death penalty and make him an al Qaeda martyr.

September 11 family members rotated through the main courtroom observing the trial in six seats reserved for them three rows behind Moussaoui.

More family members watched the trial on a closed-circuit broadcast available elsewhere in the Alexandria courthouse and in federal courthouses in Manhattan and Long Island, New York; Newark, New Jersey; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Boston.

"I am convinced he's not crazy in the legal sense, in that he can, and does, distinguish right from wrong," said Hamilton Peterson, who attended the trial. His father and stepmother died aboard Flight 93.

"I do think he is sick in the evil sense," Peterson added. "He absolutely gets it, specifically, the 9/11 conspiracy he was a part of and his desire for American blood."

Moussaoui Verdict

Video
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Moussaoui goes to prison after last taunt
A member of the press gives the thumbs down as he leaves U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., Tuesday, May 2, 2006, after the jury in the sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui failed to reach a verdict after their sixth day of deliberations. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones)

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/05/03/moussaoui_gets_life_in_prison/?p1=MEWell_Pos5

By Michael J. Sniffen and Matthew Barakat, Associated Press Writers | May 3, 2006

ALEXANDRIA, Va. --Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui escaped the death penalty Wednesday as a jury decided he deserved life in prison instead for his role in the bloodiest terrorist attack in U.S. history. "America, you lost," Moussaoui taunted.

After seven days of deliberation, the nine men and three women rebuffed the government's appeal for death for the only person charged in this country in the four suicide jetliner hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.

Three jurors said Moussaoui had only limited knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot, and three described his role in the attacks as minor, if he had any role at all.

Moussaoui, as he was led from the courtroom after the 15-minute hearing, said: "America, you lost. ... I won." He clapped his hands as he was escorted away.

Carie Lemack, whose mother, Judy Larocque, died on hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the World Trade Center, said her mom didn't believe in the death penalty and would have been glad Moussaoui was sentenced to life. "This man was an al-Qaida wannabe who could never put together the 9/11 attacks," Lemack said. "He's a wannabe who deserves to rot in jail."

But Patricia Reilly, who lost her sister Lorraine Lee in the New York attacks, was deflated. "I guess in this country you can kill 3,000 people and not pay with your life," she said. "I feel very much let down by this country."

From the White House, President Bush said the verdict "represents the end of this case but not an end to the fight against terror." He said Moussaoui got a fair trial and the jury spared his life, "which is something that he evidently wasn't willing to do for innocent American citizens."

The verdict came after four years of legal maneuvering and a six-week trial that put jurors on an emotional roller coaster and gave the 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent a platform to needle Americans and mock the pain of the victims' families.

Judge Leonie Brinkema was to hand down the life sentence Thursday morning, bound by the jury's verdict. Offering assurance to the losing side, she told prosecutors: "The government always wins when justice is done." Moussaoui smiled at that.

It was a stinging defeat for the Justice Department and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, a former federal prosecutor in Alexandria who was overseeing the case. He said afterward, "The jury has spoken and we respect and accept that verdict."

Moussaoui is expected to spend the rest of his life at the federal maximum-security prison in Florence, Colo.

In Paris, his mother, Aicha El Wafi, told France-Info radio: "I feel nothing. I am dead, because my son was wrongly convicted."

The jury did not reach the unanimity required for a death sentence against the man who claimed a direct role in the Sept. 11 attacks even though he was in jail at the time on immigration charges.

During the trial, no one contested the contention that Moussaoui came to the United States intending to do harm and that he received flight training toward that goal. But his lawyers contended he was an al-Qaida outcast who was not trusted with the knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot.

Outside the courthouse, defense attorney Gerald Zerkin said of the jurors: "It was obvious that they thought his role in 9/11 was not very great and that played a significant role in their decision."

The jurors agreed unanimously Moussaoui "knowingly created a grave risk of death" for more than the intended victims of Sept. 11 and committed his acts with "substantial planning" -- accepting two of the aggravating factors necessary for a death sentence.

But they did not give sufficient weight to those findings to reach a death sentence, balancing them against mitigating factors offered by the defense. No jurors, however, accepted defense arguments that Moussaoui was mentally ill or that he wished to be executed to achieve the radical Islamic vision of martyrdom.

When the verdict was announced, Moussaoui showed no visible reaction and sat slouched in his chair, refusing to stand with his defense team. He had declined to cooperate with his court-appointed lawyers throughout the trial.

When the jurors came into the room, a couple of them looked directly at Moussaoui but most did not, looking at the judge instead. They all wore sober expressions. One dark-haired young man shook his head no before the verdict was read.

When the judge asked the jurors if their verdict was the same on all three counts, the forewoman, a high school math teacher, was joined by several other jurors in answering, "Yes."

The verdict was received with silence in the packed courtroom, where one row was lined with victims' families.

The jurors were divided on the 23 mitigating factors in the case: None was moved by the fact that top al-Qaida operatives in U.S. custody are not facing death penalty prosecutions, but three cited racism that Moussaoui faced as a child of Moroccan descent.

The closest the jurors came to unanimity in finding mitigating factors was on two questions involving his troubled childhood. On the first count of conspiracy to commit international terrorism, nine cited his unstable early childhood including stays in orphanages and a lack of emotional and financial support, and nine also cited physical and emotional abuse by his father.

But on the two other counts -- plotting to destroy aircraft and to use weapons of mass destruction -- those two family factors received less support: eight and seven and seven and six, respectively. Those were the only differences in the verdicts on the three counts.

In their successful defense of Moussaoui, his lawyers revealed new levels of pre-attack bungling of intelligence by the FBI and other government agencies. By the trial's end, the defense team was portraying its uncooperative client as a delusional schizophrenic. They argued he took the witness stand to confess a role in Sept. 11 that he never had -- all to achieve martyrdom through execution or for recognition in history.

They overcame the impact of two dramatic appearances by Moussaoui himself -- first to renounce his four years of denying any involvement in the attacks and then to gloat over the pain of those who lost loved ones.

Using evidence gathered in the largest investigation in U.S. history, prosecutors achieved a preliminary victory last month when the jury ruled Moussaoui's lies to federal agents a month before the attacks made him eligible for the death penalty because they kept agents from discovering some of the hijackers.

But even with heart-rending testimony from nearly four dozen victims and their relatives -- testimony that forced some jurors to wipe their eyes -- the jury was not convinced that Moussaoui, who was in jail on Sept. 11, deserved to die.

The case broke new ground in the understanding of Sept. 11 -- releasing to the public the first transcript and playing in court the cockpit tape of United 93's last half hour. The tape captured the sounds of terrorists hijacking the aircraft over Pennsylvania and passengers trying to retake the jet until it crashed in a field.

Moussaoui: "I Lied About 9/11."

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=nation_world&id=4153666

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - May 8, 2006 - Convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui says he lied on the witness stand about being involved in the plot and wants to withdraw his guilty plea because he now believes he can get a fair trial.

In a motion filed Friday but released Monday, Moussaoui said he testified March 27 he was supposed to hijack a fifth plane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House "even though I knew that was a complete fabrication."

A federal court jury spared the 37-year-old Frenchman the death penalty last Wednesday. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema gave him six life sentences, to run as two consecutive life terms, in the federal supermax prison at Florence, Colo. At sentencing, she told Moussaoui: "You do not have a right to appeal your convictions, as was explained to you when you plead guilty" in April 2005. "You waived that right."

She said he could appeal his sentence but added, "I believe it would be an act of futility."

Moussaoui's court-appointed lawyers told the court they filed the motion even though a federal rule "prohibits a defendant from withdrawing a guilty plea after imposition of sentence." They did so anyway because of their "problematic relationship with Moussaoui" and the fact that new lawyers have yet to be appointed to replace them.

Moussaoui Asks to Withdraw Guilty Plea
AP

Convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui says he lied on the witness stand about being involved in the plot and wants to withdraw his guilty plea because he now believes he can get a fair trial from an American jury.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema denied Moussaoui's request Monday afternoon, saying the motion was "too late."

In a motion filed Friday but released Monday, Moussaoui said he testified on March 27 that he was supposed to hijack a fifth plane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House "even though I knew that was a complete fabrication."

A federal court jury spared the 37-year-old Frenchman the death penalty last Wednesday. On Thursday, Brinkema gave him six life sentences, to run as two consecutive life terms, in the federal supermax prison at Florence, Colo.

Explaining his latest reversal, Moussaoui said in an affidavit: "I was extremely surprised" by the life sentence.

"I had thought I would be sentenced to death based on the emotions and anger toward me for the deaths on Sept. 11, but after reviewing the jury verdict and reading how the jurors set aside their emotions and disgust for me and focused on the law and the evidence ... I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial even with Americans as jurors."

At sentencing, Brinkema told Moussaoui, "You do not have a right to appeal your convictions, as was explained to you" when he pleaded guilty in April 2005. "You waived that right," she said.

Brinkema said Moussaoui could appeal his sentence but added, "I believe it would be an act of futility."[font=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Moussaoui's court-appointed lawyers told the court that they filed the motion even though a federal rule "prohibits a defendant from withdrawing a guilty plea after imposition of sentence." They did so anyway, they said, because of their "problematic relationship with Moussaoui" and the fact that new lawyers have yet to be appointed to replace them.

The defense lawyers were not immediately available for comment Monday. Brinkema said they would be replaced after they filed any appeal Moussaoui might want.

The motion said Moussaoui told his lawyers Friday that he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea because when he entered it his "understanding of the American legal system was completely flawed."

In an attached three-page affidavit, Moussaoui cited his new opinion of American jurors and wrote that he now believes he has a fair chance "to prove that I did not have any knowledge of and was not a member of the plot to hijack planes and crash them into buildings on Sept. 11, 2001."

"I wish to withdraw my guilty plea and ask the court for a new trial to prove my innocence of the Sept. 11 plot," Moussaoui wrote. "I have never met (lead 9/11 hijacker) Mohammed Atta and, while I may have seen a few of the other hijackers ... (in Afghanistan), I never knew them or anything about their operation."

Explaining his twists and turns, Moussaoui said, "Solitary confinement made me hostile toward everyone, and I began taking extreme positions to fight the system."

Moussaoui said that, coupled with his inability to get a Muslim lawyer, led him to distrust his lawyers when they told him he could be convicted of being an al-Qaida member but acquitted of involvement in 9/11.

Moussaoui wrote that he pleaded guilty because he mistakenly thought the Supreme Court would immediately review his objection to being denied the opportunity to call captured enemy combatant witnesses to buttress his claim of not being involved in the 9/11 plot.

An appeals court agreed with the government that national security would be at risk if captured operatives like 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed testified or were even questioned by Moussaoui's lawyers. Instead, statements taken from their interrogations were read to the jury.

Shaikh Mohammed's statements said Moussaoui was never considered for the 9/11 plot, only a later attack.

Moussaoui shocked the courtroom at his sentencing trial when he recanted his four-year-old claim of having nothing to do with 9/11. When he pleaded guilty in 2005, he had explained that he was to hijack a 747 jetliner and fly it into the White House at some later date if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik who is serving a life term for terrorist acts in New York.

But when he testified, Moussaoui claimed that the 747 was to be a fifth plane hijacked on Sept. 11 and that Richard Reid, now imprisoned for a December 2001 shoe bombing attempt aboard a trans-Atlantic flight, was to be on his hijacking team.

That testimony revived the government's flagging case in the first part of the sentencing trial.

On April 3, the jury found Moussaoui eligible for the death penalty. It apparently accepted prosecutors' arguments that by withholding information from federal agents who arrested him on Aug. 16, 2001, he bore responsibility for at least one death on 9/11 by preventing the agents from identifying and stopping some hijackers.

Nevertheless, the same jury was unable to unanimously find that Moussaoui, who was in jail on 9/11, deserved execution. Three jurors wrote on the verdict form that they doubted he knew much about the 9/11 plot.

After Moussaoui's testimony, his lawyers made clear in court that they thought he was lying to achieve martyrdom through execution. Prosecutors even stipulated that the government doubted Moussaoui's claim that Reid was part of his team. And the judge told lawyers, out of the jury's hearing, that she doubted his testimony about how much he knew about the 9/11 plot.

[/font]

"Um, yeah... I don't want to go to prison for the rest of my life, sitting in a hole with no sound. I'd like to withdraw my plea. Ok, well... see you guys later."