Sentencing process for 9/11 defendant getting under way

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/n...moussaoui.html

By Matthew Barakat
ASSOCIATED PRESS

5:37 a.m. March 6, 2006

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – After more than four years of wrangling and delay, the death penalty trial of the only man charged in the United States in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is ready to begin.

Final jury selection was scheduled for Monday in the sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, a 37-year-old French citizen who has admitted his loyalty to the al-Qaeda terror network and its leader, Osama bin Laden, but denies he has anything to do with Sept. 11.

A jury pool of 83 was called to the federal courthouse in Alexandria. Prosecutors and defense lawyers will whittle that group to a jury of 18 – 12 plus six alternates – using peremptory strikes, which allow each side to dismiss jurors for any reason they choose except race or gender.

Each side gets 30 peremptory strikes. Defense lawyers asked for additional strikes last week, but the judge denied that request Friday.

The jurors scheduled to report for service already have been qualified to serve during a two-week jury selection process in which they were quizzed individually by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema and filled out 50-page questionnaires asking their views about the death penalty, al-Qaeda, the FBI and their reactions to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Opening statements are scheduled for Monday afternoon, and the first witness is also expected to take the stand Monday.

Arrangements for the trial have been years in the making. Among the plans are provisions for victims of the terror attacks and their families to watch the trial on closed-circuit television at federal courthouses in Boston, Central Islip, N.Y., Newark, N.J., Philadelphia and in Alexandria, thanks to legislation passed in Congress.

Moussaoui pleaded guilty in April to conspiring with al-Qaeda to hijack planes and commit other crimes. The trial will simply determine Moussaoui's punishment, and only two options are available: death or life in prison.

To obtain the death penalty, prosecutors must first prove a direct link between Moussaoui and the Sept. 11 attacks. Moussaoui denies any connection to 9/11, but says he was training for a possible future attack.

Prosecutors will try to link Moussaoui to 9/11 by arguing that the FBI would have prevented the attacks if only Moussaoui had told the truth to the FBI about his terrorist links when he was arrested in August 2001.

The defense argues that the FBI and other agencies knew more about the hijackers' plans before 9/11 than Moussaoui and still failed to stop the attacks.