Witness Tampering Cited in Moussaoui Case

[Jolie Rouge]

Witness Tampering Cited in Moussaoui Case
Mar 17, 12:28 AM (ET)
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN and LESLIE MILLER

WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawyers for two airlines being sued for damages by 9/11 victims prompted a federal lawyer to coach witnesses in the trial of al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui so the government's death penalty case would not undercut their defense, victims' lawyers allege.

The victims' lawyers, Robert Clifford and Gregory Joseph, claim that one of the airline lawyers forwarded a transcript from the first day of the Moussaoui trial to Transportation Security Administration lawyer Carla J. Martin.

In violation of an order by Moussaoui trial judge Leonie Brinkema, Martin forwarded that day's transcript to seven federal aviation officials scheduled to testify later in the sentencing trial of the 37-year-old Frenchman.

Martin's e-mailing of the transcript and her efforts to shape their testimony prompted Brinkema to toss out half the government's case against Moussaoui as contaminated beyond repair.


The contacts between lawyers for United and American Airlines and Martin were detailed in a legal brief filed on Moussaoui's behalf Thursday. That brief contained a March 15 letter from Clifford and Joseph complaining about Martin's actions to U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is presiding over the civil damage case in New York.

They wrote Hellerstein that the government's opening statement in the Moussaoui case "took the position that the hijackings were completely preventable and that gate security measures could have been implemented to prevent the 9/11 hijackers from boarding the planes had security been on the look out for short-bladed knives and boxcutters."

"This stands in stark contrast to the position that has been repeatedly articulated by counsel to the aviation defendants in the September 11 actions."

Because that government position could have "devastating" impact on the airlines' defense in the civil suit, American Airlines' lawyer forwarded the transcript to a United Airlines lawyer who forwarded it to Martin, Clifford and Joseph wrote. As proof, they cited March 7 e-mails that they provided to Hellerstein but which were not immediately available here.

"The TSA lawyer then forwarded the transcripts and sent multiple e-mails to government witnesses in a clear effort to shape their testimony in a manner that would be beneficial to the aviation defendants" in the civil suit, they wrote.

They then quoted a March 8 e-mail Martin sent to one of the government's Moussaoui witnesses that said:

"My friends Jeff Ellis and Chris Christenson, NY lawyers rep. UAL and AAL respectively in the 9/11 civil litigation, all of us aviation lawyers, were stunned by the opening. The opening has created a credibility gap that the defense can drive a truck through. There is no way anyone could say that the carriers could have prevented all short-bladed knives from going through. (Prosecutor) Dave (Novak) MUST elicit that from you and the airline witnesses on direct"

Clifford and Joseph said the developments represent "far more than appearance of impropriety" and asked Hellerstein to investigate "the mutual back-scratching relationship that appears to exist between the (airline) defendants and the TSA."

Asked about the allegations by Clifford and Joseph, United Airlines spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said, "Our actions have been entirely appropriate as have those of our outside counsel."

American Airlines did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

Contacted after midnight, Martin's attorney, Roscoe Howard, said he not heard of the New York lawsuit or the letter from Clifford and Joseph. "I'll have to ask her about it," he said, declining to comment further.

TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said she was unfamiliar with the allegations made by Clifford and Joseph.

Earlier Thursday, Clark confirmed that TSA had put Martin on administrative leave.

In court on Tuesday, Brinkema said that Martin violated federal witness rules when she sent trial transcripts to seven aviation witnesses, coached them on how to deflect defense attacks and lied to defense lawyers to prevent them from interviewing witnesses they wanted to call.

Brinkema warned her that she could face civil or criminal charges and that she appeared to have violated rules of legal ethics.

Martin was assigned to be a government lawyer for the aviation witnesses called by both sides and to be a liaison between prosecutors and defense attorneys. Beyond that, she co-signed one government brief submitted in the case, attended closed hearings on classified documents and worked closely with prosecutors on preparing their exhibits.

Efforts to reach her for comment were unsuccessful, but her attorney, Roscoe Howard, said she was preparing a response. "Only her accusers' stories have been told, and those stories have been accepted as the whole truth," Howard said Thursday. "They are not."

---

On the Net:

Transportation Security Administration: http://www.tsa.gov


http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060317/D8GD4IC8K.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Judge Considers Future of Moussaoui Trial
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN and MATTHEW BARAKAT

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - Prosecutors and defense attorneys agree the fate of al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui could hinge on whether a federal judge sticks to her ruling that the government contaminated half its case by coaching witnesses and lying to the defense.

Defense lawyers argued Thursday that U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema was fully justified in concluding that evidence about U.S. aviation security was tainted beyond repair by the misconduct of a federal lawyer and cannot be used in Moussaoui's sentencing trial.

Moussaoui's lawyers said there was no reason for her to agree to a request by prosecutors on Wednesday that she revoke her order or at least impose less severe penalties on the government.

Prosecutors have said it would be waste of time to proceed with the trial to determine whether Moussaoui is executed or imprisoned for life unless they are allowed to present some aviation evidence. If the trial ended, he would get the life sentence.


There was no indication when Brinkema would respond.


Brinkema has sent the jury home until Monday while she decides what to do.


Earlier this week, Brinkema found that Transportation Security Administration lawyer Carla J. Martin violated trial rules when she sent trial transcripts to seven aviation witnesses, coached them on how to deflect defense attacks and lied to defense lawyers to prevent them from interviewing witnesses they wanted to call.


Federal rules of evidence prohibit witnesses from hearing or reading trial testimony so they can't alter their testimony based on what they learn.


As a result, Brinkema decided Tuesday the government cannot present any testimony about aviation security steps it might have taken to counter the threat posed by Moussaoui and his al-Qaida co-conspirators, who were training to hijack aircraft and fly them into U.S. buildings. The plans culminated in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.


Prosecutors say they need this testimony to make their case. They argue that if Moussaoui had revealed his al-Qaida membership and his terrorist plans when arrested in August 2001, the FBI could have identified some of the hijackers and aviation officials could have taken security steps to prevent at least one of the nearly 3,000 deaths on 9/11.


The defense argues the 5th Amendment gave Moussaoui the right not to incriminate himself. They say prosecutors must show that his lies prevented federal officials from taking steps they would have taken if he had exercised his constitutional right to remain silent under questioning.


The only person charged in this country in the Sept. 11 attacks, Moussaoui pleaded guilty in April to conspiring with al-Qaida. But he says he had nothing to do with 9/11 and was training for a possible later attack.


To obtain a death penalty, prosecutors must prove that Moussaoui's actions - his lies, in this case - led directly to at least one death on Sept. 11, 2001.


Prosecutors argue the federal aviation officials who dealt with Martin should be allowed to testify because six of the seven swore that her exhortations would not affect their testimony.


At the very least, prosecutors asked the judge to allow a new witness - not exposed to Martin - to testify in place of the barred witnesses.


But defense lawyers said a substitution would be unfair since federal law requires prosecutors to disclose all their witnesses three days before trial so the defense can prepare. Defense lawyers added that substitute witness would almost surely also be tainted - not by Martin but by exposure to news accounts of trial testimony.


The defense also argued that the full extent of Martin's misconduct is not known. Martin, who has been placed on administrative leave by TSA, declined to testify at a special hearing Tuesday.


Martin's lawyer, Roscoe Howard, said Thursday she had been ``viciously vilified by assertions from the prosecution'' and is preparing a response he said ``will show a very different, full picture of her intentions, her conduct and her tireless dedication to a fair trial.''


On the Net:


Court's Moussaoui site: http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/index.html

03/17/06 08:33


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=ne-main-9-l1&flok=FF-APO-1110&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20060317%2F0833055013.htm&sc=1110

[Jolie Rouge]

March 17, 2006
Moussaoui Case - Shocking Allegation
Injudicious Judiciary , Terrorist Attacks

In Salvaging Death From Life, we discussed the insane decision by Clinton-appointed Judge Leonie Brinkema to throw out the better half of the prosecution's case for the death penalty against Zacarias Moussaoui, on the grounds that a lawyer working for the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), Carla Martin, sent several FAA witnesses a transcript of the opening statements and the direct and/or cross examination of an FBI agent.

Now comes the rather shocking allegation that the entire transaction was a deliberate set-up whose purpose was to destroy the prosecutor's case.

As near as Big Lizards can figure out the agendas, here is what the AP story seems to say....


The allegation comes from Robert Clifford and Gregory Joseph, lawyers for family members of victims of the 9/11 attack. The lawsuit filed by the family members claim that United Airlines and American Airlines could have prevented 9/11 by stopping the hijackers from getting on the planes with knives and boxcutters.

The government also wants to prove that: if they can show that 9/11 could have been prevented if Moussaoui had told them about the knives and boxcutters, then Moussaoui should be put to death.


Contrariwise, the lawyers for the airlines clearly want for their jury to believe that 9/11 could not possibly have been prevented; that it would have happened the way it did regardless of any attempt to prevent boxcutters from being carried onto the planes. That way, it wouldn't be the airlines' fault.


And of course, Moussaoui's lawyers would also like to prove that, since then their client's lies would not have led to any deaths that wouldn't have occured otherwise. It wouldn't be Moussaoui's fault, either.


You follow?

So the plaintiff's lawyers and the prosecutors both want to show that 9/11 could have been prevented; and the defense lawyers in both cases want to prove that it could not have been prevented.

According to the allegation, the airline lawyers read the prosecutor's opening statement and became very worried. If the prosecution proved its case, it would be very hard for the airlines to evade a judgment. So allegedly, the airline lawyers contacted Carla Martin of the TSA and told her to queer the case: she had to get the FAA witnesses to change their stories and say that no FAA order would have stopped any of the hijackers:


Because that government position could have "devastating" impact on the airlines' defense in the civil suit, American Airlines' lawyer forwarded the transcript to a United Airlines lawyer who forwarded it to Martin, Clifford and Joseph wrote. As proof, they cited March 7 e-mails that they provided to [U.S. District Judge Alvin] Hellerstein but which were not immediately available here. [Hellerstein is the judge hearing the civil case. -- the Mgt.]

"The TSA lawyer then forwarded the transcripts and sent multiple e-mails to government witnesses in a clear effort to shape their testimony in a manner that would be beneficial to the aviation defendants" in the civil suit, they wrote. [As we understand it, to shape the testimony to make it seem as if 9/11 could not have been prevented, which would also help Moussaoui's defense. -- the Mgt]

They then quoted a March 8 e-mail Martin sent to one of the government's Moussaoui witnesses that said:

"My friends Jeff Ellis and Chris Christenson, NY lawyers rep. UAL and AAL respectively in the 9/11 civil litigation, all of us aviation lawyers, were stunned by the opening. The opening has created a credibility gap that the defense can drive a truck through. There is no way anyone could say that the carriers could have prevented all short-bladed knives from going through. (Prosecutor) Dave (Novak) MUST elicit that from you and the airline witnesses on direct."

In other words, Martin's actions were a direct assault on the prosecution's case -- she intended to help the airlines -- hence Moussaoui -- and not the government.

Yet even so, when she was caught red-handed, Judge Brinkema's response was to finish what Carla Martin started: Brinkema's order destroys the government's case, prevents Moussaoui from receiving the death penalty, and incidentally helps the airlines defend against the lawsuit. At least, that is what the plaintiffs' attorneys claim.

Through her attorney, Martin denies the allegation; but she has not yet appeared to speak on her own behalf, nor has her attorney yet had a chance to formulate a response. The first question, of course, is whether there was any pre-existing relationship between the airlines and the TSA, or some personal or monetary arrangement between their respective attorneys, which was so deep that Martin would risk disbarment or even prison (for witness tampering), just to help the airlines out in their civil lawsuit. If such a connection emerges, then clearly, Brinkema's order should not stand.

In fact, if this is true, then there should be a mistrial: the penalty phase for Moussaoui should be moved to a different judge (preferably in a different venue) and retried... because clearly, the people of the United States were sandbagged, if this allegation is even partially accurate.

Nobody alleges that Brinkema was part of this scheme; but her obvious bias against the prosecution led her to blame the government for a set-up that seems to have been aimed squarely at destroying the prosecution's case.

If this is true, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't: if the scheme had succeeded, maybe they could have gotten the witnesses to destroy the government's case (if the witnesses were willing to commit perjury, which I doubt). But when it failed -- that, too, was used to destroy the government's case!

Again, bear in mind: these are allegations from an interested party in the case: the lawyers for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the airlines. They may be wrong, and Carla Martin may have had no contact with the airline attorneys. But it's hard to believe lawyers would make false allegations (and what, fake the e-mails?), when the deception would be revealed immediately -- and would destroy their own careers, if they were found to be misleading the court (either court). Unless some major contrary evidence is produced, I'm inclined to believe this charge.

If the judge does not reverse herself, especially in light of the new allegations, then I sure hope the prosecutors appeal up the chain, all the way to the Supreme Court, if they will take it: the death penalty for Moussaoui should not be held hostage to the understandable desire of United and American not to have to pay a huge judgment to survivors of the victims of 9/11.

http://biglizards.net/blog/archives/2006/03/moussaoui_case.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Judge Accepts Compromise Deal on Moussaoui
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN and MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writers

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The federal judge in the death penalty trial of al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui accepted a government compromise Friday that will allow prosecutors to present new witnesses about aviation security.

Judge Leonie Brinkema in a written order said prosecutors could present exhibits and a witness or witnesses if they are untainted by contact with Transportation Security Administration lawyer Carla J. Martin, cited by Brinkema for misconduct earlier this week when the judge decided to exclude all aviation security evidence.

"The government's proposed alternative remedy of allowing it to call untainted aviation witnesses or otherwise produce evidence not tainted by Ms. Martin has merit," Brinkema wrote.

Her partial reversal of an earlier order was a boon to prosecutors who had said it would be a waste of time to continue the case if they were not allowed to present some evidence about possible defensive aviation security measures the government might have taken to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos signaled that the prosecution was prepared to resume its case on Monday. "We're pleased to be able to move forward with this important case on behalf of the thousands of victims and their families," Scolinos said.

Defense lawyers had argued Thursday that Brinkema was fully justified in concluding that evidence about U.S. aviation security was tainted beyond repair.

Moussaoui's lawyers also had said that there was no reason for her to agree to a request by prosecutors on Wednesday that she revoke her order or at least impose less severe penalties on the government.

Brinkema has sent the jury home until Monday while she decides what to do.

The only person charged in this country in the Sept. 11 attacks, Moussaoui pleaded guilty in April to conspiring with al-Qaida. But he says he had nothing to do with 9/11 and was training for a possible later attack.

To obtain a death penalty, prosecutors must prove that Moussaoui's actions — his lies, in this case — led directly to at least one death on Sept. 11, 2001.

Martin's lawyer, Roscoe Howard, said Thursday she had been "viciously vilified by assertions from the prosecution" and is preparing a response he said "will show a very different, full picture of her intentions, her conduct and her tireless dedication to a fair trial."

Meanwhile, in New York, lawyers representing plaintiffs in a liability lawsuit stemming from the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks have asked a judge there to conduct an inquiry into whether Martin, or any other TSA lawyers, engaged in witness tampering or other acts to favor American Airlines and United Airlines, defendants in the case.

"We are particularly concerned that TSA may not have acted with the total impartiality required of that Agency in decisions it has made that affect our cases," lawyers Marc S. Moller and Beth E. Goldman wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who is overseeing the civil lawsuit over property damages that resulted from the terrorist attacks.

___

On the Net:

Court's Moussaoui site: http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/index.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060317/ap_on_re_us/moussaoui;_ylt=AhQNkoGeX2i3Ol9t_h5eVMis0NUE;_ylu=X 3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

[Jolie Rouge]

What's Really Wrong With The Moussaoui Case
Prosecutors are blaming Carla Martin for witness tampering, but that's just one symptom of a deeply flawed government prosecution
How the Moussaoui Case Crumbled

By DOUGLAS WALLER/WASHINGTON
Posted Thursday, Mar. 16, 2006

Carla J. Martin has taken most of the flack this week for the potential collapse of the Justice Department’s death penalty case against confessed Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. It is after all Martin, a former flight attendant turned government aviation lawyer, who stands accused of improperly coaching witnesses scheduled to testify in Moussaoui's sentencing trial, e-mailing trial transcripts and offering advice on how to testify.

But for all the trouble Martin allegedly caused federal prosecutors — who have told the court they were unaware of her actions and will try next week to get Judge Leonie Brinkema to reverse her decision barring the seven witnesses' testimony — critics claim Martin is only one symptom of much deeper problems in the way the Justice Department has handled the high-profile terror case.

For one, the sea of government attorneys working on the case, many from outside Justice, simply got too large; the more lawyers the prosecution has working on a case, many attorneys argue, the more chances a serious mistake will be made. Martin herself works as a Transportation Security Administration lawyer, and prosecutors say she had no substantive involvement with the case, simply locating TSA files and helping arrange witness interviews. Lawyers who know her say she's an aggressive attorney but has confined herself to work in civil and administrative law, which has looser rules for admissible evidence than in criminal law. The case was "a classic example of too many chefs spoiling the soup," says Larry Barcella, a former assistant U.S. attorney who's handled a number of terror trials.

A more fundamental problem is what aviation security lawyers deride as the government’s "imperial overreach." Prosecutors are arguing that if Moussaoui had come clean with FBI agents interrogating him before 9/11, airport security could have been beefed up to foil the hijackers. In other words, they are claiming that he should be put to death because of his inactions rather than his actions. "It’s enough of a stretch to get juries to convict people who drive getaway cars in a murder of conspiracy," says one government security lawyer not involved in the case. "But these prosecutors think Moussaoui should be put to death for not revealing a plan he never took part in?"

It hasn’t helped matters that prosecutors have given the judge headaches over other missteps. Two years ago, for example, Brinkema took the death penalty off the table after government lawyers disobeyed her order that Moussaoui's legal team be allowed to interview captured al-Qaeda leaders that they claimed might clear their client, a ruling a higher court eventually overturned. And as recently as last week, Brinkema admonished prosecutor David Novak for posing an inappropriate question to an FBI agent who was testifying during the jury trial. "I don't think in the annals of criminal law there has ever been a case with this many significant problems," Judge Brinkema complained.

Martin's attorney, Roscoe C. Howard Jr., released a statement Thursday claiming his client, who was placed on paid administrative leave from her job Thursday and could face civil or criminal charges, has been "viciously vilified by assertions from the prosecution." What prosecutors have told the judge she did, the statement said, is not "the whole truth." Howard said Martin is preparing her response, which "will show a very different, full picture of her intentions, her conduct and her tireless dedication to a fair trial."

That may well be, but even Carla Martin's e-mails to prep witnesses — which were intended to bolster the government's case — ended up pointing out a serious flaw in it. As part of their case, prosecutors are arguing that if Moussaoui had come clean about the plot, enhanced airport screening could have detected the short-bladed knives that the hijackers carried on board. But as Martin herself wrote in one of her e-mails, "There is no way anyone could say that the carriers could have prevented all short-bladed knives from going through."

With reporting by Sally B. Donnelly

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1174270,00.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Moussaoui Says He Was to Hijack 5th Plane
By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer
33 minutes ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane and fly it into the White House as part of the attack that unfolded Sept. 11, 2001.

Moussaoui's testimony on his own behalf stunned the courtroom. His account was in stark contrast to his previous statements in which he said the White House attack was to come later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik imprisoned on earlier terrorist convictions.

On Dec. 22, 2001, Reid was subdued by passengers when he attempted to detonate a bomb in his shoe aboard American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami. There were 197 people on board. The plane was diverted to Boston, where it landed safely.

Moussaoui told the court he knew the World Trade Center attack was coming and that he lied to investigators when arrested in August 2001 because he wanted it to happen.

"You lied because you wanted to conceal that you were a member of al-Qaida?" prosecutor Rob Spencer asked.

"That's correct," Moussaoui said.

Spencer: "You lied so the plan could go forward?"

Moussaoui: "That's correct."

The exchange was key to the government's case that the attacks might have been averted if Moussaoui had been more cooperative following his arrest.

Moussaoui told the court he knew the attacks were coming some time after August 2001 and bought a radio so he could hear them unfold.

Specifically, he said he knew the World Trade Center was going to be attacked, but asserted he was not part of that plot and didn't know the details.

Nineteen men pulled off the Sept. 11 attacks on New York in Washington in the worst act of terrorism ever on U.S. soil.

"I had knowledge that the Twin Towers would be hit," Moussaoui said. "I didn't know the details of this."

Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son Christian died at the World Trade Center, said "at least there would have been a chance" to head off the attacks if Moussaoui had told investigators in August 2001 what she heard him admit in court Monday.

"I was convinced that this man was only a heartbeat away from taking the controls of a plane," she said.

Asked by his lawyer why he signed his guilty plea in April as "the 20th hijacker," Moussaoui replied: "Because everybody used to refer to me as the 20th hijacker and it was a bit of fun."

Before Moussaoui took the stand, his lawyers made a last attempt to stop him from testifying, but failed. Defense attorney Gerald Zerkin argued that his client would not be a competent witness because he has contempt for the court, only recognizes Islamic law and therefore "the affirmation he undertakes would be meaningless."

Moussaoui at first denied he was to have been a fifth hijack pilot but under cross examination spoke of the plan to attack the White House. He said Reid was the only person he knew for sure would have been on that mission, but others were discussed.

Reid, a self-proclaimed member of al-Qaida who has pledged support to Osama bin Laden, pleaded guilty in October 2002 to trying to blow up Flight 63 and was sentenced to life in prison.

Moussaoui testified that at one point he was excluded from pre-hijacking operations because he had gotten in trouble with his al-Qaida superiors on a 2000 trip to Malaysia. He said it was only after he was called back to Afghanistan and talked with Osama bin Laden that he was approved again for the operation.

"My position was, like you say, under review."

Previous testimony indicated that Moussaoui had irritated his hosts in Malaysia who were members of an al-Qaida affiliate. Although al-Qaida was a well-financed group, he had asked his Malaysian hosts for money to take flight training.

The 19 terrorists on Sept. 11 hijacked and crashed four airliners, killing nearly 3,000 people in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on the planes. The intended target of the plane that crashed into a Pennsylvania field remains unknown.

Before Moussaoui took the stand, the court heard testimony that two months before the attacks a CIA deputy chief waited in vain for permission to tell the FBI about a "very high interest" al-Qaida operative who became one of the hijackers.

The official, a senior figure in the CIA's Laden unit, said he sought authorization on July 13, 2001, to send information to the FBI but got no response for 10 days, then asked again.

As it turned out, the information on Khalid al-Mihdhar did not reach the FBI until late August. At the time, CIA officers needed permission from a special unit before passing certain intelligence on to the FBI.

The official was identified only as John. His written testimony was read into the record.

"John's" testimony was part of the defense's case that federal authorities missed multiple opportunities to catch hijackers and perhaps thwart the 9/11 plot.

His testimony included an e-mail sent by FBI supervisor Michael Maltbie discussing Moussaoui but playing down his terrorist connections. Maltbie's e-mail said "there's no indication that (Moussaoui) had plans for any nefarious activity."

He sent that e-mail to the CIA even after receiving a lengthy memo from the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui and suspected him of being a terrorist with plans to hijack aircraft.

Prosecutors argue that Moussaoui, a French citizen, thwarted a prime opportunity to track down the 9/11 hijackers and possibly unravel the plot when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations and lied to the FBI about his al-Qaida membership and plans to hijack a plane.

Had Moussaoui confessed, the FBI could have pursued leads that would have led them to most of the hijackers, government witnesses have testified.

To win the death penalty, prosecutors must first prove that Moussaoui's actions — specifically, his lies — were directly responsible for at least one death on Sept. 11.

If they fail, Moussaoui would get life in prison.

___

Associated Press Writer Michael J. Sniffen contributed to this report

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20060327/ap_on_re_us/moussaoui_17

[Jolie Rouge]

Moussaoui Defiant After Jury's Verdict
By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer
45 minutes ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A federal jury found al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui eligible Monday to be executed, linking him directly to the horrific Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and concluding that his lies to FBI agents led to at least one death on that day.

A defiant Moussaoui said, "You'll never get my blood, God curse you all."

After months of hearings and trial testimony — punctuated by Moussaoui's occasional outbursts — he now faces a second phase of the sentencing trial to determine if he actually will be put to death.

That phase begins Thursday morning for the only person to face charges in this country in connection with the nation's worst terrorist assault, the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people as jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

Moussaoui sat in his chair and prayed silently as the verdict was read, refusing to join his defense team in standing. His comment came after the hearing.

The jury now will hear testimony on whether the 37-year-old Frenchman, who was in jail at the time of the attacks, should be executed for his role.

Those testifying will include families of 9/11 victims who will describe the human impact of the al-Qaida mission. Court-appointed defense lawyers, whom Moussaoui has tried to reject, will summon experts to suggest he is schizophrenic after an impoverished childhood during which he faced racism in France over his Moroccan ancestry.

The trial's first phase, which focused strictly on legal arguments, had seemed Moussaoui's best chance to avoid execution. The jury deciding his fate will now be weighing the emotional impact of nearly 3,000 deaths against Moussaoui's rough childhood and possible evidence of mental illness.

On the key question before the jurors in phase one, they answered yes that at least one victim died Sept. 11 as a direct result of Moussaoui's actions.

Had the jury voted against his eligibility for the death penalty, Moussaoui would have been sentenced to life in prison.

Rosemary Dillard, whose husband Eddie died in the attacks, said she felt a sense of vindication from the verdict.

"This man has no soul, has no conscience," she said of Moussaoui. "What else could we ask for but this?"

Abraham Scott, who lost his wife Janice Marie on 9/11, said he actually felt sorry for Moussaoui "But not enough to drop the possibility of him getting the death penalty.

"I describe him like a dog with rabies, one that cannot be cured. The only cure is to put him or her to death, Scott said.

But Scott said he also blamed the government "for not acting on certain indicators that could have prevented 9/11 happening."

The jury began weighing Moussaoui's fate last Wednesday. During its deliberations, jurors asked only one question publicly, seeking a definition of "weapon of mass destruction." One of the three convictions for which Moussaoui could be executed is conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

The jurors were told that a plane used as a missile — the tactic employed on Sept. 11 — qualifies as a weapon of mass destruction.

Moussaoui pleaded guilty last April to conspiring with al-Qaida to hijack aircraft and other crimes. At the time, he denied being part of the 9/11 plot, saying he was being trained for a separate attack, but he changed his story when he took the stand and claimed he was to have flown a hijacked airliner into the White House that day. The defense suggested Moussaoui would say anything to derail his own defense so he could achieve martyrdom through execution.

Moussaoui was in jail at the time of the attacks, but prosecutors argue federal agents would have been able to thwart or at least minimize the attacks if he had revealed his al-Qaida membership and his terrorist plans when he was arrested and questioned by federal agents.

The defense argued that a confession from Moussaoui would have changed nothing because the FBI and other federal agencies were inept in processing terror threats in the time before Sept. 11.

The judge said the jury was unanimous on all four aspects of each of the three counts against Moussaoui. Those counts were conspiracy to commit international terrorism, to destroy aircraft and to use weapons of mass destruction.

On each count, the jurors found the defendant was 18 or older at the time of the offense, intentionally lied to federal agents on Aug. 16-18, 2001, and did so "contemplating the life of a person would be taken or intending that lethal force would be used." Further, they determined at least one person died Sept. 11 as a direct result of the lies.

The judge asked the jurors if their verdicts were all unanimous, and all nodded affirmatively.

___

Associated Press writers Michael J. Sniffen and Pete Yost contributed to this report.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/moussaoui;_ylt=AguZ6BUlhoKAKFDU.4RHsRSs0NUE;_ylu=X 3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

[Jolie Rouge]

Posted on Tue, Apr. 11, 2006
Heart-wrenching 9-11 testimony continues
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN
The Associated Press

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - After being warned by the judge about going overboard, prosecutors seeking to execute 9-11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui summoned more heart-wrenching testimony Monday from victims' relatives, including a man who watched a plane carrying his son and granddaughter crash into the World Trade Center.

Another man testified about helping a burn victim in the lobby of a hotel and feeling the impact of a hijacked jet hitting the second tower without knowing that his sister and her 4-year-old daughter were aboard. A woman testified about the pain of losing a husband during "a not-so-great period" in their marriage without a chance "to tell him how much I loved him."

Prosecutors also played tapes of 911 calls made by two victims from the burning upper floors of the south tower.

Responding to defense complaints, Judge Leonie Brinkema issued a stern warning before the jury was brought in. "There's no way of avoiding some degree of emotion in a case like this," Brinkema said, but "the government is approaching shaky ground."

She said the prejudicial impact can be so overwhelming that a death sentence could be overturned on appeal.

She accepted a promise from prosecutors to use fewer family photographs and try to keep testimony to under 30 minutes per witness.

Questioning of eight morning witnesses appeared unchanged from the seven questioned last week. At one point, defense attorney Alan Yamamoto said the defense was about to renew its objections. Brinkema responded, "I understand that."

Only after a lunch break, when prosecutors had time to revise their presentations, was the questioning of some witnesses noticeably shorter.

On Monday, nearly every witness cried and needed water or a moment to regain composure. Some wept uncontrollably for brief periods.

Most of the 17 jurors and alternates maintained solemn faces that betrayed no emotion. But four women and one man dabbed discreetly at their eyes or noses with tissues or handkerchiefs.

Moussaoui, who is facing a life-or-death decision from this jury, watched and listened to the early witnesses intently, then shifted in his chair to stare straight ahead with a sober look on his face. At a morning break after the judge and jury had left, he said loudly, "Burn, in the USA." At the lunch break, he said, "Hollywood, deadly circus."

Perhaps the day's most dramatic testimony came from 73-year-old C. Lee Hanson, whose granddaughter, Christine, 2 1/2 , was the youngest 9-11 victim.

Hanson said his son, Peter, called him by cellphone from United Airlines Flight 175 to tell him the plane had been hijacked. Peter said he thought the hijackers were going to crash the plane into a building. "Don't worry, Dad, if it happens, it will be quick," Peter said.

"As we were talking," Hanson told jurors, "he said very softly, 'Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!' And there was a scream in the background." Crying, Hanson said, "I looked at the television and saw the plane fly into the building."

Days later, Hanson traveled to their Massachusetts home to retrieve DNA samples to help medical examiners identifying remains. All that was ever found of his son was a bone a few inches long.

Moussaoui pleaded guilty last year to conspiring with al Qaeda to fly planes into U.S. buildings. A week ago, the jurors ruled him eligible for the death penalty even though he was in jail in Minnesota on 9-11. They decided that lies he told federal agents a month before the attacks led directly to at least one death that day by keeping agents from stopping some of the hijackers. Now jurors must decide whether Moussaoui deserves execution or life in prison.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/14315189.htm

[Jolie Rouge]

Moussaoui Says He Can't Get Fair Trial
By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui returned to the witness stand Thursday, arguing that he could not get a fair trial so close to the Pentagon and criticizing the United States' support for Israel.

Moussaoui testified that he believes his court-appointed lawyers are working against him and said that if he'd had control over his defense, he would have argued that he should escape the death penalty and be available for a prisoner swap if American troops are captured overseas.

Moussaoui, as defiant on the witness stand as he has been at the defendant's table throughout the trial, testified against the advice of his court-appointed lawyers and attacked them before the jury that has to decide whether to sentence him to death or to spend life in prison.

Offering a lengthy explanation of why he hates Americans, Moussaoui criticized the United States' support for Israel. He said Muslims have been at war with Christians and Jews for centuries. Israel, he said, is "just a missing star in the American flag."

Moussaoui told jurors that Islam requires Muslims to be the world's superpower as he flipped through a copy of the Koran searching for verses to support his assertions. One he cited requires non-Muslim nations to pay a tribute to Muslim countries.

"We have to be the superpower. You have to be subdued. We have to be above you," Moussaoui said. "Because Americans, you are the superpower, you want to eradicate us."

At one point, defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin asked Moussaoui if he thought he was helping his case when he testified earlier that he planned to pilot a plane into the White House on Sept. 11.

"I was putting my trust in God, so from an Islamic point of view, yes," Moussaoui responded, acknowledging that non-Muslims might view his testimony as harmful to his case.

At several points during his afternoon testimony, Moussaoui acknowledged that he has lied when it has suited his interests throughout the course of his four-year case.

Defense lawyers have said Moussaoui is lying about his role in Sept. 11 — the worst terrorism attack ever on U.S. soil — in the hopes of achieving martyrdom through execution.

Moussaoui testified Thursday that "for the last four years, I have been fighting" against the death penalty. Moussaoui said he considered the consequences of his previous testimony about his role in Sept. 11 and "decided to just put my trust in God, tell the truth and time will tell."

Assailing his court-appointed lawyers, Moussaoui said: "You have put your vested interest in keeping this case in your hands, above my interest to save my life."

Moussaoui suggested they preferred the fame that comes from handling a high-profile trial rather than seeking a change of venue to move the case away from Virginia, a state with a reputation for jurors amenable to the death penalty.

Zerkin had asked him if he believed that his defense team was in a conspiracy to kill him. Moussaoui responded that they have been engaged in "criminal non-assistance."

Specifically, he said, defense lawyers should have fought to move the case away from Alexandria, which is a short distance from the Pentagon. The mammoth Defense Department headquarters was hit by one of aircraft terrorists hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001.

In April 2002, while he was serving as his own defense counsel, Moussaoui filed a motion seeking to move the trial, citing an overrepresentation of government employees in the area. He also said there was more intense media attention in the northern Virginia area due to the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, however, rejected the claim and said Moussaoui would be able to get an impartial jury.

Earlier, Moussaoui's lawyers opened his defense by seeking to convince jurors to spare his life and put him in a place from which he could never escape.

An expert on prison policy and management testified that if Moussaoui is spared the death penalty he would spend the rest of his life in the highest-security federal prison facilities after he is sentenced.

James E. Aiken, the first defense witness in the second phase of Moussaoui's death-penalty trial, said Moussaoui would always require the highest level of supervision and would be isolated not only from the outside world but also from other prisoners.

"I don't care how good he is ... I don't care how compliant he is. He will be in the security envelope as long as he lives," Aiken said.

Moussaoui's defense team over the next several days is expected to argue that his life should be spared because of his limited role in the 9/11 attacks. They plan to present evidence that he is mentally ill and that his execution would only play into his dream of martyrdom.

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 Sept. 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.

___

Associated Press Writer Michael J. Sniffen contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060413/ap_on_re_us/moussaoui;_ylt=AtAp3ermgJXmdvgfOKqWM71H2ocA;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MjBwMWtkBHNlYwM3MTg-



Moussaoui told the court he knew the World Trade Center attack was coming and that he lied to investigators when arrested in August 2001 because he wanted it to happen.

At a morning break after the judge and jury had left, he (Moussaoui)said loudly, "Burn, in the USA." At the lunch break, he said, "Hollywood, deadly circus."

after he has repeatedly shouting out things during the course of the trial, he himself would be the only reason he wouldn't possibaly get a "fair trail". I don't think moving it away from VA would have made a difference.- JMHO

[Jolie Rouge]

Moussaoui: 'No Regret, No Remorse'
By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer
14 minutes ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui said Thursday it made his day to hear accounts of Americans' suffering from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and he would like to see similar attacks "every day."

Taking the witness stand for the second time in his death-penalty trial Thursday, Moussaoui mocked a Navy sailor who wept on the stand as she described the death of two of her subordinates.

"I think it was disgusting for a military person" to cry, Moussaoui said of the testimony of Navy Lt. Nancy McKeown. "She is military, she should expect people at war with her to want to kill her."

Asked if he was happy to hear her sobbing, he said, "Make my day."

Moussaoui said he had "no regret, no remorse" about the 9/11 attacks. Asked by prosecutor Rob Spencer if he would like to see it happen again, Moussaoui responded: "Every day until we get you."

Moussaoui also said on cross-examination that he is convinced President Bush will free him before the end of his term and that he will return to London.

Prosecutor Rob Spencer tried several times to get Moussaoui to say he didn't really believe that, but Moussaoui was insistent.

"I haven't doubted it for one single second," said Moussaoui, adding that the vision came to him in a dream just like his dream of flying a plane into the White House.

He also argued that he could not get a fair trial so close to the Pentagon and he criticized U.S. support for Israel.

Moussaoui testified that he believes his court-appointed lawyers are working against him and that if he'd had control over his defense, he would have argued that he should escape the death penalty and be available for a prisoner swap if American troops are captured overseas.

Moussaoui, as defiant on the witness stand as he has been at the defendant's table throughout the trial, testified against the advice of his court-appointed lawyers and attacked them before the jury that must decide whether to sentence him to death or to spend life in prison.

Offering a lengthy explanation of why he hates Americans, Moussaoui criticized the United States' support for Israel. He said Muslims have been at war with Christians and Jews for centuries. Israel, he said, is "just a missing star in the American flag."

Moussaoui told jurors that Islam requires Muslims to be the world's superpower as he flipped through a copy of the Koran searching for verses to support his assertions. One he cited requires non-Muslim nations to pay a tribute to Muslim countries.

"We have to be the superpower. You have to be subdued. We have to be above you," Moussaoui said. "Because Americans, you are the superpower, you want to eradicate us."

At one point, defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin asked Moussaoui if he thought he was helping his case when he testified earlier that he planned to pilot a plane into the White House on Sept. 11.

"I was putting my trust in God, so from an Islamic point of view, yes," Moussaoui responded, acknowledging that non-Muslims might view his testimony as harmful to his case.

At several points during his afternoon testimony, Moussaoui acknowledged that he has lied when it has suited his interests throughout the course of his four-year case.

Defense lawyers have said Moussaoui is lying about his role in Sept. 11 — the worst terrorism attack ever on U.S. soil — in the hopes of achieving martyrdom through execution.

Moussaoui testified Thursday that "for the last four years, I have been fighting" against the death penalty. He said he considered the consequences of his previous testimony about his role in Sept. 11 and "decided to just put my trust in God, tell the truth and time will tell."

Assailing his court-appointed lawyers, Moussaoui said: "You have put your vested interest in keeping this case in your hands, above my interest to save my life."

Moussaoui suggested they preferred the fame that comes from handling a high-profile trial rather than seeking a change of venue to move the case away from Virginia, a state with a reputation for jurors amenable to the death penalty.

In April 2002, when he was serving as his own defense counsel, Moussaoui filed a motion seeking to move the trial, citing an overrepresentation of government employees in the area. He also said there was more intense media attention in the northern Virginia area due to the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon, which is a short distance from the courthouse.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, however, rejected the claim and said Moussaoui would be able to get an impartial jury.

Zerkin had asked him if he believed that his defense team was in a conspiracy to kill him. Moussaoui responded that they have been engaged in "criminal non-assistance."

Earlier, Moussaoui's lawyers opened his defense by seeking to convince jurors to spare his life and put him in a place from which he could never escape.

James E. Aiken, the first defense witness in the second phase of Moussaoui's death-penalty trial, said Moussaoui would always require the highest level of supervision and would be isolated not only from the outside world but also from other prisoners.

"I don't care how good he is ... I don't care how compliant he is. He will be in the security envelope as long as he lives," Aiken said.

Moussaoui's defense team is expected to argue in the next few days that his life should be spared because of his limited role in the 9/11 attacks. They plan to present evidence that he is mentally ill and that his execution would only play into his dream of martyrdom.

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 Sept. 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.

___

Associated Press writer Michael J. Sniffen contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060413/ap_on_re_us/moussaoui;_ylt=ApKXkbZtNokF5npzJezXR6Ws0NUE;_ylu=X 3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--



"I think it was disgusting for a military person" to cry, Moussaoui said of the testimony of Navy Lt. Nancy McKeown. "She is military, she should expect people at war with her to want to kill her."

we were not at war with anyone on 9/11, it was a cowardly sneak attack by terrorists who went after civilian targets as well. :mad:

[Jolie Rouge]

Moussaoui said mentally ill, mistreated as child
By Deborah Charles
Mon Apr 17, 7:24 PM ET

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) - Defense lawyers trying to save Zacarias Moussaoui's life presented evidence on Monday that the September 11 conspirator was a schizophrenic who had an abusive father and an unsettled childhood.

Witnesses were brought forward to try to blunt the impact of Moussaoui's recent testimony on the first day back in court since he announced that he had no remorse for the September 11 hijackings and said he wished Americans more pain.

Moussaoui has pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy in connection with the September 11 attacks and his lawyers are trying to convince the 12-person jury not to sentence him to death.

Dr. Xavier Amador, a witness who is an expert in schizophrenia, said he had diagnosed Moussaoui with the disease and said several other experts had confirmed his opinion.

Several witnesses, including Moussaoui's two sisters, said he had a rough childhood and an abusive father who beat all four siblings and their mother.

"Zacarias ... suffered from not having been loved by his father," said his oldest sister, Nadia, in videotaped testimony. "We were terrorized."

Clinical social worker Jan Vogelsang said Moussaoui was in and out of orphanages for the first six years of his life, as his mother struggled to deal with her four children while trying to separate from her abusive husband.

As he grew up, Moussaoui was seen by his friends as outgoing and fun. Several childhood friends from France said Moussaoui enjoyed parties and going out at night as a teenager.

One friend, Gilles Cohen, said he and Moussaoui had often joked about how they could be friends even though Cohen was Jewish and Moussaoui was of Moroccan descent.

Cohen's testimony came shortly after Moussaoui yelled "death to the Jew" at a break. Moussaoui often yells out curses after the judge and jury leave the room and has frequently targeted Jews, including his lawyer Gerald Zerkin.

Moussaoui's friends said he changed after he went to London in 1992 to study international business and learn English. They said had become much more serious about Islam, had grown a beard and was less outgoing.

An imam at the mosque Moussaoui first attended in London said Moussaoui was initially pleasant and eager to learn about Islam but then got involved with fundamentalists.

In videotaped testimony, Brixton mosque chairman Abdul Haqq Baker said he eventually asked Moussaoui to leave the mosque once he got involved with more extremist Muslims. Baker said Moussaoui became disrespectful and he was concerned he might try to spread extremist views.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060417/ts_nm/security_moussaoui_dc_1;_ylt=AoXTNIOvy9gCKefDftgt7 PgTv5UB;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl


Moussaoui Mocks Psychologist's Testimony
By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 1 minute ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Zacarias Moussaoui's behavior is abnormal even for an al-Qaida terrorist, a defense psychologist testified Tuesday.

Xavier Amador diagnosed the Sept. 11, 2001, conspirator with paranoid schizophrenia after observing his actions and writings since 2002. He cited delusional beliefs firmly held by Moussaoui, including his conviction that President Bush will free him from prison and that his court-appointed lawyers are in a conspiracy to kill him.

Moussaoui mocked the testimony about his alleged schizophrenia. He said "beautiful terrorist mind" as he was led from court during a recess, referring to the movie "A Beautiful Mind," about a mathematician with schizophrenia.

After a second break, he said, smiling broadly, "Crazy or not crazy, that is the question."

Amador contrasted Moussaoui's erratic behavior with that of several other al-Qaida terrorists who have been tried in U.S. criminal court.

The defense introduced affidavits filed by lawyers for Ramzi Yousef, serving life in prison for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, and other al-Qaida members. All the lawyers said their clients actively assisted their defense and did not believe their lawyers were working against them.

"What we see with this individual is unique to him," Amador said. "It's not al-Qaida."

Amador said his diagnosis was confirmed after an April 2005 encounter with Moussaoui in which the defendant repeatedly spit water on him — and appeared to be talking to himself.

Amador said the visit lasted for about an hour, and Moussaoui spent much of the time telling Amador to go away. Amador observed Moussaoui talking to himself in a manner that did not appear to be prayer, the witness said.

When Amador refused to go away, he said, Moussaoui spit water at him more than a dozen times, then resigned himself to Amador's presence.

Moussaoui then complained that guards used excessive force in taking him from his Alexandria jail cell to a deposition at the federal courthouse. And he told Amador that Bush would release him from prison.

Government experts have reached conclusions that diverge from Amador's statements, and are expected to testify later this week in rebuttal.

Amador cited other evidence of Moussaoui's paranoia, including his belief that an electric fan that he picked up from the curb outside his Oklahoma apartment in 2001 was bugged by the FBI.

Moussaoui previously said that he believes all Americans, including his lawyers, want him killed. And he acknowledged in testimony that he was concerned the fan may have been bugged, but he was not convinced of it.

Amador said that Moussaoui, in his testimony, was trying to "normalize" his paranoid beliefs.

While prosecutors' experts have been able to examine Moussaoui, he refused to cooperate with Amador or any other defense expert.

Amador based his diagnosis largely on conclusions of other mental-health professionals and an analysis of Moussaoui's actions and writings over years. These included the numerous rambling and often insulting legal motions that Moussaoui filed during 18 months when he represented himself.

Moussaoui's defense lawyers, who are at odds with their client, say he is delusional and cite his testimony last week about a dream that Bush will free him from prison.

Jurors must decide whether Moussaoui should be executed or serve life in prison without parole, their only options since Moussaoui has already pleaded guilty to conspiring with al-Qaida to fly planes into U.S. buildings.

Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country in 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 that day.

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

___

EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press Writer Michael J. Sniffen contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060418/ap_on_re_us/moussaoui_15;_ylt=AhiJTWAhJSaQnwLqR66wuQ0Tv5UB;_yl u=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

[Jolie Rouge]

No tears for terrorists
By Michelle Malkin

Get out your box of aloe vera-enriched, three-ply Kleenex tissues. The bleeding-heart defense team for convicted al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui wants to tell you a sob story. Like so many apologists for jihad, Moussaoui's lawyers are playing the victim card on behalf of a murder-minded thug who just can't wait to die for Allah.

Last April, Moussaoui pleaded guilty to six charges of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy, conspiracy to destroy aircraft, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to murder government employees, and conspiracy to destroy property. Throughout the sentencing phase of his trial, this martyr-in-waiting has laughed at his victims, brandished his Koran, and shouted death threats to America — "G-d Curse You All!" and "Burn in hell!" and, of course, "Allah Akbar!"


Last week, when prosecutors put 9/11 family members on the stand to tell the world the pain and horror they still feel every day as a result of the mass murders that Moussaoui facilitated, presiding judge Leonie Brinkema warned them against "prejudicial testimony."

But Judge Brinkema said nary a word as Moussaoui's lawyers ratcheted up the prejudicial emote-a-meter to 11.

A social worker and a psychologist offered pathos-laden testimony about Moussaoui's difficult childhood. His abusive father. The anti-Muslim taunts of schoolmates. The hostility of the parents of his French girlfriend, under whom Moussaoui "suffered a lot of pain about not being accepted." The courtroom soap opera climaxed with video testimony exhibiting his troubled sisters, who called their beloved Zacarias the "little sweetheart of the family." Sniffle.


According to the New York Times, which headlined its story "Moussaoui's Childhood Is Presented as Mitigating Factor," Dr. Xavier Amador told the jury Monday that Little Orphan Moussaoui "suffered from schizophrenia of the paranoid variety."


Let me throw away the medical dictionary and give my diagnosis of the defense team's diagnosis: Bull.


Moussaoui doesn't sound like a psych ward patient when he rants about the "Jewish state of Palestine" and threatens to "exterminate" American Jews in the Koran-ordained quest to spread Islam and supplant America as the world's superpower. This is standard-issue rhetoric for countless so-called "moderate" Muslim imams and madrassa operators and supposedly Westernized, educated emirs and Iranian government officials and Arab government-owned newspapers.

Totally sick, but completely sane.

Moussaoui rightly mocked his own defense team. "It's a lot of American B.S.," he scoffed. I told you he wasn't nuts.


Playing the mental illness card allows the blind to continue deluding themselves about what University of London , King's College, professor Efraim Karsh calls Islamic imperialis. Jihadists didn't start claiming war on non-believers in 2001 or 1993 or 1948. They have aspired to conquer for ages. These historical claims are "frequently dismissed by Westerners as delusional, a species of mere self-aggrandizement or propaganda," Harsh writes in his new book. "But the Islamists are perfectly serious, and know what they are doing. Their rhetoric has a millennial warrant, both in doctrine and in fact, and taps into a deep undercurrent that has characterized the political culture of Islam from the beginning."


Yet, the bleeding hearts foolishly and suicidally persist with their Poor Little Jihadist propaganda and call for sympathy and understanding for the Root Causes that fueled the 9/11 hijackers; Moussaoui; convicted Islamic shoebomber Richard Reid; the Muslim gunman who murdered two people at Los Angeles International Airport's El Al ticket counter in 2001; and the Koran-invoking Tar Heel terrorist who rammed his SUV into a busy student square at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. And on and on.


On Monday, while Moussaoui's defense team played their violins in court, apologists across Europe and the Muslim world played the same song for the suicide bomber who murdered 9 innocent civilians and wounded scores more at a Tel Aviv restaurant. The bomber packed his explosives with nails and shrapnel soaked in rat poison to increase the suffering of the victims.


Police had to pick bits of flesh off the blood-drenched streets and parked car windshields.


But it's not the fault of terrorist Sami Salim Mohammed Hammed and his sponsors at Islamic Jihad. Blame "Israeli aggression" and "anti-Arab racism!"


The dry-eyed know there is one Root Cause for this carnage. It's not America, Israel, racism, or psychological imbalances. It's evil. Just evil.

[Jolie Rouge]

Moussaoui Jury Can't Have Dictionary
By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer


ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Jurors in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui asked for but were denied a dictionary Tuesday for use during their deliberations on whether the Sept. 11 conspirator should receive a death sentence or life in prison.

Before their lunch break, the jurors — and Moussaoui — filed into the courtroom to hear the response of Judge Leonie Brinkema to the request to have a dictionary in the jury room.

Brinkema told them that sending a dictionary in would be like adding additional evidence in the case, but she invited them to come back if they had questions about specific definitions. And she warned them against doing their own research, including looking up definitions.

After she and the jury left, Moussaoui said, "747 fly to London" — an apparent reference to his dream that President Bush will release him and he will fly to London.

The jury deliberated for three hours Monday after hearing closing arguments in the six-week trial.

Prosecutors told jurors that the decision to sentence Moussaoui to death ought to be relatively easy given the horror inflicted on 9/11 and Moussaoui's glee — evident throughout the trial — at the destruction he helped wreak. Nearly 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"If not this case, then when is a death sentence appropriate?" prosecutor David Novak said. "How many people have to die?"

Moussaoui's court-appointed defense lawyers, who have been at odds with their client for years, said a death sentence would be giving Moussaoui exactly what he wants — an execution at the hands of his enemies and martyrdom.

Moussaoui has said at various times that he believes being executed by the Americans may grant him a path to paradise in the afterlife.

Defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin said Moussaoui has twice testified in his own defense and obviously done harm to his own case, first by claiming a direct role in 9/11 after years of denials and then by mocking the testimony of 9/11 victims and their families who tearfully told of their suffering.

Moussaoui's transparent contempt for his victims "is proof that he wants you to sentence him to death," Zerkin told the jury. "He is baiting you into it. He came to America to die in jihad and you are his last chance."

The jury has only two choices: death or life in prison. Brinkema instructed jurors to balance all the factors that argue for death or life in making their decision. If the jury cannot reach a unanimous decision, Brinkema will automatically sentence him to life.

Before boarding a flight from Paris to the Washington area Tuesday to be with her son, Moussaoui's mother, Aicha El Wafi, told AP Television News, "My life is hell."

"This has been going on for four years, but now my life is hell. It's hell and that's all," she said. "I feel too much pain to speak." She has complained that her son was being made a scapegoat for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Moussaoui is the only person in this country charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The jury earlier found him eligible for execution by determining that his actions caused at least one death that day. Although Moussaoui was in jail on Sept. 11, the jury ruled that lies he told federal agents when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations allowed the plot to go forward.

___

Associated Press Writer Michael J. Sniffen contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060425/ap_on_re_us/moussaoui;_ylt=AueYuvKxjGWWBgYwxdS9Lr1H2ocA;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MjBwMWtkBHNlYwM3MTg-



Moussaoui Courts Death, and the Media, at Trial
Dana Verkouteren
NPR.org, April 24, 2006

For the past few weeks, reporters like myself have been sitting very close to a man in a green jumpsuit with "Prisoner" written on his back. The sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui has given us regular contact with a man we once knew only from afar. He has been reaching out quite a bit, but I'm not sure we know him any better.


Thanks to a defense witness, we have learned much about how Moussaoui lives: Ordinarily, he only gets an hour or two each day outside his cell, and has no interaction with other prisoners at the Alexandria, Va., jail where he's being held. "Special Administrative Measures" guarantee that he can only speak with prison guards and attorneys, though he has had occasional phone calls with his mother. We know that twice, guards had to remove him by force from his cell.


So the chance to sit for weeks in a courtroom is probably a welcome diversion for Moussaoui. And he's taking full advantage of the opportunity to reach out to the media and the American public. His mien is that of the contemptuous guerrilla fighter, mixed with that of a truculent teenager. One moment he gloats on the stand, deriding the grief of family members who testified about the pain of their loss. The next day he is grinning and joking as psychologists describe his allegedly unbalanced mental state. Is he grinning because he really is unstable, really is imagining how George Bush will release him, a dream he says he believes in "100 percent"? Or is he delighting in the fact that his defense has already cost the U.S. government millions, and may cost even more in the years of legal appeals that lie ahead?


In narratives of 9/11, Moussaoui appears as a boob, a bumbler, the hijacker who couldn't fly straight. His decision to testify and "admit" that he was to pilot a plane into the White House comes off as a teenage boast by someone who was never as important as he felt he should be.

In court, Moussaoui's adolescent mischievousness takes flight. He regularly clowns for the gallery: He nods vigorously in assent when his defense team says Moussaoui believes they are out to kill him, then shakes his head just as vigorously when the defense describes how they've been trying to save him from the death penalty.

Judge Leonie Brinkema, whose grandmotherly patience with Moussaoui serves as a perfect foil for his irreverence, has tried to shut him down, most recently by telling him he can only stay in the courtroom if he behaves. He has responded by waiting until she and the jury are out of earshot for his regular commentaries, clearly intended for reporters' ears. "God curse America!" is, of course, a staple. Another is "God curse Zerkin and MacMahon," a reference to Gerald Zerkin and Edward MacMahon, his lead defense attorneys.


Moussaoui has assumed a role as Greek chorus for his own trial, as he skewers Western culture with his own knowledge of it. After a psychologist noted that many famous people suffer from schizophrenia -- including mathematician John Nash of A Beautiful Mind fame -- Moussaoui soon proclaims to the gallery, "A beautiful terrorist mind!"

After further debate about his sanity, the prisoner chimes in with, "Moussaoui flies over the cuckoo's nest!" That one had the press corps giggling in the elevator down to lunch. But when I tell my wife about these remarks, she wonders what's so funny. As in many emotional news stories, the media is desperate for comic relief, but real people are often simply horrified.


In the deepest sense, the man in the green jumpsuit remains a puzzle to us -- to the media, to the American public. Since the government will never allow terrorist bigwigs to be placed on trial, Moussaoui is as close as most of us will ever get to al-Qaida. But getting close doesn't mean we can figure him out.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5359236

[Jolie Rouge]

U.S. seeks to keep evidence from 9/11 families
Prosecutors ask Moussaoui judge to reconsider order
From Phil Hirschkorn -- CNN
Wednesday, April 26, 2006

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.

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

[Jolie Rouge]

Moussaoui Gets Life for Role in Sept. 11
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN and MATTHEW BARAKAT


ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - 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.

Some victims' families said he got what he deserved.

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.

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.


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0001/20060503/1940959746.htm&floc=NW_1-T

[Jolie Rouge]

Moussaoui Has New View of Justice System
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Stunned that he was sentenced to life in prison rather than execution, Zacarias Moussaoui now believes he could get a fair trial from an American jury.

Too late, the judge says.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema quickly rejected a motion the confessed al-Qaida conspirator filed Monday to withdraw his guilty plea and get a new trial.

In his motion, Moussaoui said he lied on the witness stand March 27 when he reversed four years of denials and claimed he was to have hijacked a fifth jetliner on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed it into the White House, "even though I knew that was a complete fabrication."

The 37-year-old Frenchman blamed his behavior on the effects of solitary confinement, his inability to get a Muslim lawyer and his misunderstanding of the U.S. justice system.

Moussaoui said he was "extremely surprised" by his life sentence by a federal court jury last week. "I had thought I would be sentenced to death based on the emotions and anger toward me for the deaths on Sept. 11," he explained in an affidavit. "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."

After seven days of deliberation, the jury of nine men and three women on Wednesday rebuffed the government's appeal for the death penalty for Moussaoui, the only person charged in this country in the 9/11 suicide hijackings of four commercial jetliners that killed nearly 3,000 people.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema gave Moussaoui six life sentences, to run as two consecutive life terms in the federal supermax prison at Florence, Colo.

At sentencing, Brinkema told him he could not appeal the conviction he got when he pleaded guilty in April 2005. "You waived that right," she said. She said Moussaoui could appeal the life term but "I believe it would be an act of futility."

On Monday, Brinkema said federal rules prohibit withdrawing a guilty plea after sentencing so his request must be rejected.

In filing Moussaoui's motion, his court-appointed lawyers told the court they knew that rule would doom the effort but filed it anyway because of their "problematic relationship with Moussaoui" and because new lawyers have yet to be appointed to replace them.

Brinkema had told the defense team, with whom Moussaoui never cooperated, that they finally could leave the case after filing any motions Moussaoui wanted.

Explaining his twists and turns, Moussaoui wrote in the affidavit, "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.

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

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.

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

Moussaoui's shocking testimony that he was to crash a 747 jetliner into the White House on 9/11 revived the government's flagging case in the first part of the sentencing trial. Previously, he had claimed he had nothing to do with 9/11, but rather was to fly the 747 into the White House later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik serving life for terrorist acts.

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.

Moussaoui's lawyers made clear to the jury they thought he was lying to achieve martyrdom through execution. Prosecutors even stipulated the government doubted his claim that shoe-bomber Richard Reid was to be part of his hijack team on 9/11.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060509/ap_on_re_us/moussaoui;_ylt=AjZkyncuJx6HUnkelrTZcfcEtbAF;_ylu=X 3oDMTBhZDJjOXUyBHNlYwNtdm5ld3M-

___

On the Net:

Court documents:

http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/index.html

[Jolie Rouge]

US court rejects Zacarias Moussaoui's appeal
By Steve Szkotak, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jan 4, 6:59 pm ET

RICHMOND, Va. – A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the conviction of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person to stand trial in a U.S. court in the Sept. 11 attacks, rejecting arguments that he was denied access to evidence and the right to choose his own attorney.

Moussaoui, 41, is serving life in a federal prison in Colorado, after pleading guilty to helping plan the attacks. Since his sentencing, he has said he lied when testifying that he plotted to hijack a fifth jetliner on Sept. 11, 2001.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected Moussaoui's claim that his right to choose his counsel was violated because the trial judge required that any attorney involved in his defense undergo a national security background check.

The appeal contended that it is unconstitutional to require government approval of a defendant's hired or pro bono counsel. It also argued that Moussaoui's rights were violated because his attorneys could not talk to him about potentially helpful evidence gleaned from classified material.

During arguments in the appeal last September, his lawyer argued Moussaoui's guilty plea was invalid because of the concerns. A federal prosecutor countered that Moussaoui got exactly what he wanted when he ignored his attorneys' advice and pleaded guilty before the evidence he had sought could be provided.

In the rejection Monday, the appeals court found Moussaoui "has failed to demonstrate that the government withheld exculpatory material that would have caused Moussaoui to forego his guilty plea and proceed to trial, much less evidence of his actual innocence."

The court also rejected Moussaoui's claim that his defense was hamstrung because his attorneys could not discuss classified material.

"The right to communicate with counsel at any point in the proceedings is not absolute," the judges wrote.

Moussaoui also argued the lower court erred when it concluded his guilty plea was "knowing and voluntary" because the court did not conduct a competency hearing before accepting his plea. The court rejected that argument.

Justin S. Antonipillai, an attorney who represented Moussaoui in the appeal, did not immediately return a telephone message left by The Associated Press.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100104/ap_on_re_us/us_moussaoui_appeal;_ylt=AqzJaJPugGmunjpymVSGFrWs0 NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFlYXRmOW5hBHBvcwM2OARzZWMDYWNjb3Jka W9uX3Vfc19uZXdzBHNsawN1c2NvdXJ0cmVqZWM-