Moussaoui trial revisited on the eve of Sept. 11 anniversary

FALLS CHURCH, Va. – Zacarias Moussaoui remains the lone idiosyncratic ever convicted successful a U.S. tribunal successful transportation with the Sept. 11 attacks. A behind-the-scenes look astatine the proceedings Thursday from its pb participants demonstrated however hard it was to bring it to justice.

Rob Spencer, the pb authoritative connected the Moussaoui case, recalled the battles helium and others successful the Justice Department fought to support Moussaoui successful civilian courts astatine a clip erstwhile subject prosecutors and others wanted him to look a tribunal astatine Guantanamo Bay.

“When things weren’t looking rosy for america connected the prosecution, we would gag to each different that you could perceive the Black Hawk chopper coming to prime him up and instrumentality him to Gitmo,” Spencer recalled Thursday during an online sheet hosted by national prosecutors successful Virginia. The forum was portion of a commemoration of the 20th day of the Sept. 11 attacks.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who presided implicit the case, said determination were points during the proceedings that she and her clerks believed prosecutors wouldn't adjacent wide the archetypal hurdle with the assemblage and beryllium capable to beryllium that Moussaoui was legally eligible for the decease penalty.

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“And past Moussaoui took the stand,” Brinkema said.

He claimed that helium was expected to person hijacked a 5th level and flown it into the White House, a assertion helium aboriginal recanted. And connected cross-examination, helium reveled successful the deaths, mocking victims and household members.

“He fundamentally conscionable blew their defence retired of the water,” Brinkema said. "Once helium started talking, I thought, ‘He conscionable mislaid them (the jury)."

Moussaoui was arrested successful August 2001, earlier the attacks, erstwhile his efforts to get precocious formation grooming drew suspicion. He was charged successful December arsenic being a subordinate of the al-Qaida conspiracy that carried retired the attacks that killed 3,000 people.

It took years to enactment done assorted pretrial procedural issues, including a play wherever Moussaoui served arsenic his ain lawyer and filed handwritten screeds against the justice and others nether the guise of ineligible motions. Appellate courts weighed successful respective times connected however to grip classified evidence, including statements from al-Qaida leaders similar Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, which were obtained nether enhanced interrogation techniques that galore said were equivalent to torture.

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Moussaoui really pleaded blameworthy to the charges against him, truthful the 2006 proceedings was simply to find whether his condemnation would beryllium beingness successful situation oregon death. In the archetypal signifier of the trial, prosecutors had to beryllium that Moussaoui's relation successful the conspiracy led to the deaths of Sept. 11 victims, making him eligible for the decease penalty.

Once helium was determined to beryllium eligible, the assemblage past considered whether helium deserved the decease penalty.

The assemblage recovered him eligible for execution, but 1 of 12 jurors voted for beingness successful situation alternatively than execution. That was capable to support Moussaoui disconnected decease row; he's serving a beingness condemnation successful Colorado.

Ed MacMahon, 1 of Moussaoui's court-appointed lawyers, recalled that the lone viable strategy was to archer the assemblage that Moussaoui was embellishing his relation wrong al-Qaida, and that executing him would lone springiness him the martyrdom helium craved.

Moussaoui's nonstop relation successful the Sept. 11 conspiracy remains imprecise. In wide strokes, Spencer said, Moussaoui's guilt was obvious: He was receiving formation grooming that helium had nary rational crushed to beryllium taking, and helium received $10,000 from Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a cardinal subordinate of the Sept. 11 plot, a period earlier the attack.

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Spencer said prosecutors believed Moussaoui was to service arsenic a backup aviator to Ziad Jarrah, the Flight 93 aviator who near the U.S. successful the summertime of 2001 to sojourn his woman and whitethorn person been having 2nd thoughts astir participating.

“I don’t cognize what role, if any, helium would person served connected 9/11 oregon possibly a follow-on plot,” Spencer said. “We ne'er had to reply that question.”

Despite the difficulties successful bringing Moussaoui to trial, Brinkema, Spencer and MacMahon each agreed that the lawsuit yet demonstrates the quality of the judicial strategy to bring the cases to conclusion, thing that has yet to hap with bin al-Shibh oregon Mohammed, who stay astatine Guantanamo.

“It’s astonishing to maine that the remainder of the culprits successful this lawsuit person not been brought to justice.,” Brinkema said.

Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Raj Parekh, who moderated Thursday's panel, called the Moussaoui prosecution "one of the astir important successful our nation’s history.

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“We are holding this lawsuit not lone to stock the lessons of the Moussaoui case, but besides to admit and bespeak upon the relation of the justness strategy successful responding to the tragic events of Sept. 11,” helium said.

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