Moussaoui Says He’ll Fight Death Penalty
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — With the first U.S. conviction from a Sept. 11 case in hand, federal prosecutors face a new battle over whether Zacarias Moussaoui should receive the death penalty for plotting with al-Qaida against Americans.
Although he pleaded guilty as expected Friday, Moussaoui told U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, "I will fight every inch against the death penalty." Just last week, he had told her he would plead for execution.
That was among several surprises as the defendant voluntarily admitted his guilt on six counts of conspiring with al-Qaida leaders and the Sept. 11 hijackers to wreak havoc on Americans. Four counts carry a possible death penalty.
Moussaoui also declared for the first time in public that Osama bin Laden personally instructed him to fly an airliner into the White House. The target date was not clear.
The defendant, who had been so volatile and vituperative in three years of legal wrangling, was polite, calm and even able to joke during the proceedings.
When the judge noted he could face a $250,000 fine, Moussaoui cracked, "I wonder where I will get the money."
Brinkema – whom Moussaoui had often denounced, once as a henchman of Nazi storm troopers – complimented him for "a better understanding of the legal system than some lawyers I’ve seen in court."
Over the objection of his lawyers, Moussaoui admitted guilt as he appeared in a courtroom a few miles from where one of four hijacked planes crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. The others crashed into New York’s World Trade Center towers and a Pennsylvania field, taking nearly 3,000 lives.
After Brinkema accepted Moussaoui’s pleas, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a news conference that prosecutors will seek death for him.
But the nearly hourlong court proceeding made clear that would produce a legal battle.
Moussaoui attributed his reversal to a conversation with Brinkema this week that he said gave him a clearer understanding of his rights.
Brinkema carefully pointed out to Moussaoui in court that his guilty pleas did not waive his right to continue fighting to obtain potentially mitigating evidence from three top al-Qaida leaders in U.S. custody. Moussaoui said he was prepared to go back to the Supreme Court for access to those prisoners, although the high court earlier declined to overturn a plan to give him just unclassified summaries of what the trio has said.
A jury will almost certainly have the final say on death, life in prison or something less. All sides and the judge would have to agree to leave the decision to a judge, and that’s not likely.
This new struggle by the 36-year-old French citizen of Moroccan descent could ignite protests in Europe, where the death penalty has less support and most countries forbid it.
Unshackled and wearing a green prison jumpsuit, Moussaoui told the judge he had not been promised a lighter sentence. "I don’t expect any leniency from the Americans," he said.
Moussaoui admitted to conspiring with the 19 hijackers and al-Qaida leaders in a broad plot to kill Americans using commercial airliners as weapons. The overall conspiracy included the Sept. 11 attacks.
In a "statement of facts" compiled by prosecutors and signed in court by Moussaoui, he acknowledged knowing about the plot to fly planes into prominent U.S. buildings, then lying to federal agents after his arrest in August 2001 to avoid exposing the plot.
But Moussaoui hinted at a possible death penalty defense as he tried to distance himself from the specific events of Sept. 11. He told the court that nothing in the statement he signed declared he was "specifically guilty of 9/11."
Moussaoui was arrested in August 2001 for overstaying his visa after drawing suspicion at a Minnesota flight school because he wanted to learn to fly a Boeing 747 even though he had no pilot’s license. He was behind bars on Sept. 11.
In court, Brinkema asked him if he understood each charge and its penalties. Over and over, he replied, "Yes, I do understand."
With the courtroom in total silence, Moussaoui spent nearly five minutes reviewing one last time the five-page statement of facts the government said it could prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Then he signed it.
Six times the judge asked him, "How do you plead?"
"Guilty," he said each time.
"I am satisfied, Mr. Moussaoui, that you have entered these guilty pleas in a knowing and voluntary fashion," the judge pronounced. "I’m fully satisfied he is competent to enter these pleas, the facts support them, and you are found guilty at this time."
Outside the courthouse, family members of Sept. 11 victims expressed satisfaction with the resolution they had come to witness.
Dominic J. Puopolo Jr. of Miami Beach, Fla., whose mother died on American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the World Trade Center, said he had "a tremendous feeling justice is being served."
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On the Net:
A chronology:
http://wid.ap.org/interactives/moussaoui/timeline.html Â
Hearing transcript and documents: