‘America, You Lost,’ Moussaoui Cries as He Gets Life

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The New York Sun

WASHINGTON – Zacarias Moussaoui was spared the death penalty and will be sentenced to life in prison for conspiring in the September 11, 2001, attacks, the worst terrorist act in American history, a jury decided.


In a resounding defeat for the Bush administration’s Justice Department, the jury in Alexandria, Va., rejected prosecutors’ arguments that Moussaoui should be executed for the attacks that killed almost 3,000 people. Moussaoui is the only person charged in America in connection with the attacks.


“America, you lost!” Moussaoui shouted after the judge and jury left the courtroom. “I won.” Moments earlier, he flashed a “V” sign when U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema thanked the lawyers for their work and said Moussaoui had been a difficult client for the defense. She will impose the sentence at 10 a.m. Eastern time tomorrow.


Moussaoui, 37, pleaded guilty in April 2005 to conspiracy charges linked to the attacks. Testifying at his sentencing trial against his lawyers’ advice, he said he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid planned to hijack a jetliner and fly it into the White House as part of the attacks. The government later agreed there was no evidence to support that claim.


The jurors needed to reach a unanimous verdict to impose a death sentence.


President Bush acknowledged the jury’s decision in a statement that said, “Our thoughts today are with the families who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.”


The verdict “represents the end of this case, but not an end to the fight against terror,” Mr. Bush said.


Outside the courthouse, defense lawyer Edward McMahon said he hoped “the government does not use the verdict in this case as an excuse for its performance before September 11. That would be the worst possible outcome for this trial.”


Carie Lemack, whose mother, Judy Larocque, died on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, called Moussaoui an “Al Qaeda wannabe.”


“He’s going to be in jail for the rest of his life, which is what he deserves,” Ms. Lemack said.


The jury form reflected divisions among the 12 jurors, who were in their seventh day of deliberations. On the first of the three death-penalty counts, nine agreed that his unstable childhood and violent father counted as a factor against a death sentence. No juror counted the defense’s claim that he was schizophrenic as an argument in his favor.


Even so, all 12 jurors agreed that he “knowingly created a grave risk of death” and acted with “substantial planning and premeditation” – both factors supporting a death penalty.


During the trial, Moussaoui testified he knew about the plot when he was arrested a month before the attacks and lied to FBI agents because he wanted the mission to go forward.


In his testimony, Moussaoui said he had no regrets for people who gave tearful testimony about relatives who died in the September 11, 2001, attacks, saying he thought it was “disgusting” that they showed their grief at the trial. He called executed Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh “the greatest American.”


Moussaoui’s testimony was “deeply offensive,” Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said outside the courthouse after the verdict. “But through it all the victims have triumphed over the terrorist rants.”


Moussaoui’s lawyers argued that his only role in the September 11, 2001, attacks was “in his dreams.” The lawyers acted over his objections, and he denounced them from the witness stand.


Federal agents arrested Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, on immigration charges in August 2001 in Minnesota after FBI agents discovered he was taking lessons to become a pilot.


Prosecutors said his lies to federal agents prevented them from uncovering the September 11 plot. They said he was responsible for the deaths of almost 3,000 people when 19 terrorists hijacked commercial airliners and flew two of them into the World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon outside Washington. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.


Prosecutors showed the jury videos of jetliners crashing into the trade center towers and photos of human body parts on the ground. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani testified about seeing people jumping from the trade center’s upper floors.


Jurors heard the cockpit recording from the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, including sounds of a struggle in the cockpit, a voice shouting “I don’t want to die” and other voices saying in Arabic, “Allah is the greatest.”


Some victims’ relatives testified for the prosecution, describing how they missed their family members and sometimes telling of their last conversation. Other relatives testified for the defense, talking of reconciliation and healing.


Moussaoui pleaded guilty to six conspiracy counts, three of which carried a possible death penalty. At the time of his guilty plea, he maintained that his plan to fly a commercial jetliner into the White House was separate from the 2001 attacks. That changed when he took the witness stand and said he planned to be part of the September 11 plot.


The sentencing trial began March 6. In the trial’s first phase, the jury decided April 3 that Moussaoui was eligible for the death penalty after finding that his actions directly led to at least one death on September 11.


The case is U.S. vs. Moussaoui, 01cr455, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria).


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