Jury Finds Moussaoui Eligible for Death Penalty

Enoch · Apr 3, 2006

Zacarias Moussaoui may be put to death for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, a jury found Monday. The jury will consider in a second penalty phase whether to recommend death or life imprisonment for the Al Qaeda devotee.

The sentencing phase for Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty to six terror-related conspiracy charges last year, will involve the testimony of victims' family members and could be protracted. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema will consider the jury's recommendation and ultimately decide whether Moussaoui will be executed or spend the rest of his life in a federal prison.

The jury had to find that Moussaoui was responsible for at least one death in the attacks in order for him to be death-penalty eligible. The case is a precedence-setting one in modern U.S. history, in that Moussaoui was not convicted of having a direct role in the Sept. 11 attacks or plot.

Moussaoui pleaded guilty last April to conspiring with Al Qaeda to commit acts of terrorism, use weapons of mass destruction and other terror-related crimes. Originally considered the "20th hijacker" when he was charged in December 2001, the intelligence community has since come to believe Moussaoui had no direct role in the attacks.

High-ranking members of Al Qaeda have told investigators that Moussaoui was considered too unstable to be included in the plot, and that he was earmarked for a second wave of attacks. And after he pleaded guilty to the six terrorism-related counts last April, Moussaoui quickly about-faced and insisted he had no direct role in the attacks.

"I will fight with every inch against the death penalty," he vowed.

But in recent months, the 37-year-old has changed his story, apparently in effort to become a martyr.

Last month, Moussaoui offered to testify for prosecutors against himself. And last week, Moussaoui appeared to drop a bombshell in the case when he testified that he knew about the attacks ahead of time and that he and failed shoe-bomber Richard Reid were slated to hijack a fifth airliner and crash it into the White House.

Moussaoui has never shied from his allegiance to Al Qaeda, and his erratic courtroom behavior and outbursts have raised questions about his mental competency. At several points throughout his four-year-long trial, Brinkema also seemed to question his competence.

The jury, compromising nine men and three women, deliberated over 12 hours since receiving the case last Wednesday. The jury asked Brinkema one question about the definition of "weapon of mass destruction," and were told that a plane used as a missile qualified as a WMD.

A Frenchman of Moroccan descent, Moussaoui was in jail at the time of the attacks. Prosecutors argued federal agents would have been able to thwart or at least minimize the attacks if Moussaoui had revealed his Al Qaeda membership and his terror plans when he was arrested and interrogated by federal agents.

The legal community has been watching Moussaoui's case closely, not just for its historical significance but for the precedence it would set for capital murder convictions.

Throughout the trial, Moussaoui's defense argued that the well-documented missteps of intelligence agencies leading up to the attacks cast doubt on the government's assertion it could have prevented the attacks.
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Jury Finds Moussaoui Eligible for Death Penalty

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