Moussaoui allowed in court after outbursts
Confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was unexpectedly allowed to re-enter the federal courtroom in Virginia today for the selection of a jury to decide whether he is executed or imprisoned for life.
Judge Leonie Brinkema had ordered Moussaoui barred from jury selection at a hearing yesterday because he refused to maintain courtroom decorum and seemed determined to keep giving insult-laden speeches.
Brinkema gave no explanation in court for her change of mind, but she had said yesterday that she might reconsider if he decided to alter his behaviour.
Today’s morning session went smoothly, with nine of the 12 jurors who were interviewed being qualified for service.
Moussaoui kept silent throughout the proceedings, except for a barely audible “God curse America” uttered to the courtroom gallery as he left for the lunchroom break.
The only other time Moussaoui spoke was when Brinkema asked during a late morning break if Moussaoui was willing to delay his midday prayer until the 1pm lunch break.
Moussaoui said: “No, I’m going to pray.”
The issue became moot when the morning session wrapped up before Moussaoui’s 12.30pm prayer time.
Of the three who were disqualified from service, two were dismissed because the loss of work would cause a financial hardship.
The third, a man who served in the Air Force during Vietnam, was dismissed because he knew one of the people killed at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Three jurors were qualified despite expressing reservations about the death penalty.
Two were qualified despite expressions of support of the principle of “an eye for an eye".
All said they would follow the law despite their moral qualms.
One of those with reservations about the death penalty was a Catholic who said he consulted his priest to determine if jury duty would conflict with his religious obligations. He concluded it would not.
“I just wanted to make sure I had the right theology,” the man said.
Brinkema also qualified a Muslim woman of Pakistani descent to serve on the jury. She said her religion would have no bearing on her deliberations.
Two of the jurors were qualified over defence objections. The defence objected to one man who spent 24 years in active and reserve duty for the Navy and was assigned to the Pentagon and knew a contractor who was working there on September 11.
“I remember him telling me it was very loud and surprising and he ran faster than he ever had in his life,” the juror said.
Defence attorney Gerald Zerkin objected because “he knows someone who was at the crime scene.”
But Brinkema said that she would not disqualify potential jurors “just because they knew people who worked at the Pentagon,” unless there was something special about their relationship or experience.
She also allowed a young female teacher who had unsuccessfully applied to work for the FBI and said, “I always wanted to work for the FBI since I was a teenager.”
The young woman expressed the view that Moussaoui might be brainwashed and “he may be in conspiracy even now with people outside the country to harm the United States.”
Defence lawyers were joined by a jury consultant, Marjorie Fargo, at the defence table. Moussaoui, wearing the standard green prison jumpsuit along with a white knit cap, sat separately at a table behind the defence team.
In a rare development for the Moussaoui case, the courtroom was half empty.
Brinkema told all the qualified jurors to return on March 6. They will be part of a pool of 85 potential jurors, that will be whittled down to a final panel of 18 – a 12-member jury plus six alternates.
Moussaoui disrupted the first day of jury selection, leading Brinkema to toss him from court four times that day.
Brinkema subsequently ordered that he watch the remainder of jury selection on closed-circuit television from a special courthouse jail cell.
Last April, Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiring with al Qaida to fly aircraft into US targets. He claimed he had no role in the September 11 plot and instead was training for an aborted second wave of attacks.
For Moussaoui to be sentenced to death, prosecutors must prove he was directly involved in the September 11 attacks. They plan to argue that the government could have thwarted the attacks if Moussaoui had not lied to FBI agents about his terrorist connections after his August 2001 arrest on immigration violations.
The defence contends the government knew more about the terrorists’ plans than Moussaoui, and still was unable to prevent the attacks.
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