US jury to decide Moussaoui's life or death fate
A US jury must now decide whether confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui is a calculating terrorist responsible for the deaths of Americans on September 11, 2001, or an al-Qaida lackey with delusions of grandeur who had nothing to do with the attacks.
The jury of nine men and three women in Moussaoui’s death-penalty trial resumes deliberations in Alexandria, Virginia, today after receiving the case late yesterday afternoon.
Moussaoui pleaded guilty last April to conspiring with al-Qaida to hijack planes and other crimes, but he had previously denied any role in 9/11.
Lawyers for the two sides painted sharply divergent views of whether the 37-year-old Frenchman was responsible for any of the nearly 3,000 deaths in the attacks.
Prosecutor David Raskin told the jurors that Moussaoui’s lies to investigators in the weeks before September 11 killed Americans just as surely as if he had hijacked a plane and crashed it into the White House.
“The defendant’s lies are as much a part of this plot as anything else. It’s terrorist training 101,” Raskin added.
“Al-Qaida trains its people to lie: Don’t give up the plot.”
Moussaoui was arrested on August 16, 2001, on immigration violations after his efforts to obtain flight training in Minnesota aroused suspicion.
