Gloating Moussaoui sentenced to life over 9/11 attacks
A US jury tonight rejected the death penalty for al Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and decided he must spend life in prison for his role in the infamous ‘9/11’ attacks.
After seven days of deliberation at the court in Alexandria, Virginia the nine men and three women rebuffed the state’s appeal for death for the only person charged in the US in connection with the four suicide jetliner hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001.
The jury did not reach the unanimity required for a death sentence. Whether jurors were split on that question or unanimous on a life sentence was not announced.
Jurors did agree unanimously that Moussaoui “knowingly created a grave risk of death” for more than the intended victims of September 11 and committed his acts with “substantial planning” – accepting two of the aggravating factors necessary for a death sentence.
But they did not give sufficient weight to those findings to reach a death sentence, balancing them against mitigating factors offered by the defence. Jurors did not, however, accept defence arguments that Moussaoui was mentally ill.
Three jurors decided Moussaoui had only limited knowledge of the September 11 plot and three described his role in the attacks as minor, if he had any role at all.
When the jurors came into the room, a couple of them looked directly at Moussaoui but most did not, looking at the judge instead. They all wore sober expressions. One dark-haired young man shook his head no before the verdict was read.
When the judge asked the jurors if their verdict was the same on all three counts, the forewoman, a high school math teacher, was joined by several other jurors in answering: “Yes.”
The verdict was received with silence in the packed courtroom, where one row was lined with victims’ families.
The jurors were divided on the 23 mitigating factors in the case, from whether the defendant’s role in the September 11 attacks was only minor and whether the Moroccan was subject to racism as a child – three said he was.
The closest the jurors came to unanimity in finding mitigating factors was on two questions. Nine found that Moussaoui’s father had a violent temper and physically and emotionally abused his family. Nine also found that his unstable early childhood and dysfunctional family resulted in his leaving home.
When the verdict was announced, Moussaoui showed no visible reaction and sat slouched in his chair, refusing to stand with his defence team. He had declined to cooperate with his court-appointed lawyers throughout the trial.
The judge will officially hand down the life sentence tomorrow, bound by the jury’s verdict.
It was the sixth case in a row since the death penalty was restored in the US in 1976 in which prosecutors failed to obtain an execution in this courthouse - all the more striking this time because the Pentagon is just miles away.
In their successful defence of Moussaoui, his lawyers revealed new levels of pre-attack bungling of intelligence by the FBI and other US government agencies.
By the end of the trial, the defence team was portraying its uncooperative client as a delusional schizophrenic.
They argued he took the witness stand to confess to a role in September 11 that he never had – all to achieve martyrdom through execution or for recognition in history.
They overcame the impact of two dramatic appearances by Moussaoui himself - first to renounce his four years of denying any involvement in the attacks and then to gloat over the pain of those who lost loved ones.
Using evidence gathered in the largest investigation in US history, prosecutors achieved a preliminary victory last month when the jury ruled Moussaoui’s lies to federal agents a month before the attacks made him eligible for the death penalty because they kept agents from discovering some of the hijackers.
But even with heart-rending testimony from nearly four dozen victims and their relatives, which left some jurors wiping their eyes, the jury was not convinced that Moussaoui, who was in jail on September 11, deserved to die.
The case broke new ground in the understanding of September 11 – releasing to the public the first transcript and playing in court the cockpit tape of United 93’s last half hour.
The tape captured the sounds of terrorists hijacking the aircraft over Pennsylvania and passengers trying to retake the jet until it crashed in a field.
President George Bush said the Zacarias Moussaoui verdict “represents the end of this case but not an end to the right against terror”.
Moussaoui, as he was led out of the courtroom after the 15-minute hearing, said: “America, you lost - I won”, clapping his hands as he was escorted away.
