Prosecutors are struggling to save their bid to execute al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui after the judge said a government lawyer's misconduct makes it very difficult for the case to go forward.

Visibly angry, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema summoned the offending lawyer, Carla J. Martin of the Transportation Security Administration, to a hearing yesterday to assess what damage she may have done by coaching seven witnesses.

Meanwhile, Brinkema suspended the sentencing trial on Monday and sent the jury home while she decides on a remedy for the government misconduct.

Defence attorney Edward MacMahon has moved to bar the government from pursuing the death penalty. If Brinkema does that, the trial would end. Moussaoui would automatically be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of release. The government would then likely appeal.

The trial's second week began on Monday with a bombshell: "In all the years I have been on the bench, I have never seen such an egregious violation of a court's rule on witnesses," Brinkema told the court before the jury was brought in.

Brinkema had ordered that trial witnesses were not to see trial transcripts or to follow the case, to guard against their being coached or altering their testimony to conform with what others said.

Moussaoui, a French citizen, pleaded guilty in April to conspiring with al-Qaida to fly airplanes into US buildings.

This trial is to determine whether he will be executed or spend life behind bars.

The only person charged in the United States for the September 11, 2001, attacks, Moussaoui has denied having any role in those attacks.

He says he was training for a possible future attack.

Source: China Daily