Jury declares al-Qaida plotter eligible for death

Now that a jury has delivered a verdict that al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui is eligible for the death penalty, his lawyers face an uphill battle as they try to save a client who apparently wants to die.

"I'm glad I'm not writing life insurance on the guy," Vermont Law School Professor Stephen Dycus said on Monday after a jury opened the door for prosecutors to present wrenching, gruesome detail on the events of September 11, 2001.

Dycus and other legal experts say the jury still may decide to spare Moussaoui's life, but suggest he may have sealed his fate by taking the witness stand. He testified that he was to have flown a fifth plane targeting the White House while fellow 9/11 conspirators flew planes into the World Trade Centre in New York City and the Pentagon.

As a defence lawyer, "you are normally worried about the government hurting you; in this case, it's your client," said Jeffrey O'Toole, a Washington lawyer with an extensive background in death penalty cases.

A worst-case scenario, legal experts say, would be the admitted terrorist conspirator once again testifying, this time in the upcoming second stage of the proceeding where jurors will decide whether to sentence him to death.

When the sentencing trial resumes tomorrow, those testifying will include families of September 11 victims who will describe the human impact of the September 11 attacks.

"I would not be surprised if he doesn't invite them to give him the death penalty," George Washington University law professor Stephen Saltzburg said.

The defence has indicated it will try to call a doctor to testify that Moussaoui was schizophrenic and sociologists who will describe his impoverished upbringing in France and the racism he faced there and in England because of his Moroccan ancestry.

Moussaoui was nowhere near the attacks on September 11, but rather in jail in Minnesota where he had been for much of the previous month on an immigration charge.

And until last week, he had maintained that he was not to have taken part in the September 11 attacks, but in a second wave of attacks organized by al-Qaida.

The defence suggested Moussaoui would say anything to derail his own defence so he could achieve martyrdom through execution.

Moussaoui was arrested on August 16, 2001, after his attempts to obtain flight training aroused suspicion. He lied to agents when he was arrested, denying he was a terrorist and saying the flight training was for personal enjoyment.

Prosecutors argued that if Moussaoui had confessed his al-Qaida membership and his intent to hijack an aircraft, federal agents could have tracked down most of the September 11 hijackers and thwarted or at least minimized the attacks.

On each of the three counts considered by the jury, they found that Moussaoui had intentionally lied to federal agents, and did so "contemplating the life of a person would be taken or intending that lethal force would be used." Further, they determined at least one person died on September 11 as a direct result of the lies.

Source: China Daily