Convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui appealed on Friday the life sentence imposed on him earlier this month.

Moussaoui, 37, who was spared the death penalty on May 4, also appealed against the judge's refusal to allow him to change his guilty plea on the six conspiracy charges.

Moussaoui is the only person to have been charged and tried in the United States for the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

His court-appointed lawyers said in a one-paragraph notice of appeal that Moussaoui wanted the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the final judgment and sentence he received last week at a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, and the judge's refusal of his request to withdraw his guilty plea.

On May 8, Moussaoui filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, saying that he lied when he testified last year that he was involved in the plot even though he knew that was a "complete fabrication."

He said he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea because he now believed he could get a fair trial.

Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent, was arrested in August 2001. He was to serve his life sentence in the federal supermax prison at Florence, Colorado.

Source: Xinhua