30 March 2006
Moussaoui allegedly offered to testify against himself. Was he pressured into acting that way? The latest news of that incredibly strange trial.
In another twist to an already convoluted case, the jury deciding whether al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui will be executed learned that he offered last month to testify for prosecutors against himself at his death penalty trial.
He also told agents he did not want to die in prison, the jury was told Tuesday.
The disclosure, which came at the end of the testimony phase of Moussaoui's trial, provides the firmest evidence yet that 37-year-old Frenchman is seeking to derail his own defense in an effort to obtain martyrdom through execution.
It also could provide fodder for the closing arguments of both prosecutors and Moussaoui's court-appointed defense attorneys.
Closing arguments in the trial were set for Wednesday afternoon on whether Moussaoui's actions make him eligible for the death penalty. The jury must decide whether the only man charged in this country in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks will be executed or imprisoned for life. He the jury finds he is eligible for the death penalty, a second phase would determine whether a death sentence is imposed.
To be eligible, prosecutors must prove that Moussaoui's actions resulted in at least one death on Sept. 11.
According to Tuesday's testimony, Moussaoui offered in February during a jailhouse meeting with prosecutors to testify for the government that he planned to hijack and pilot a fifth plane on Sept. 11.
FBI agent James Fitzgerald testified that Moussaoui told him -- in a meeting requested by the defendant -- that he did not want to die behind bars and it was "different to die in a battle ... than in a jail on a toilet."
Moussaoui dropped his effort to testify for prosecutors after he learned that he had an absolute right to testify in his own defense.
On Monday, he stunned the court by asserting publicly for the first time that he was to fly a 747 jetliner into the White House on Sept. 11, despite having claimed for three years that he had no role in the plot. Instead, he had said he was to be part of a possible later attack.
The February meeting with the prosecution was to have been off the record but was ruled admissible after the defense introduced a partial transcript of Moussaoui's guilty plea last April.
Moussaoui Sought to Be Prosecution WitnessMatthew Barakat,
Associated Press, March 29, 2006
That was filed in the morning on Wednesday, March 29. The last few days have indeed been strange - this even against the background of this already bizarre trial which had at one point almost come to a stop due to breath-taking government incompetence. As Pittburgh Tribune-Review says in its March 29, 2006 editorial titled Moussaoui's histronics: Audition for martyrdom:
Mr. Moussaoui, a French Moroccan, took the stand Monday in the life-or-death sentencing phase of his federal terrorism trial in Alexandria, Va., and matter-of-factly changed his previous story.
Not only did Moussaoui say he lied about his involvement upon his August 2001 arrest to preserve the Sept. 11, 2001, attack; he laid out a tale about how he and convicted would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid -- it might as well have been Mr. Magoo -- were to be part of a terrorist crew that was to hijack a fifth jetliner on 9/11 and crash it into the White House.
Is it the truth? Terrorism expert Steve Emerson says Moussaoui's claims don't add up.
A government witness-coaching scandal appeared to have taken the death penalty off the table; Moussaoui's testimony, opposed by defense attorneys with whom he does not speak, will make it nigh impossible for the jury to recommend anything else.
Which is exactly what Zacarias Moussaoui, nut, liar and wannabe martyr, is counting on. A smart jury will disappoint him.
I certainly agree with
Mr Emerson here and apparently so do
some captured al Qaeda operatives though I must say this is by far not the only part of the sordid Moussaoui tale that does not add up. Leaving aside all previous inconsistencies the question remains: why is Zacarias Moussaoui doing seemingly everything in his power to make the death row? While the general quest for martyrdom is a plausible explanation, it is by far not the only one.
It has recently emerged that Moussaoui was wearing a stun belt in court, and some speculate he was threatened it would be used against him should he not say what he was told to say in his testimony. I find this allegation a bit bizarre - though he does at times remind me of the tortured defendants in the Stalin era show trials in the Soviet Union where defendants recited prearranged testimony.
While frivolous use of the stun belt is unlikely, it is possible that Moussaoui has been subjected to some form of torture or coersion in jail. After all, under an Administration that views torture as a legitimate tool in the war on terror that is not at all impossible. It must also be noted that Moussaoui has thus far spent over four years in solitary confinement which some would say amounts to torture all and by itself and could damage his ability to think clearly, questionable as it was.
Zacarias Moussaoui, whose fate is now in the jury's hands, is certainly a despicable human being and on a personal level I have very little compassion towards him. However, it would be naive in the extreme to believe any of his lies or to furthermore sentence him to die based on them. It must be also noted that the eagerness with which the government is seeking to execute him is somewhat suspicious. After all, if you have a supposedly well-connected member of a vicious terrorist group in custody wouldn't you want to keep him alive just on the off-chance that maybe, just maybe, a couple years down the line he tells you something valuable?
Moussaoui certainly does not deserve to be alive. But it is just as certain that he should not be executed as the only ones slated to benefit from that are government officials with something to hide and, maybe, this half-demented terrorist himself with a quest for martyrdom.