The sentencing trial for Zaccharias Moussaoui has been delayed while new emotionally impacting evidence is to be submitted in a classified filing by his lawyers detailing what the US knew and didn't do before the attacks on NY and Washington.
Zaccharias Moussaoui remains the only person publicly charged in the United States in connection with the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
There's to be a two stage process to determine whether he gets the death penalty.
The first stage is about whether he lied about what he knew before 911. Knowing about the plot beforehand and not acting to prevent it amounts to accessory to ~3000 murders and untold damages. The second stage would be to determine if he would get death penalty.
Reuters reported yesterday:
"Substantial evidence will be presented at trial that the United States government knew more about al Qaeda's plans to attack the United States than did Mr. Moussaoui,"
....
Moussaoui's lawyers have argued that the evidence would have an emotional impact on the jurors. The trial is being held just a few miles from the Pentagon, which was hit by a hijacked airplane on September 11.
The article mentions how the trial has been delayed repeatedly because lawyers were not able to access detainees that refuted ZM's involvement in the plot.
Another story reports on the recently released transcript of a Moussauoi hearing:
Moussaoui also signed a statement of facts acknowledging that after his arrest he "lied to federal agents to allow his al-Qaida 'brothers' to go forward with the operation to fly planes into American buildings."
This last quote is the money for me. It's possibly the only tangible convicting evidence of the whole 911 investigation. The statment itself poses more questions than it answers. It is a pitiful and incomplete justice - possibly an injustice - to the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Should ZM be convicted and executed for "lying to federal agents" to protect his "brothers", what does that mean for others that also lied to conceal their knowledge of the plot? Some of the witnesses, like Berg (whose connection with Moussaoui is suspcious at least and deserves serious investigation) are not talking. Others are kept from giving evidence of ZM's innocence, in detention centers such as Guantanamo Bay. What evidence can they have? Will we ever get to see it?
In related news, Coleen Rowley the FBI whistleblower decides to run for Congress as a democrat
As the legal counsel in the FBI's Minneapolis office in 2001, she helped agents investigating Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested in Minnesota before Sept. 11 after he raised suspicions at a flight school.