Zacarias Moussaoui (Arabic: زكريا موسوي, Zakariyyā Mūsawī; born 30 May 1968) is a French member of al-Qaeda who pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to conspiring to kill citizens of the United States as part of the 9/11 attacks.
Moussaoui's trial was seen in some circles as a barometer of the ability and willingness of the United States to give a fair hearing to terrorism suspects.
Some al-Qaeda members reportedly corroborated Moussaoui's statement saying that he was involved in a plot other than September 11, but prosecutors believed that his story had no merit.
[7] In giving their reasoning against recommending the death penalty, most jurors referenced Moussaoui having an "unstable early childhood and dysfunctional family" and problems with his parents.
Witnesses testified at Moussaui's trial that, as first-generation immigrants from Morocco, the family frequently faced racism in their new country.
This school was also visited by Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, who piloted planes into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center.
His behavior largely resembled that of other seemingly wealthy men who had come to the center in the past to receive jumbo jet training despite the fact that they would likely never use it, but some characteristics were unusual.
[23] Some agents worried that his flight training had violent intentions, so the Minnesota bureau tried to get permission (sending over 70 emails in a week) to search his laptop, but they were turned down.
[24] FBI agent Coleen Rowley made an explicit request for permission to search Moussaoui's personal rooms.
This request was first denied by her superior, Deputy General Counsel Marion "Spike" Bowman, and later rejected based upon FISA regulations (amended after 9/11 by the USA Patriot Act).
A hearing was held on 22 April 2002, to determine his right to self-representation, for by then Moussaoui had declined the assistance of his court-appointed attorneys, and asked to defend himself.
Moussaoui made requests for access to confidential documents and the right to call captive al-Qaeda members as witnesses, notably bin al-Shibh, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi.
Brinkema put the death penalty "off limits" on 2 October 2003, in reply to government defiance of her order to provide access to Moussaoui's witnesses.
On 21 March 2005, the United States Supreme Court, without comment, declined to hear Moussaoui's pre-trial appeal of the Fourth Circuit's decision, returning the case to Brinkema.
However, days later, under significant media attention, Brinkema decided not to dismiss the case, and instead ruled that witnesses could not testify and the government would be allowed to continue to seek the death sentence against him.
[29] On 27 March 2006, Moussaoui testified that he and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid had planned to crash a hijacked airplane into the White House in the 11 September attacks.
"[30][31] There has been commentary in the mainstream media that Moussaoui's preference to die as an identified 9/11 plotter rather than receive a life sentence as a member of an unrealized scheme throws doubt on his self-admitted connection to 9/11.
[36] He also prayed for the destruction of several nations—including Israel (and the Jewish people as a whole), Russia, Canada, UK, Australia, and the U.S.—and for the liberation of Palestine, Chechnya, and Afghanistan.
He then offered a psychological analysis of Judge Brinkema: Mental Status Enumeration: Axis 1; Acute symptoms of Islamophobia with complex of gender inferiority.
24 July 2002: Moussaoui's roommate from Oklahoma flight school, 24-year-old Hussein al-Attas, pleaded guilty to seven counts of making false statements, including the following: The truth is that on several occasions, during the short time I knew him (Moussaoui) had expressed a general desire to participate in jihad, so my statement to the contrary was false ...
I decided to testify that I had knowledge of and was a member of the plot to hijack planes and crash them into buildings on 11 September 2001, even though I knew that was a complete fabrication.
Because I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial even with Americans as jurors and that I can have the opportunity to prove that I did not have any knowledge of and was not a member of the plot to hijack planes and crash them into buildings on 11 September 2001, I wish to withdraw my guilty plea and ask the Court for a new trial to prove my innocence of the 11 September plot.Additional case filings are posted online.
"[46] On 14 March 2006, Brinkema ruled that the prosecution could continue to seek the death penalty against Moussaoui, but could not use key witnesses coached by government lawyer Carla Martin.
On 13 May 2006, Moussaoui was moved from his holding cell in Alexandria, Virginia, and transported via JPATS to the supermax United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, located near Florence, Colorado.
Brinkema said that she could no longer trust the CIA and other government agencies on how they represent classified evidence in cases regarding terrorism after Moussaoui case prosecutors admitted that the CIA had assured her that no videotapes or audiotapes existed of interrogations of certain high-profile terrorism detainees, but later, in a letter made public 13 November, two such videotapes and one audio tape were made known.
In the course of this, Zacarias Moussaoui has stated on oath and wrote to Judge George B. Daniels that Saudi royal family members helped finance the 11 September attacks and al-Qaeda.
Judge Leonie M. Brinkema declared "Moussaoui is completely competent", called him "an extremely intelligent man" and added: "He has actually a better understanding of the legal system than some lawyers I've seen in court".
[60] The administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both had refused to declassify the 28 pages on the grounds of "national security" but, as Graham argued, the opposite was true; the real "threat to national security is non-disclosure": The Saudis know what they did and the U.S. knows what they did, and when the U.S. government takes a position of neutrality or actively shuts down inquiry, that sends a message to the Saudis.
Graham said that those pages "point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as the principal financier" of the 9/11 hijackers: "This may seem stale to some but it's as current as the headlines we see today," referring to the terrorist attack on a satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
The payment was questioned by agent Coleen Rowley and Senators Amy Klobuchar and Norm Coleman, among others, on the basis that two other flight instructors had made the initial calls to the FBI.