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Theresa
Lux Mihi Deus
Joined: 17 Jun 2001
Posts: 27256
Location: United States of America
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 Wed May 03, 2006 9:52 pm Jury Spares Moussaoui's Life |
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| Quote: | Admitted al-Qaida Conspirator Gets Life in Prison for Role in 9/11
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN and MATTHEW BARAKAT, AP
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (May 3) - Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui escaped the death penalty Wednesday as a jury decided he deserved life in prison instead for his role in the bloodiest terrorist attack in U.S. history. "America, you lost," Moussaoui taunted.
After seven days of deliberation, the nine men and three women rebuffed the government's appeal for death for the only person charged in this country in the four suicide jetliner hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.
Three jurors said Moussaoui had only limited knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot, and three described his role in the attacks as minor, if he had any role at all.
Moussaoui, as he was led from the courtroom after the 15-minute hearing, said: "America, you lost. ... I won." He clapped his hands as he was escorted away.
Some victims' families said he got what he deserved.
Carie Lemack, whose mother, Judy Larocque, died on hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the World Trade Center, said her mom didn't believe in the death penalty and would have been glad Moussaoui was sentenced to life. "This man was an al-Qaida wannabe who could never put together the 9/11 attacks," Lemack said. "He's a wannabe who deserves to rot in jail."
But Patricia Reilly, who lost her sister Lorraine Lee in the New York attacks, was deflated. "I guess in this country you can kill 3,000 people and not pay with your life," she said. "I feel very much let down by this country."
From the White House, President Bush said the verdict "represents the end of this case but not an end to the fight against terror." He said Moussaoui got a fair trial and the jury spared his life, "which is something that he evidently wasn't willing to do for innocent American citizens."
The verdict came after four years of legal maneuvering and a six-week trial that put jurors on an emotional roller coaster and gave the 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent a platform to needle Americans and mock the pain of the victims' families.
Judge Leonie Brinkema was to hand down the life sentence Thursday morning, bound by the jury's verdict. Offering assurance to the losing side, she told prosecutors: "The government always wins when justice is done." Moussaoui smiled at that.
It was a stinging defeat for the Justice Department and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, a former federal prosecutor in Alexandria who was overseeing the case. He said afterward, "The jury has spoken and we respect and accept that verdict."
Moussaoui is expected to spend the rest of his life at the federal maximum-security prison in Florence, Colo.
In Paris, his mother, Aicha El Wafi, told France-Info radio: "I feel nothing. I am dead, because my son was wrongly convicted."
The jury did not reach the unanimity required for a death sentence against the man who claimed a direct role in the Sept. 11 attacks even though he was in jail at the time on immigration charges.
During the trial, no one contested the contention that Moussaoui came to the United States intending to do harm and that he received flight training toward that goal. But his lawyers contended he was an al-Qaida outcast who was not trusted with the knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot.
Outside the courthouse, defense attorney Gerald Zerkin said of the jurors: "It was obvious that they thought his role in 9/11 was not very great and that played a significant role in their decision."
The jurors agreed unanimously Moussaoui "knowingly created a grave risk of death" for more than the intended victims of Sept. 11 and committed his acts with "substantial planning" - accepting two of the aggravating factors necessary for a death sentence.
But they did not give sufficient weight to those findings to reach a death sentence, balancing them against mitigating factors offered by the defense. No jurors, however, accepted defense arguments that Moussaoui was mentally ill or that he wished to be executed to achieve the radical Islamic vision of martyrdom.
When the verdict was announced, Moussaoui showed no visible reaction and sat slouched in his chair, refusing to stand with his defense team. He had declined to cooperate with his court-appointed lawyers throughout the trial.
When the jurors came into the room, a couple of them looked directly at Moussaoui but most did not, looking at the judge instead. They all wore sober expressions. One dark-haired young man shook his head no before the verdict was read.
When the judge asked the jurors if their verdict was the same on all three counts, the forewoman, a high school math teacher, was joined by several other jurors in answering, "Yes."
The verdict was received with silence in the packed courtroom, where one row was lined with victims' families.
The jurors were divided on the 23 mitigating factors in the case: None was moved by the fact that top al-Qaida operatives in U.S. custody are not facing death penalty prosecutions, but three cited racism that Moussaoui faced as a child of Moroccan descent.
The closest the jurors came to unanimity in finding mitigating factors was on two questions involving his troubled childhood. On the first count of conspiracy to commit international terrorism, nine cited his unstable early childhood including stays in orphanages and a lack of emotional and financial support, and nine also cited physical and emotional abuse by his father.
But on the two other counts - plotting to destroy aircraft and to use weapons of mass destruction - those two family factors received less support: eight and seven and seven and six, respectively. Those were the only differences in the verdicts on the three counts.
In their successful defense of Moussaoui, his lawyers revealed new levels of pre-attack bungling of intelligence by the FBI and other government agencies. By the trial's end, the defense team was portraying its uncooperative client as a delusional schizophrenic. They argued he took the witness stand to confess a role in Sept. 11 that he never had - all to achieve martyrdom through execution or for recognition in history.
They overcame the impact of two dramatic appearances by Moussaoui himself - first to renounce his four years of denying any involvement in the attacks and then to gloat over the pain of those who lost loved ones.
Using evidence gathered in the largest investigation in U.S. history, prosecutors achieved a preliminary victory last month when the jury ruled Moussaoui's lies to federal agents a month before the attacks made him eligible for the death penalty because they kept agents from discovering some of the hijackers.
But even with heart-rending testimony from nearly four dozen victims and their relatives - testimony that forced some jurors to wipe their eyes - the jury was not convinced that Moussaoui, who was in jail on Sept. 11, deserved to die.
The case broke new ground in the understanding of Sept. 11 - releasing to the public the first transcript and playing in court the cockpit tape of United 93's last half hour. The tape captured the sounds of terrorists hijacking the aircraft over Pennsylvania and passengers trying to retake the jet until it crashed in a field.
AP-ES-05-03-06 2026EDT
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. |
Aww, good, he didn't deserve to die. 
Last edited by Theresa on Sat May 20, 2006 10:26 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Wed May 03, 2006 9:54 pm |
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Nooo, he didn't
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Founder
Dominion Leader
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Posts: 12755
Location: Gamma Quadrant
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| Wed May 03, 2006 9:56 pm |
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Who cares? He was brought to justice. Besides, he probably wanted to die. We prevented something he wanted. Now hes gonna have his entire life to enjoy jail sex. Justice has been served.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Wed May 03, 2006 10:29 pm |
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Well, he will, I believe, be spending 23 hours a day underground, so it's not a total loss.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Lord Borg
Fleet Admiral
Joined: 27 May 2003
Posts: 11214
Location: Vulcan Capital City, Vulcan
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| Wed May 03, 2006 10:31 pm |
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| Founder wrote: | | Who cares? He was brought to justice. Besides, he probably wanted to die. We prevented something he wanted. Now hes gonna have his entire life to enjoy jail sex. Justice has been served. |
 Well said andy, well said.
Glad they got him. at least we got life in prison.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Wed May 03, 2006 10:33 pm |
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Well, so long as he gets the harshest punishment the US has to offer, I guess I'm fine with it.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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LightningBoy
Commodore
Joined: 09 Mar 2003
Posts: 1446
Location: Minnesota, U.S.A.
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| Wed May 03, 2006 10:36 pm |
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He'll never see daylight again. Good.
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webtaz99
Commodore
Joined: 13 Nov 2003
Posts: 1229
Location: The Other Side
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| Thu May 04, 2006 6:57 am |
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All I can say is  
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"History is made at night! Character is who you are in the dark." (Lord John Whorfin)
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CJ Cregg
Commodore
Joined: 05 Oct 2002
Posts: 1254
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| Thu May 04, 2006 10:09 am |
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Im glad he got life in the harshest US Prison. If i were him i would have wished for the death penalty.
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Theresa
Lux Mihi Deus
Joined: 17 Jun 2001
Posts: 27256
Location: United States of America
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| Thu May 04, 2006 3:40 pm |
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Like the other inmates will let him live long anyway.
-------signature-------
Some of us fall by the wayside
And some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with our scars
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harrykims#1fan
Fan Girl Muskateer
Joined: 08 Feb 2002
Posts: 2916
Location: Leicester UK
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| Thu May 04, 2006 4:39 pm |
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its better than the death penalty because killing him woulda made him a martyr in the extremists eyes and Life in jail means he's gonna be Bitch to a murderous biker named Bubba for the rest of his worthless existance
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Founder
Dominion Leader
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Posts: 12755
Location: Gamma Quadrant
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| Thu May 04, 2006 4:41 pm |
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| harrykims#1fan wrote: | | its better than the death penalty because killing him woulda made him a martyr in the extremists eyes and Life in jail means he's gonna be *beep* to a murderous biker named Bubba for the rest of his worthless existance |
Yeah thats pretty much my exact post.... 
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Starbuck
faster...
Joined: 19 Feb 2003
Posts: 8715
Location: between chaos and melody
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| Thu May 04, 2006 7:29 pm |
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well..... if we kill him it makes him a marytr.... or how ever its spelled.....
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Thu May 04, 2006 10:20 pm |
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Well I'm excited! The supermax prison he's going to be staying at is here in Colorado! Whoo-hoo! 
Actually, I do believe his time at this prison is worse than death. It's like being locked in your bathroom. "He'll get very minimal food and be doing hard time in the roughest prison in the world," says a man who toured it. All he'll see TV-wise is educational videos which will only be seen if good, and he'll get religious services there as well--if he behaves himself.
He'll never talk to another prisoner in the facility. He's 37 years old and that's his death until he dies. His cell will be really small.
I now think this is much better than death. He's not seen as a martyr and will face stuff worse than death. Nothing to look forward to and everything.
Yes, I would like to see him hanged, but I think this may very well be worse than death.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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webtaz99
Commodore
Joined: 13 Nov 2003
Posts: 1229
Location: The Other Side
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| Fri May 12, 2006 9:55 am |
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Hopefully, the military will wait a few years until everyone has forgotten him, then load him up with drugs and stick his toes in the fire until he spills his guts. Then he can have a convenient accident.
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"History is made at night! Character is who you are in the dark." (Lord John Whorfin)
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Lord Borg
Fleet Admiral
Joined: 27 May 2003
Posts: 11214
Location: Vulcan Capital City, Vulcan
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| Sun May 14, 2006 6:35 pm |
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| Republican_Man wrote: | Well I'm excited! The supermax prison he's going to be staying at is here in Colorado! Whoo-hoo!
Actually, I do believe his time at this prison is worse than death. It's like being locked in your bathroom. "He'll get very minimal food and be doing hard time in the roughest prison in the world," says a man who toured it. All he'll see TV-wise is educational videos which will only be seen if good, and he'll get religious services there as well--if he behaves himself.
He'll never talk to another prisoner in the facility. He's 37 years old and that's his death until he dies. His cell will be really small.
I now think this is much better than death. He's not seen as a martyr and will face stuff worse than death. Nothing to look forward to and everything.
Yes, I would like to see him hanged, but I think this may very well be worse than death. |
Minimal food? Just out of Coursity, what does that mean?
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Sun May 14, 2006 7:35 pm |
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I don't remember exactly, but I believe he gets three meals a day, but they're not feasts, to put it lightly.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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