[ppi] [ppiindia] Moussaoui Offered to Implicate Himself

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/28/AR2006032800707.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

Moussaoui Offered to Implicate Himself
In Trade, 9/11 Figure Sought Better Jail Conditions Until Execution, Jury Is 
Told

By Jerry Markon and Timothy Dwyer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 29, 2006; Page A01 




Zacarias Moussaoui wanted to be a witness for the prosecution -- and against 
himself.

On the eve of his death penalty trial last month, Moussaoui met with 
prosecutors and offered to testify for them in exchange for better jail 
conditions before he was put to death, jurors were told late yesterday. The 
al-Qaeda operative withdrew the offer when he realized he had the right to 
testify on his own behalf and when prosecutors insisted that he also tell them 
about other terrorist plots.

"Have you ever heard of a defendant in a capital case offering to testify 
against himself?" defense attorney Edward B. MacMahon Jr. asked an FBI agent 
who took the stand after the news was revealed to the jury.

"No, not in my experience," said agent James M. Fitzgerald.

It was the latest bizarre turn in a trial that is expected to go to the jury 
today. Before defense attorneys rested their case that Moussaoui is not 
eligible for the death penalty, jurors heard testimony that one of Moussaoui's 
terrorist bosses thought he was "not right in the head" -- and that several 
disputed Moussaoui's testimony that he was supposed to crash a hijacked 
airplane into the White House on Sept. 11, 2001.

In an effort to save Moussaoui's life, his attorneys ended their case by trying 
to discredit their client. They told jurors that Moussaoui had said the 
opposite when he pleaded guilty last year to conspiring with al-Qaeda, 
insisting then that he was "not 9/11 material."

Prosecutors responded by coming to the defense of Moussaoui, whom they have 
been trying to execute over his role in the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. 
history. They introduced evidence of the meeting Moussaoui requested four days 
before jury selection began in the trial.

Moussaoui, whose attorneys have vehemently objected to allowing him to take the 
stand, said he would testify for prosecutors about his plan to fly a fifth 
hijacked plane into the White House. In exchange for incriminating himself, he 
did not ask that his life be spared.

"He wanted better jail time between the time he was given a death sentence and 
the time he was executed," Fitzgerald told jurors. He said the meeting, 
described as civil, ended when prosecutors told Moussaoui he had an "absolute" 
constitutional right to testify.

It was unclear how jurors, some of whom were taking notes as they left the 
courtroom, would view the development. Prosecutors hope it reinforces that 
Moussaoui was telling the truth when he testified about his role because he 
would have told prosecutors the same thing. Moussaoui's defense appeared to be 
trying to signal to jurors that Moussaoui is untrustworthy and cannot be 
believed.

Moussaoui testified Monday that he was supposed to hijack a fifth plane Sept. 
11 and attack the White House with a crew that included Richard Reid, the "shoe 
bomber." He also admitted to a key part of the government's case: that he had 
lied to the FBI when arrested in August 2001 to allow the Sept. 11 plot to go 
forward.

Even the judge indicated that Moussaoui's testimony may resonate with the jury. 
U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, who threw out the death penalty in the 
case in 2003 before being overruled, declined a defense motion yesterday to 
toss it again.

"This case changed dramatically with Mr. Moussaoui's testimony," Brinkema said 
out of the presence of jurors.

Defense attorneys spent much of yesterday trying to overcome the damage 
Moussaoui had done to his case with his testimony. Even if Moussaoui was 
telling the truth about his role, his admissions did not address a fundamental 
part of the government's case -- that Sept. 11 could have been thwarted if 
Moussaoui had told the truth. Defense lawyers tried to hammer that point home 
-- that the government had plenty of warnings but could not stop it -- to the 
jury yesterday before resting their case.

Closing arguments are scheduled for this afternoon. If jurors find Moussaoui 
eligible for death, a second phase of the trial will determine whether he will 
be executed. Moussaoui, 37, pleaded guilty last year and is the only person 
convicted in the United States on charges stemming from Sept. 11.

In trying to overcome the image of Moussaoui calmly telling jurors Monday how 
he wants every American to die and rejoiced about the Sept. 11 attacks, defense 
attorneys returned to one of their core arguments. They introduced more 
evidence showing that the government could not stop the attacks, despite all 
the warnings, because of a pre-Sept. 11 mind-set. The defense argues that 
Moussaoui's information about the plot would not have helped.

Moussaoui's defense read into the record portions of the July 2001 "Phoenix 
memo," written by an FBI agent in Arizona, warning of suspicious individuals 
taking flight training in the United States, as the Sept. 11 hijackers did. The 
memo was not shared with the CIA or aviation and immigration authorities, and 
it generated little interest among top FBI officials.

The defense also showed the jury videotaped portions of then-national security 
adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the independent commission that 
investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. At one point, Rice was asked by a 
commissioner whether Moussaoui's information could have helped stop the 
attacks, as prosecutors have argued at the trial.

"I do not believe it is a good analysis to go back and presume that somehow we 
would have gotten lucky by going back and shaking the trees," Rice said. 
Prosecutors have argued that if Moussaoui had told the FBI about al-Qaeda's 
plans, the FBI would have scrambled and alerted federal aviation officials, who 
would have boosted security at the nation's airports.

The captured al-Qaeda members whose testimony was read to the jury did not 
speak highly of Moussaoui. Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin, who is known as Hambali 
and was the chief strategist for a South Asian terror group with ties to 
al-Qaeda, said he worked with Moussaoui in Malaysia in 2000 and believed he was 
"very troubled, not right in the head."

Hambali, who was captured in 2003, told interrogators that Moussaoui "managed 
to annoy everyone he came in contact with." That drew a smile from Moussaoui, 
who otherwise did not visibly react to the testimony.

Mustafa al-Hawsawi, the financial and travel planner for Osama bin Laden's 
organization, said he saw Moussaoui at al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan 
but never helped him with flight arrangements to the United States -- as he did 
for the other hijackers who brought down the World Trade Center, damaged the 
Pentagon and crashed a plane into a field in Pennsylvania.

The statements, which were read to the jury by defense attorneys, climaxed a 
court battle that delayed the case for more than two years. Brinkema granted 
Moussaoui's lawyers access to a number of al-Qaeda detainees they said could 
help his defense. The government refused to produce them, for national security 
reasons, and a federal appeals court eventually said the detainees would not 
testify.

Instead, the court said, the statements they gave to interrogators would be 
read to the jury.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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