During a closed-door hearing this past Thursday, the Judge in the Zacarias Moussouai case granted Moussaoui's motion for access to al Qaeda suspect Ramzi Bin-al-Shibh, who has been in military custody for some months now.

This is important because it may prompt the U.S. to dismiss the federal criminal case against Moussaoui in favor of trying him in a secret miltary tribunal proceeding. See here. For some background, see here .

From the evidence disclosed to date, we lean towards believing, as do the French, that Moussaoui was a member of al Qaeda but he was not part of the September 11 plans, rather, he was going to be used in some later or related attack. The evidence appears scant that he was intended to be the "20th hijacker" as charged by the Government. If this is the case, then the Government may not be able to prove its conspiracy charge against Moussaoui --and may not be able to obtain the death penalty for him. Bin-al-Shibh could corroborate this, thus Moussaoui has the right to approach him to determine if indeed this is what he would say if called as a witness in his trial--or to obtain information from him that might lead him to other evidence to support this.

We think the best resolution, as we said here,

...is for a compromise to be worked out where the Government drops the death penalty request against Moussaoui if Moussaoui pleads and agrees to a life sentence thereby avoiding the need to call Binalshibh at all. Whatever happens, it should occur publicly. The Government should not be allowed to hide behind a veil of secrecy in this case as it has with Padilla and Hamdi and the other detainees."

You can access all of our Moussaoui posts since last June here and prior to that, our almost daily CrimeLynx coverage here (scroll down to Moussaoui) and here.