Testimony in Moussaoui Trial Begins
Update: The jury is seated and testimony will begin this afternoon.
Update: The prosecution gave it's opening today. Moussaoui was calm.
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Testimony begins today in the death penalty trial of accused 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.
Zacarias Moussaoui may be the defendant, but it's the FBI that will likely be on trial once testimony begins Monday in the confessed al-Qaida conspirator's death penalty trial.
Both prosecutors and defense lawyers have indicated that FBI agents will provide key testimony at Moussaoui's sentencing trial, which will determine whether the 37-year-old Frenchman is sentenced to life in prison or death.
Zacarias is his own worst enemy. He won't talk to his lawyers. He didn't participate in 9/11. He was in jail when it happened. The current theory is that he was going to used in a future attack. The rationale for executing him is that he knew of al-Qaeda plans to attack the U.S. and did nothing to stop it. Michael Fortier got 11 years, not death, for a similar failure to alert authorities to the Oklahoma City Bombing. Moussaoui has been denied the potentially exculpatory testimony of Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at his trial. Both are being held by the U.S. in overseas prisons.
If Moussaoui gets the death penalty, there should be no illusion that the perpetrators of 9/11 have been held accountable. He wasn't one of them.
As I wrote here,
Moussaoui was a member of al-Qaeda who reportedly had no part in the 9/11 attacks. He was not the intended 20th hijacker. He would like us to believe he was going to pilot a plane for a future attack, but his skills were so bad he flunked out of flight school. I don't buy the Government's version for a minute. The two witnesses who could clear him of involvement in 9/11, Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed , are in an overseas secret jail and the Government, in defiance of a court order, has refused to grant Moussaoui's lawyers access to them for an interview.
Moussaoui is not a sympathetic character, but if we are going to try him in a federal court, he should be provided with exculpatory information in possession of the Government, and the opportunity to bring those witnesses to court to testify in his defense. This case is stacked against him, and even though the District Court Judge, Lonnie Brinkema, has tried her best to rein in the prosecution, she's still in the 4th Circuit where conservative judges rule.
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