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 News from Around the Americas | April 2005 
Moussaoui May Face Death Penalty
 Neil A. Lewis & David Johnston - NYTimes
| | Mr. Moussaoui, the only person to be charged with an offense related to the September 2001 attacks, had earlier asked Judge Brinkema to plead guilty and be sentenced to death. |
Alexandria - Zacarias Moussaoui pleaded guilty today to complicity in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, despite a late motion by his lawyers that questioned whether his competence to understand the consequences, which could include the death penalty.
Mr. Moussaoui's guilty plea to six felonies sets up a separate trial to determine whether the sentence should be death or a lesser penalty. That proceeding is sure to be complex, raising some of the same issues of fact and law that have accompanied his case since his arrest in 2001.
"The court is accepting today the defendant's six pleas of guilty," Judge Leonie M. Brinkema said in Federal District Court here. "You are found guilty at this time."
Earlier in the week, the judge found Mr. Moussaoui competent, so it was not a surprise that she did so again today in rebuffing defense lawyer's efforts to portray him as incompetent.
But Mr. Moussaoui, whose bizarre behavior has punctuated nearly every phase of the proceedings against him, announced today that he would fight the death penalty with "every inch" of his body. Earlier, he said he wanted to be sentenced to death.
And his comments in court today were sure to fuel new defense efforts to question his mental fitness, especially since Mr. Moussaoui insisted - despite his formal plea to the contrary - that he did not have a role in the 9/11 plot as it actually unfolded but rather had been enlisted in a separate plot, which included flying a plane into the White House.
In the hearing today, Mr. Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy, conspiracy to destroy aircraft, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to murder United States employees, and conspiracy to destroy property. Four of those charges carry the potential for the death penalty, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said in Washington.
Mr. Gonzales, speaking at a news briefing, said Mr. Moussaoui had admitted that he "trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and communicated directly with Osama bin Laden, that Osama bin Laden personally selected Moussaoui to participate in an operation to fly hijacked airplanes into American buildings and approved him attacking the White House."
"Moussaoui and his co-conspirators were responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents on September 11," Mr. Gonzales said, affiroming that the government would seek the death penalty for Mr. Moussaoui.
Mr. Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, was arrested in Minneapolis in August 2001 on immigration charges after the authorities learned that he had sought lessons on how to fly Boeing jets but had expressed no interest in learning how to take off or land. His case took on new significance after the 9/11 hijackers commandeered and crashed four airliners the next month.
Mr. Moussaoui, the only person to be charged with an offense related to the September 2001 attacks, had earlier asked Judge Brinkema to plead guilty and had taken the additional step of asking the judge to be sentenced to death.
Mr. Moussaoui's request to be put to death - clearly withdrawn today - appeared to be at center of the defense motion that lawyers briefed on it had said challenged his mental fitness to understand the charges against him.
Defendants are free to plead guilty, even over the objections of their lawyers, if their pleas are entered voluntarily and knowingly. But Mr. Moussaoui's lawyers have long questioned whether he is able to fully comprehend the case against him.
Judge Brinkema declared Mr. Moussaoui competent to plead guilty after meeting with him on Wednesday. But she previously declared him unable to represent himself, saying he had repeatedly violated her orders by filing court papers that were "frivolous" and "scandalous."
The guilty plea may circumvent what has been the thorniest issue in the case, whether Mr. Moussaoui could have access to captured leaders of Al Qaeda who might provide testimony in his defense.
In the past, Mr. Moussaoui's efforts to plead guilty collapsed in part because of his conflicting statements, in which he said he wanted to plead no contest, a step tantamount to a guilty plea, even as he insisted that he had played no role in the 9/11 plot, which took the lives of nearly 3,000 people.
Mr. Moussaoui has had frequent conflicts with his lawyers, at one point seeking to dismiss them on ground that they had conspired with the government to ensure his execution, calling them the "death team." |
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