Posted on 05/04/2006 7:43:26 AM PDT by MizSterious
By MATTHEW BARAKAT and MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writers 8 minutes ago
An unrepentant Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, warning Americans in his final public words that they would never catch Osama bin Laden.
The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema at the end of a two-month trial in which the jury rejected the government's case to have Moussaoui executed.
"God save Osama bin Laden — you will never get him," Moussaoui declared moments after walking into the courtroom flashing a victory sign.
"You have branded me as a terrorist or a criminal or whatever," he said. "Look at yourselves. I fight for my belief." He spoke for less than five minutes; the judge told him he could not use his sentencing to make a political speech.
Barring an unforeseen circumstance, Moussaoui then will be sent to a maximum federal prison in Colorado under special conditions that will prevent him from having any contact with the outside world.
French authorities said Thursday they may eventually press the United States to have Moussaoui serve his life sentence in France under two conventions on the transfer of convicts. They were waiting to hear the conditions of his sentencing.
Moussaoui's mother Aicha El Wafi, pressed for her country to intervene. "My son will be buried alive because France didn't dare contradict the Americans," she said.
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 suicide hijackings of four commercial jetliners that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.
Moussaoui, who spent much of his two-month trial cursing America, blessing al-Qaida and mocking the suffering of 9/11 victims, offered one more taunt after the jury reached its verdict Wednesday saying, "America, you lost. ... I won," and clapping his hands as he was escorted from the courtroom.
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."
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, attending a European Union security conference in Vienna, told reporters Thursday: "There are challenges that exist with respect to prosecuting terrorist cases in our system. I think justice was served in this case."
Families of 9/11 victims expressed mixed views.
Carie Lemack, whose mother, Judy Larocque, died on hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into New York's 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 deserves to rot in jail."
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."
It is not known how many jurors wanted Moussaoui sentenced to life and how many wanted a death sentence. Under federal law, a defendant automatically receives life in prison when a jury is split. The 42-page verdict form gives no indication on how, or if, the jury split.
The jury rejected two key defense arguments — that Moussaoui suffers a mental illness and that executing him would make him a martyr. No jurors indicated on the verdict form that they gave any weight to those arguments.
Nine jurors found that Moussaoui suffered a difficult childhood in a dysfunctional family where he spent many of his early years in and out of orphanages. Three found that Moussaoui only played a minor role in 9/11.
Defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin said outside court that "it was obvious that they thought his role in 9/11 was not very great and that played a significant role in their decision."
Prosecutors, who pursued the Moussaoui case for 4 1/2 years, declared themselves satisfied with the jury's verdict.
Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, who was chief prosecutor in Alexandria in December 2001 when Moussaoui first was charged, noted that the jury in the trial's first phase found Moussaoui responsible for the 9/11 attacks by concealing the al-Qaida plot from FBI agents after he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations.
"It only takes one juror to reject imposition of the death penalty, and we respect that," McNulty said.
The trial put jurors on an emotional roller coaster and gave the 37-year-old Frenchman a platform to needle Americans and revel in the pain of the victims and their families.
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.
The verdict was received with silence in the packed courtroom, where one row was lined with victims' families.
In their successful defense of Moussaoui, defense lawyers 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 tears from 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 Flight 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.
I don't think they will allow him the platform in my lifetime anyway......
Agree. This guy will be walking the streets a free man in our lifetimes. That's what happens when you don't enforce justice which in this case required the death penalty.
It is amazing how the bleeding hearts fail us and the victims of this terrible tragedy.
This is from The Onion, right?
Agree. This guy will be walking the streets a free man in our lifetimes. That's what happens when you don't enforce justice which in this case required the death penalty.
It is amazing how the bleeding hearts fail us and the victims of this terrible tragedy.
Ladies! (1) He HAS lost his "life" {if he ever really had one.} (2)The govm't didn't really prove that this idiot was really involved.
Who should also be on trial are the people that let Atta and those other bastards get away with killing 3000 people.
This is all part of the Federal sentencing guidelines. The questions must be discussed and answered on the forms. The defense put on a detailed show about his lousy life and that prompted the mandatory answers.
The worst of the worst are there. Solitary confinement there is brutal.
I think we should have a supermax prison built in the Aleutian islands.
Rest assured, most of us would rather have buried him dead, but hey, you play the cards you are dealt.
So what happens if some future commie president releases him in exchange for a few hostages? The French are already trying to have him serve his time in a French prison. I'm sure the French wouldn't mind trading him back to Al Qaeda.
He will get all those and more. What do you think is the function of the inmates rights groups that are treated like gods in the correctional system?
I predict the worst problem he will have in prison will be boredom.
"Eventually" meaning when a more hospitable liason sits in the Oval Office--perhaps Messier Kerry?
A way of repairing relations with allies, we-we?
http://www.prisoncentral.org/prisoncentral/Supermax.htm#from
Check out this page, especially the bottom of the page It is Wisconsin Supermax, but I am sure the "advocates" are in Colorado as well.
Colorado Supermax
http://www.prisoncentral.org/Prisoncentral/Supermax/Acrobat/ColoradoSupermaxManual.pdf
Check out some of his new neighbors
Here is some info from the link you posted.
In Supermax prisons, prisoners are often allowed out of their cells for only an hour a day; often they are kept in solitary confinement. They receive their meals through "food ports" in the doors of their cells. Often they are given nothing to do, no work or assigned activities, except in many Supermax prisons, including the Federal Supermax in Florence, Colorado, the prisoners are allowed to have a television.
"Mark my words.......
There will be American Hostages takes overseas"
And our government will act like they had no idea..... just like the people who let the rat and his fellow terrorists in to the country did after 9-11.
This is already a propaganda victory for the Terrorists.
Hey. Maybe you can get an interview with Al Jazeera, letting them know how rational and civilized our justice system is (and hope some of their friends don't whisk you away and cut your brainless head off).
Like a shiv made out of a pork chop bone.
A martyr-maker?
My supervisor just told me the same thing. I hope these jurors realise how stupid they are. Everybody PRAY HARD FOR AMERICA.
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