Posted on 04/06/2006 4:27:50 PM PDT by jimbo123
The stories and photos of four young children, all of whom lost parents in the 9/11 attacks, brought witnesses to tears and visibly affected jurors Thursday at the death penalty trial of al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.
The second phase of the sentencing trial — to determine whether Moussaoui deserves execution or life in prison — opened Thursday. Early on, prosecutors played videos of the two hijacked jetliners hitting the gleaming World Trade Center towers. They also showed videos of people plunging more than 80 stories to their deaths and punctuated their presentation with family photos of loved ones.
Each hour the emotional impact grew.
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani retold the now-familiar tale of his own harrowing experience in debris-choked lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. But it was not until he spoke of the daughter of one of his closest aides, Beth Petrone Hatton, that Giuliani's voice quaked and broke. Firefighter Terence S. Hatton — who earned 19 medals in 21 years — died without knowing his wife was pregnant.
One female juror looked stricken. The rest hung motionless on Giuliani's every word.
Even Moussaoui, who had affected a look of boredom during the showing of video of falling bodies, watched the ex-mayor intently as he described Terry Hatton, who was born May 15, 2002. Her picture with Giuliani flashed on the screen.
"Terry's going to grow up without a father ... without a very special father," Giuliani said. "You can't replace that. ... There's no way that money, camps and scholarships, which is very important and which we raised, can replace that." Giuliani aides in the audience dabbed their eyes with tissue and sniffled.
Then came retired firefighter Anthony Sanseviro, whose co-worker and friend Danny Suhr died after he was hit by a body falling from one of the towers: "It was like a missile coming in."
As a photo was shown of Suhr with his daughter, Briana, Sanseviro described how Suhr's wife and childhood sweetheart, Nancy, has struggled to bring her up without him.
He was followed to the stand by James Smith, a 21-year veteran of the New York Police Department with a 6-year-old daughter, Patricia. His wife, Moira, also a police officer, was bringing a woman with asthma down from the third floor of the South Tower when it collapsed on them.
"Moira was a gung-ho police officer, who took chances and made a lot of arrests, until Patricia was born," he said. "She went from street narcotics to community policing. She decided that she wanted to be a mother even more than a police officer."
Asked to describe the loss felt by his daughter, Smith replied in a quavering voice: "The loss to Pat ... I can't begin to describe ... all the things she'll never be able to do with her mother, the first day of school, the relationship with her mother ..."
He stopped for a drink of water.
Prosecutor David Raskin showed a photo of Patricia taken Dec. 4, 2001, and asked Smith to explain it.
It showed a girl, 2 1/2, with long dark hair in a red dress that flowed to her ankles. She was wearing a long blue ribbon looped around her neck and attached to an object below her knees.
"That was Valor Day, when the New York Police Department hands out medals," Smith said. "She's wearing the medal they awarded Moira, the department's highest honor, the Medal of Honor."
The stricken-looking female juror pulled a tissue out and wiped her eyes. A male juror nearby appeared to be on the verge of tears. The burly, balding cop also wiped his eyes.
An Nguyen was 4 when his father, Khang Nguyen, was killed at the Pentagon. Prosecutors showed a picture of the boy at the Pentagon gates a few days after the attack, looking for his dad.
"He became heartbroken, quiet," said An's mother, Tu Nguyen. "He didn't have enough words to express his feelings."
When his dad was in heaven, An decided that he wanted to become an astronaut, "so he can go into space and look for his daddy," she told the jury.
Later, jurors heard the voice of lead hijacker Mohammed Atta aboard the jet that hit the first tower in New York. In a broadcast intended for passengers but mistakenly transmitted to air controllers, Atta said, "We have some planes. Just be quiet and you'll be OK."
The brother-in-law of a Sept. 11 victim testified that his sister committed suicide a month after her husband, Vamsi Pendyala, was killed on the plane Atta hijacked. Chandra Kalahasthi read to the jury the suicide note written by his sister, Prasanna: "I want to be with my loving hubby."
Leaving court at day's end minutes later, Moussaoui shouted, "No pain, no gain, America."
Prosecutor Rob Spencer braced jurors for the painful testimony they were going to hear over the next few weeks. The voices of the victims of the attacks and their anguished families should be all jurors need to hear to conclude that Moussaoui should die for his crimes, Spencer said.
Spencer described one call from a woman on the 83rd floor of the second tower to fall. "The floor is completely engulfed," she said. "We're on the floor and we can't breathe.... I don't see any more air. ... I'm going to die, aren't I?" The tape apparently will be played later.
Prosecutors also will play the cockpit recordings from United Flight 93, which crashed into a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, after passengers fought back against the hijackers. The tape has never been heard publicly.
"You cannot understand the magnitude of that day unless you hear it from the victims themselves," Spencer said. Moussaoui smiled several times when the prosecution mentioned his enthusiasm for the attacks.
Defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin said both Moussaoui's sisters are paranoid schizophrenics and his father is very troubled and may be schizophrenic as well. Noting the disease is inherited, Zerkin plans to call a doctor who believes Moussaoui suffers from a mentally illness that probably is schizophrenia.
Zerkin acknowledged that testimony about the impact on victims will be overwhelming. He urged jurors to "somehow maintain your equilibrium. ... You must nevertheless open yourselves to the possibility of a sentence other than death."
Zerkin described how Moussaoui grew up with little religious training and fell under the influence of radical Muslims when he traveled to London in hopes of becoming a businessman.
Spencer countered: "It was his choice to become a terrorist and it was a choice he was proud of."
Moussaoui, 37, is the only person charged in this country in the Sept. 11 attacks. He pleaded guilty last April. On Monday, the jury decided he was directly responsible for at least one death on 9/11 and is eligible for execution.
Moussaoui was in a Minnesota jail on Sept. 11. Nevertheless, the jury concluded that he could have thwarted or minimized the attacks if he had confessed his al-Qaida membership and terrorist plans when federal agents arrested him in August 2001 while he was taking flight training.
___
Associated Press writer Matthew Barakat contributed to this report.
America is not listening, it's not something countries do. 300 million individual Americans, and probably some illegal aliens from Mexico, are listening and are not in a good mood about this cretin.
I say go old school Pershing. M1903 30-06 rifles greased in 100% pure swine lard and then bury his carcass wrapped in the hides of pigs. Finally, bury Moussaoui's worthless hide is an unmarked grave filled with excrement, pointed north/south.
That's just my opinion though.
When Moussaoui appears in court next, here's what I'd like to see: The bailiff walks up behind him, kidney punches him twice, pins him to his table, yanks his head back, stuffs a sock in his mouth, makes 10 turns with duct tape to keep the sock in, slams his stinking head into the tabletop, and then calmly walks to his post. Without saying a word.
American Leftist are enablers of evil. They hide behind a facade of "humanism" while in truth they are driven by hate. They are masters of deceit. They never met an enemy of America they didn't like. They are the enemy within. We must stand strong against their attempts at brainwashing. Moussaoui is doing what most of them would like to do but don't have the guts actualize. They live through him and take satisfaction in his evil. Never forget that Leftists are the enemies of freedom.
In a heartbeat.
Unfortunately he will be so closely guarded that there isn't the remotest possibility of pulling it off, and the likelihood is that innocents would be injured (or worse) in the attempt.
And that's a shame because I bet you could auction off the right to drill him and retire the national debt with the proceeds.
May he rot in hell....
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MOUSSAOUI?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Apr 7, 12:03 PM EDT
Jury Hears of Sept. 11 Emotional Impact
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- One boy wanted to become an astronaut so he could go into space and find his daddy in heaven. One girl lost her father, a hero firefighter, before she was even born.
The tales of pain and devastation wrought by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were told Thursday as prosecutors opened the second phase of their death-penalty case against Zacarias Moussaoui. Dozens of equally painful tales are expected as the trial continues.
In this second phase of the trial, prosecutors are seeking to prove Moussaoui deserves execution by highlighting the personal toll inflicted on so many on Sept. 11.
Moussaoui, the only person in this country charged in the Sept. 11 attacks, was found eligible for the death penalty Monday when a jury concluded that he directly caused at least one of the deaths on that day.
Courtroom observers and some jurors were shaken as they heard some of the victim-impact testimony.
An Nguyen was 4 years old when his father, Khang Nguyen, was killed at the Pentagon. Prosecutors showed a picture of An standing at the Pentagon gates a few days after the attack, looking for his dad.
"He became heartbroken, quiet," said An's mother, Tu Nguyen. "He didn't have enough words to express his feelings."
When An was told his dad was in heaven, An decided he wanted to become an astronaut, "so he can go into space and look for his daddy," she told the jury.
Moussaoui made light of the testimony he heard.
"No pain, no gain, America," he said at the end of Thursday's hearing.
The government's first witness, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, became choked up when he described how his longtime secretary Beth Petrone Hatton lost her husband, firefighter Terence S. Hatton, in the attacks.
A few days after Terence Hatton died, Beth Hatton learned that she was pregnant with the couple's first child.
Emotions increased when a picture of the baby girl, born in May 2002, flashed on courtroom screens.
"Terry's going to grow up without a father ... without a very special father," Giuliani said. "You can't replace that."
Jurors saw videotapes of two hijacked jetliners hitting the World Trade Center and watched people jump to their deaths from some of the top floors of the 110-floor skyscrapers to avoid being burned alive.
Later, jurors heard the voice of lead hijacker Mohammed Atta aboard the jet that hit the first tower in New York. In a broadcast intended for passengers but mistakenly transmitted to air controllers, Atta said: "We have some planes. Just be quiet and you'll be OK."
Defense lawyers, in their opening statement to the jury, urged them to "somehow maintain your equilibrium" in the midst of emotionally devastating testimony.
"You must nevertheless open yourselves to the possibility of a sentence other than death," defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin said.
Zerkin said both Moussaoui's sisters are paranoid schizophrenics and his father is very troubled and may be schizophrenic as well. Noting the disease is inherited, Zerkin plans to call a doctor who believes Moussaoui suffers from a mental illness that probably is schizophrenia.
It was indeed hard to maintain equilibrium during Thursday's hearing. One firefighter described how his friend and mentor died after he was hit by a falling body from one of the twin towers.
Another man described how his sister committed suicide a month after the attacks, grieving over her husband's death on American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to hit the World Trade Center.
Chandra Kalahasthi read to the jury the suicide note written by his sister, Prasanna: "I want to be with my loving hubby."
One woman who shot video of the attack from her hotel described hearing "audio fireflies" - a chirping that she later learned is emitted from firefighters' equipment when they are motionless for extended periods of time.
In his opening statement to the jury, prosecutor Rob Spencer braced jurors for the painful testimony they were going to hear over the next few weeks. The voices of the victims of the attacks and their anguished families should be all jurors need to hear to conclude that Moussaoui should die for his crimes, Spencer said.
Spencer said about 45 victim-impact witnesses will be called to testify, representing less than 2 percent of the nearly 3,000 people who died on Sept. 11.
On Friday, in a separate matter, families of 9/11 victims who have filed two civil lawsuits - against parts of the airline industry and against those alleged to have financed al-Qaida - won access to some evidence in the Moussaoui trial.
The plaintiffs' lawyers sought access to non-sensitive information that prosecutors turned over to defense lawyers but which was never introduced at trial.
Government lawyers opposed the motion, saying it would give these plaintiffs special rights to access that others don't enjoy.
But U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said 9/11 plaintiffs do enjoy special privileges as a result of congressional legislation. She also chided the government for its eagerness to keep information from the public.
"I've always been troubled by the degree to which our government keeps things secret from the American people," Brinkema said, noting surprise at how many things have been deemed classified in the Moussaoui trial and the difficulties that causes in terms of managing the case.
ping
Amen
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