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.
[[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."]]
Hopefully he will get the Jeffrey Dahmer treatment in prison.
The sentence was correct.
To sentence a human to death for running his mouth and having a loose connection to a Jihadi movement is at best ludicrous, and at worst a mockery of the ultimate penalty.
He knew nothing....He is only a piece of human garbage and the best punishment for that is life.
Even though he is sentenced to life he still has a chance to get out.
When will the bleeding hearts learn that you have to kill this worthless vermin.
That jury really let the whole country down. So far, I note they have remained anonymous--maybe for good reason.
Okiedoc, I just heard the wife of one of the victims telling Fox News that "now he could learn how wonderful our system is, that perhaps he could regain his humanity"--paraphrased, but close to what she said. As long as people think this way, we're going to keep getting hit by these subhumans. They view such sentiments as weakness--binLaden himself said so in one of his several "declarations of war." He had nothing but disgust for Clinton (who was in office at the time) for essentially being all talk and no muscle.
When "tolerance" is our only virtue, we have no others.
The "parts" we feel worth saving had better begin to start planning for our defeat, OR for the defeat of our enemies.
He knew nothing? He knew how to make a passenger liner take off, but he told his instructors he didn't need to learn how to land one. Been drinking the liberal kool-aid again?
Neither she nor you should feel let down by America. The real America is outraged at the verdict. And it wasn't America who betrayed justice. It was the Leftism that has been a disease on American values for six decades and that paralyzed the ability of the jurors to apply critical analysis, objective interpretation, and to acknowledge a difference between good and evil and act accordingly.
It is disgusting. But I don't blame America, except that we have allowed the Left to advance this far upon our traditions.
Amen to that.
I have dealt with these people and they only understand power.
They respect those who have it and disrespect those who don't.
I have been reading every post about this because I still can't believe it. Well, I can believe it, but I don't want to.
***
It is my belief that Moussaoui will receive his just reward for the evil he has done. There is always the possibility that someone will off him in prison, or he will contract some catastrophic and horribly painful illness...or in the next life, when he faces his Maker, he may be condemned to suffer for eternity for his sins. So however unjust this sentence may be, somewhere along the line he will receive what's due.
I hope that puts some perspective on what the jury had to do, but I doubt you are listening.
LOL, how touching.
Of course, there is a part of me that hopes France does get him. Let the frogs pay for his upkeep for the rest of his life.
***
No...I see some extremists bombing a railway station somewhere in France, and France in turn letting him go. Sounds plausible, given France's penchant for surrender.
Rationalize if you must, I will not.
I agree this should have been tried by a military tribunal. However, the problem in civil court goes back before our current President. The concept that the jurors could even consider Moussai's childhood as a factor in their deliberations goes back to the liberal weenie courts, whose judges were appointed by past Democrat liberal administration. Had the jurors only been permitted to consider the facts and not all these so-called "mitigating factors," perhaps the sentence would have been different.
BTW, our "parts" are very few, as evidenced on the posts on this thread alone.
Ah, but we might KILL him incidentally, and that would be OK.
So what!
What did he do?
How can you kill someone for running their mouth, unless they are on a battle field.
Justice was done. The verdict was correct and I would have been upset if it had gone the other way. There was little justification but the guy's own words to sentence him to death, and we don't do that sort of thing in this country.
It is only done in authoritarian regimes or dictatorships.
What really worries me is that people are reacting so emotionally to this verdict without any consideration given to the actual acts done. They could not even connect him directly with the conspiracy, as being the 20th high-jacker. If I used that same logic on other cases, I would have to kill all my relatives. (they have threatened me plenty)
What was actually done? Well, if I had driven one or more of my friends to a bank robbery, and one of them had killed someone in the process, I'd be as guilty as they, even though I'd never touched the gun. This guy was learning to make a passenger jet take off because he knew about a plan to attack our cities. He didn't need to learn to land because all he needed to know was how to hit a building.
Use your logic.
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