Quote...Has it been that long ago...
Moussaoui gets Life because the jury thought he was treated badly as a child.
A lot of people who had rough childhoods who don't slaughter thousands of innocent Americans.
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Posted on 05/04/2006 8:13:23 AM PDT by 1066AD
Back to Story - Help Moussaoui Offers Final Diatribe in Court By MATTHEW BARAKAT and MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writers 16 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.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, in an intense exchange capping a two-month trial in which the jury rejected the government's case to have Moussaoui executed, passed down the sentence and told him bluntly: "You will die with a whimper."
Moussaoui tried to interrupt her but she spoke over him, finishing her remarks. He then declared: "I will be free and my liberation will be the proof that we are the soldiers of God and you are the army of Satan."
The judge countered Moussaoui's claim that America had lost and he had won by asserting: "Mr. Moussaoui, when this proceeding is over, everyone else in this room will leave to see the sun ... hear the birds ... and they can associate with whomever they want."
She went on: "You will spend the rest of your life in a supermax prison. It's absolutely clear who won."
Brinkema sentenced Moussaoui to six life terms without the chance of parole.
Moussaoui walked into the courtroom flashing a victory sign. "God save Osama bin Laden — you will never get him," he 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, continued to taunt those in the courtroom Thursday.
"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 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 international conventions covering 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.
From the White House, President Bush said Wednesday 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."
Families of 9/11 victims expressed mixed views at the jury's decision not to sentence Moussaoui to death.
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.
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On the Net:
Court documents: http://notablecases.vaed.uscourts.gov
Dream on !
Don't be so sure. A future President might one day decide...well just about anything.
This will be seen as one of the biggest mistakes in the WOT.
Which is why he should be six feet under...wrapped in bacon.
Drive him cross-country from DC to Colorado on his way to prison. Stop the van somewhere in Iowa, put a bullet in the back of his head, run his body through a grinder, and feed the remains to the hogs. Because it's only appropriate that Moussasoui end his mortal existence as pig shit.
}:-)4
Oh no, he's a poor underprivileged boy...a loser in "life's lottery".
Of course not. He's dead.
Congratulations on becoming the latest to join the infamous group of weak-kneed, cowardly people who don't deserve to enjoy the precious liberties that better men and women have bled and died to preserve.
'He then declared: "I will be free and my liberation will be the proof that we are the soldiers of God and you are the army of Satan." '
Hope lives for AMerica's enemies! Can we say the same for America?
Illegas SENSE IT too.... so they become agressive and bolder.... The IRANIANS sense it too... that is why they are so incredibly agressive. They sense America, the left mainly, the LSM, will do anything to hurt America. We need a "complete" leader with balls and intelligence and boldeness to put America FIRST!
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