Posted on 12/12/2001 10:40:37 AM PST by mdittmar
France demanded on Wednesday that the United States not execute a Frenchman charged with plotting the September 11 attacks even if a U.S. federal court finds Zacarias Moussaoui guilty on terrorism charges.
Highlighting possible tensions between Washington and its European partners in the campaign against terrorism, Justice Minister Marylise Lebranchu said Paris would not accept the death penalty for Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent.
"Of course, no person benefiting from French consular protection should be executed," she told RMC radio.
France, like virtually every European country, no longer has a death penalty, having scrapped the guillotine in 1981.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed that France would take steps to ensure Massaoui was not executed if convicted.
"That stems from our general position on the death penalty," he told a regular news briefing.
A leading French human rights group urged the government to protect Moussaoui from execution and give him legal aid.
"Today more than ever, France must confirm its commitment to stand against the death penalty," Michel Taube, president of the group Together Against the Death Penalty, said in a statement.
Seeking to calm European fears that terrorism suspects extradited to the United States would inevitably risk the death penalty, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft told a news conference in London each case would be examined separately.
Previous executions of European citizens in the United States have provoked public outcry in Europe and some governments have been reluctant to extradite suspects across the Atlantic without guarantees they will not be put to death.
MOTHER'S PLEA Moussaoui, 33, took flying lessons in the United States and officials there believe he may have been preparing to join one of four hijacking teams that struck New York and Washington.
After the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, which killed almost 3,300 people, Moussaoui was arrested as a material witness and sent to New York for questioning.
An indictment released on Tuesday charged Moussaoui with conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, to commit aircraft piracy, to destroy aircraft, to use weapons of mass destruction, to murder U.S. employees and to destroy property.
He will be tried in a federal court and not in a military tribunal that has been proposed by President Bush for foreigners suspected of involvement in the attacks.
U.N. Security Council member France has voiced opposition to such tribunals, one of several differences between Paris and Washington on how to proceed in the crackdown against terror.
French officials have said they could not support any widening of military action beyond Afghanistan, host to bin Laden's al Qaeda network, without clear evidence of terrorist activity and without a U.N. mandate.
Moussaoui's mother was quoted on Wednesday saying her son wrote to her several weeks ago protesting his innocence and fearing he would not receive a fair trial.
"Zacarias warned me in his letter that they were going to fabricate proofs, produce witnesses against him," his mother Aicha told Le Parisien daily of a letter sent some weeks ago.
"In that case, what can you do to prove the contrary? Because my son says he too has evidence (of his innocence)...I hope he will have the chance to defend himself."
Perfect! I am still laughing my butt off. Great response!
HYSTERICAL!!!
Cool. We aren't going to execute any terror suspects.
Convicted terrorists, on the other hand...
Yes. Very true. European culture is the most depraved on earth (outside of Afghanistan). Morals are nonexistent. Europe (France especially) is relativist/atheist. I will thank France to keep its filthy nose out of our business...or next time we won't save them from the Huns.
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