Posted on 03/19/2002 11:15:09 AM PST by kattracks
PARIS (Reuters) - Paris has warned Washington it could review its cooperation with the Sept. 11 probe if the United States sought the death penalty against a French national charged with aiding the people behind the attacks, French rights groups said Tuesday.
They said Justice Minister Marylise Lebranchu told them in a letter that she had instructed her officials to contact the U.S. Justice Department to voice concern that information gleaned in France could put Zacarias Moussaoui on death row.
The 33-year-old is charged with conspiring with Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network in connection with the hijacked airliner attacks in New York and Washington, which left more than 3,000 people dead last September.
After reaching an agreement with the French government, U.S. prosecutor Robert Spencer attempted to interview Moussaoui's relatives in France this week.
"France will take steps to alter the agreement stipulating that any information transmitted to the U.S. judicial authorities ... cannot be used by prosecutors pressing for a death penalty," rights groups, including Amnesty International, quoted Lebranchu's March 15 letter as saying.
Moussaoui was the first man charged over the attacks in which hijackers seized four commercial airliners, crashed two into the World Trade Center in New York and one into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
Rights groups say Spencer, who questioned Moussaoui's brother Monday, would use the information to argue the suspect should be put to death. U.S. prosecutors are due to decide by March 29 if they will seek the death penalty, the rights groups said.
Moussaoui's brother refused to answer Spencer's questions while his mother failed to turn up for an interview. But the U.S. official was thought to be seeking to interview others connected with the family.
Four of the six charges for which a not guilty plea has been entered on Moussaoui's behalf carry a possible death penalty.
Lebranchu has already said France, which scrapped capital punishment in 1981, would not accept the death penalty for Moussaoui.
Ultimate capital punishment in France: sentenced to live there. For life.
Gotta disagree with you there seamole, I have it on good authority that the French don’t even have words for that.
Cowardly scumbags. I don’t know whether I’d rather bomb them off the face of the earth or wait for Luxembourg to do it…
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
This is what's actually going on : The Euroscum were convinced , after Sept 11th, that the USA would be so desperate for EU support that it would cave on everything : The ICC, Kyoto, ABM, various UN treaties, and that the UN would be allowed to take the lead in any antiterrorism measures. There were many editorials and articles to that effect posted here.
Slowly they realized their hopes have been thwarted. What the euroscum are trying to do now is this : Withdraw from the antiterrorism "coalition" (using the DP and the "inhumanity" at Guatanamo Bay as the excuse) as it didn't pan out the way they thought it would, with a tiny hope at the back if their minds that such a withdrawal may still force the US to cave on various antisovereignty measures the EU favors.
I believe Bush said that you must choose sides - and France is thinking about the side of terrorists....If France pulls this on us, we can add them to the "Axis of Evil".
We're holding you to the agreement just exactly as it was originally decided. If you get snippy about it, we'll call you bad names until you break down and surrender.
Pray for GW and the Truth
Are you heading over to Japan/Korea this summer for the WC? (or is your "Sam's Army" not soccer-related?)
Frenchy, that just scares the hell out of me. Looks like you dumb bastards just sided with the terrorists.
Hopefully we can meet those pesky French in the second round and teach them a lesson or 2!
Hopefully we can meet those pesky French in the second round and teach them a lesson or 2!
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