Voor de liefhebbers, registered users only dus ik plaats 'm maar helemaal, Washington Post:
quote:
Al-Qaeda Plotters Dismiss Moussaoui's Role
By Jerry Markon, Timothy Dwyer and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 28, 2006; 1:21 PM
A day after Zacarias Moussaoui testified that he was supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House, his defense attorneys read statements from several other alleged terrorists questioning Moussaoui's competence and saying that they do not believe he was involved in the plot.
The testimony at the federal courthouse in Alexandria this morning was an attempt by the attorneys to prove their client was lying about his involvement in the hijackings, which killed nearly 3,000 people. Prosecutors are trying to prove that Moussaoui could have prevented the attacks by alerting the FBI when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations. His attorneys want to show that his conduct did not affect the deadly chain of events.
Sayf al-Adl, a senior member of al Qaeda's military committee, told interrogators that Moussaoui "was absolutely not going to take part in this particular mission, Sept. 11, 2001," according to defense exhibits.
Mustafa al-Hawsawi, described in the court papers as al-Qaeda's financial and travel planner, said he saw Moussaoui at al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan but never helped him arrange to fly to the United States to prepare for the attacks.
Hawsawi did make those arrangements for the operatives who carried out the hijackings, he said in the statement. But none of those "other brothers" ever mentioned Moussaoui or said he would play a role, the statement said.
Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin, who is known as Hambali and was the chief strategist for the South Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiya, which has ties to al-Qaeda, said he worked with Moussaoui in Malaysia and believed he was "very troubled, not right in the head."
The statements were taken by interrogators in the United States' secret and controversial detention system. They were read into the record by Moussaoui's defense attorneys, a highly unusual move that provided the latest legal twist in a trial that has been full of them.
Yesterday, Moussaoui, 37, told jurors his job was to head a five-man crew that included Richard Reid, the British citizen who later tried to set off explosives in his shoes aboard a transatlantic flight. Moussaoui said his orders came from Osama bin Laden and his plan was foiled by his August arrest.
He said he was never told the exact date the attacks were to occur, but was told that his mission would be part of a larger operation that would strike other target as well.
"I was supposed to pilot a plane to hit the White House," Moussaoui told a riveted federal courtroom in Alexandria. "I only knew about the two planes of the World Trade Center in addition to my own plane."
His words were as stunning as the way in which he delivered them. When he pleaded guilty to conspiring with al-Qaeda last year, Moussaoui denied involvement in Sept. 11 and insisted that he was to be part of a second wave of attacks. He then launched into one of his rambling courtroom outbursts, ending it by screaming, "God curse America!"
The familiar Moussaoui was gone yesterday. In his place was a hardened terrorist operative who spoke calmly and methodically, looking straight at his questioners as he voiced his hatred for the nation that had put him on trial for his life. "I consider every American to be my enemy," Moussaoui, said as jurors leaned forward in their seats. "For me, every American is going to want my death because I want their death."
Defense lawyers then read into the record evidence gathered in an overseas detention center from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a key planner of Sept. 11. Jurors were told that neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys had access to Mohammed or to others whose words were being read this morning.
Mohammed's statement, too, contradicted Moussaoui's testimony.
He said Moussaoui had been slated for a second wave of attacks that would have included targets not hit on Sept. 11, such as the White House and the Sears Tower in Chicago. Mohammed noted that the Sept. 11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon proceeded on schedule despite Moussaoui's arrest while taking flying lessons in Minnesota.
Even if Moussaoui's precise role is never certain, what was clear yesterday was the damage that his testimony, given over the strenuous objections of his lawyers, had done to his defense. Under cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert A. Spencer, Moussaoui admitted to the government's primary argument for his execution -- that he lied to the FBI after his arrest to allow the Sept. 11 attacks to go forward.
Moussaoui acknowledged that he did not know the exact date of the attacks but that he knew they were to take place just after August. He learned of the attacks while listening to the radio when he was in jail in Minnesota, and "I immediately understood," he testified.
Moussaoui said he lied "because I wanted my mission to go ahead," adding that he "never told them anything about the operation."
"You hid that from them. You concealed it, right?" Spencer asked.
"Indeed," Moussaoui replied.
Legal experts said those admissions, combined with Moussaoui's chilling demeanor in court, probably would resonate with the jury, which is expected to begin deliberating this week on whether he is eligible for the death penalty. If jurors find him eligible, a second phase of the hearing would determine whether Moussaoui should be executed.
"It sounds like he's toast," said Eric Muller, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at the University of North Carolina. "The prosecution's best hope was to make him appear scary rather than crazy. It sounds like he was really scary."
Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert who is senior adviser to the president of the Rand Corp., said Moussaoui "has destroyed much of his defense. He has gone as far as he possibly can to make the prosecution's case."
That case had appeared troubled only days ago. Prosecutors were embarrassed by the misconduct of a government lawyer, Carla J. Martin, who improperly coached witnesses. Moussaoui's attorneys unearthed government documents that showed in new detail how the FBI had ignored repeated warnings from its own agents that Moussaoui was a terrorist who wanted to hijack an airplane.
Before Moussaoui took the stand, his attorneys, with whom he does not speak, tried to block his testimony. One, Gerald T. Zerkin, said Moussaoui does not recognize the court's authority and, "as an al-Qaeda member, he believes it is okay to lie."
But prosecutors urged U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema to let him speak. Brinkema agreed, acknowledging that Moussaoui "had expressed his disdain of the United States" but had promised to behave in court.
Asked by a court clerk to raise his right hand and promise to tell the truth, Moussaoui stood motionless. He then told Brinkema he understood that he was required to speak truthfully, and he was allowed to take the stand.
From that moment on, Moussaoui was intense but controlled, often leaning forward on both forearms so close to the microphone that his lips brushed against it. He was silent when Spencer said "good morning" but answered questions from both sides politely and even apologized for "making a speech."
In a thick French accent, he matter-of-factly explained the great pleasure he derived from the deaths of so many Americans on Sept. 11. At one point, Spencer whipped out one of the numerous handwritten motions Moussaoui had written from jail when he was representing himself earlier in the case. The motion said the 19 hijackers should be "blessed" by Allah.
"You still believe that?" Spencer asked.
"One hundred percent," Moussaoui replied.
Minutes earlier, Moussaoui testified that he had bought two small knives in Oklahoma and was prepared to use them to cut the throat of a passenger or flight attendant on the plane he hijacked. "To cut the throat of somebody is not difficult," he said, explaining that he did not need training to do it.
The French citizen even injected a bit of humor, poking fun at the perception by many Americans that he was intended to be the "20th hijacker," which refers to the fact that the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania had only four crew members instead of five. Asked by Zerkin why he had signed his guilty plea as "the 20th hijacker," Moussaoui replied: "Because everybody used to refer to me as the 20th hijacker, and it was a bit of fun." He said he was not meant to be on that plane.
Moussaoui said he initially declined to take part in the Sept. 11 plot when he was first asked by senior al-Qaeda leaders in 1999 while he was managing a guest house for bin Laden's organization in Afghanistan.
He changed his mind, he said, after dreaming about crashing a plane into the White House. He mentioned the dream to bin Laden, who sent a senior lieutenant to tell Moussaoui to get flight training in the United States.
By the summer of 2001, Moussaoui said, he knew other hijackers were in the United States, but he had no contact with them here. He identified most of the 19 hijackers when prosecutors flashed their pictures on a screen, saying he knew them from his time in Afghanistan.
His own hijacking cell, Moussaoui said, was to include Reid, who later pleaded guilty to trying to blow up a Paris-to-Miami flight by igniting his shoes. Reid, who pledged loyalty to bin Laden when he was sentenced to life in prison in 2003, once worshiped with Moussaoui at a London mosque.
Moussaoui testified repeatedly that he views himself as being at war with the United States. Asked by Zerkin whether a death sentence would make him a martyr, he said: "I believe in destiny. . . . What I'm doing now is just to speak the truth, and God will take care of the rest."
al-Qaida guilty as hell. Dat staat voor mij wel redelijk vast.