Zacarias Moussaoui

French Al Qaeda member imprisoned in the US

Zacarias Moussaoui (زكريا موسوي, ; born 30 May 1968) is a French member of al Qaeda who pleaded guilty in U. S. federal court to conspiring to kill citizens of the United States as part of the 9/11 attacks. He is serving life imprisonment without the possibility of parole at the Federal ADX Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. Moussaoui is the only person ever convicted in U. S. court in connection with the 11 September attacks.

Moussaoui has been known by other names, reportedly including Abu Khaled al Sahrawi and Shaquil while he was in Oklahoma. He attended, amongst others, the Brixton Mosque, He was proselytised by groups such as al Muhajiroun ("the Emigrants"), who leafleted people attending moderate mosques such as that in Brixton. Plans to include Moussaoui were never completed because the al Qaeda hierarchy allegedly had doubts about his reliability. Clarence Prevost, the flight instructor assigned to Moussaoui, began to have suspicions about his student. His behavior largely resembled that of other seemingly wealthy men who had come to the center in the past to receive jumbo jet training despite the fact that they would likely never use it, but some characteristics were unusual. Prevost said later that in pre simulator instruction, Moussaoui would ask questions that had the right jargon but were otherwise nonsensical. Moussaoui read through the 747 training manuals, but had a lack of understanding of the plane's systems. Prevost was confused as to why Moussaoui would seek simulator time if he lacked basic plane knowledge. After some convincing, his supervisors contacted the FBI, who came to meet with him. (Despite later reports, Moussaoui did not skip the training for takeoff and landing).

On 16 August 2001, Moussaoui was arrested by Harry Samit of the FBI and INS agents in Minnesota and charged with an immigration violation. The indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui named as unindicted co conspirators Ramzi Bin al Shibh and Mustafa al Hawsawi, among others, for their role in the attack "to murder thousands of innocent people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania". On 2 January 2002, Moussaoui refused to enter any plea to the charges and so Judge Leonie Brinkema entered pleas of not guilty. A hearing was held on 22 April 2002, to determine his right to self representation, for by then Moussaoui had declined the assistance of his court appointed attorneys, and asked to defend himself. At another hearing on 13 June 2002, Brinkema deemed him competent to defend himself and allowed the case to move forward. However, Moussaoui later requested the occasional assistance of attorneys to help him with technical issues. Moussaoui admitted his involvement with al Qaeda, but claimed he was not involved in the 9/11 attacks. Rather, he claimed that he was preparing for a separate attack. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had earlier told investigators that Moussaoui met with him prior to 11 September, but that he, Mohammed, chose not to use him. No evidence directly linking Moussaoui to the 9/11 attacks has yet been released. The trial highlighted a tension in the United States between the judiciary and national security. Moussaoui made requests for access to confidential documents and the right to call captive al Qaeda members as witnesses, notably bin al Shibh, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi. Both requests were claimed by prosecutors to be potential threats to national security. Brinkema denied the motion to access confidential documents, although Moussaoui was permitted to use several al Qaeda prisoners as witnesses. Brinkema put the death penalty "off limits" on 2 October 2003, in reply to government defiance of her order to provide access to Moussaoui's witnesses. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the Brinkema ruling, holding that the U. S. government could use summaries of interviews/interrogations of these witnesses. On 21 March 2005, the United States Supreme Court, without comment, declined to hear Moussaoui's pre trial appeal of the Fourth Circuit's decision, returning the case to Brinkema. On 22 April 2005, in one of the court sessions near the end of that phase of the proceedings, Moussaoui surprised the court by unexpectedly pleading guilty to all charges, while at the same time denying having any intention to produce a massacre like 9/11. He said that it was not his conspiracy, and that he intended to free Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. According to Moussaoui, his master plan was to hijack a Boeing 747 400, since the plane is one of a few that could reach Afghanistan from the U. S. without any intermediate stops. On 6 February 2006, Moussaoui shouted "I am al Qaeda. They do not represent me; they are Americans," referring to his attorneys while being escorted from the courtroom in front of 120 potential jurors. In March 2006, during the Moussaoui trial, several premises made headlines, including FBI agents stating that the bureau was aware, years before the attacks in 2001, that al Qaeda planned to use planes to destroy important buildings, and Brinkema's decision to consider dismissal of the death penalty. However, days later, under significant media attention, Brinkema decided not to dismiss the case, and instead ruled that witnesses could not testify and the government would be allowed to continue to seek the death sentence against him. On 27 March 2006, Moussaoui testified that he and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid had planned to crash a hijacked airplane into the White House in the 11 September attacks. No direct connection between Moussaoui and Reid had ever before been alleged, and this testimony contradicted earlier testimony by Moussaoui that he had been intended for an operation after 11 September. When asked why he had previously lied, he stated that "You're allowed to lie for jihad. You're allowed any technique to defeat your enemy." There has been commentary in the mainstream media that Moussaoui's preference to die as an identified 9/11 plotter rather than receive a life sentence as a member of an unrealized scheme throws doubt on his self admitted connection to 9/11.

Moussaoui, charged with conspiring to hijack planes and crash them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was in jail in Minnesota when the Sept. 11 attacks unfolded. In seeking a death sentence, prosecutors were required to prove that he "intentionally participated in an act and the victim died as a direct result of the act". Moussaoui admitted he knew about the attacks and did nothing to stop them. Having entered a guilty plea, Moussaoui was eligible for the death penalty. Germany said it would not release evidence against Moussaoui unless the U. S. promised not to seek death as punishment. On 27 April, 2005, French Justice Minister Dominique Perben said, "When France gave elements of information about Mr Moussaoui to the American justice, I obtained a written engagement of the United States not to use these elements to require or execute the death penalty." On 14 March 2006, Brinkema ruled that the prosecution could continue to seek the death penalty against Moussaoui, but could not use key witnesses coached by government lawyer Carla Martin. On 3 April 2006, the jury in his case decided that Moussaoui was eligible for the death penalty. At Moussaoui's sentencing trial, FBI agent Greg Jones testified that, prior to the attacks, he urged his supervisor, Michael Maltbie, "to prevent Zacarias Moussaoui from flying a plane into the World Trade Center". Maltbie had refused to act on 70 requests from another agent, Harry Samit, to obtain a warrant to search Moussaoui's computer. as Judge Brinkema expressed her belief that the sentence was an appropriate one, inasmuch as it would deprive Moussaoui of "martyrdom in a great big bang of glory" and of the "chance to speak again", after Moussaoui entered the courtroom proclaiming his victory and asserting that the United States would "never get Osama bin Laden". As he was leaving the courtroom, Moussaoui said, "America, you lost and I won," and clapped his hands twice. In fact, a single juror had saved Moussaoui from the foreman of the 12 person federal jury told The Washington Post that the panel voted 11–1, 10–2 and 10–2 in favor of the death penalty on the three charges for which Moussaoui was eligible for execution. A unanimous vote on any one of the three terrorism charges was required to return a death sentence. On 8 May 2006, Moussaoui filed papers with the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia requesting to withdraw his guilty plea, stating that his earlier claim of participation in the 11 September plot was a "complete fabrication". He said that he was "extremely surprised" that he was not sentenced to death. "I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial even with Americans as jurors," he said. However, federal sentencing rules forbid pleas to be withdrawn after a sentence has already been executed, and Moussaoui had already waived his rights to appeal. On 13 May 2006, Moussaoui was moved from his holding cell in Alexandria, Virginia, and transported via JPATS to the supermax United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, located near Florence, Colorado. The facility—considered the most secure federal penitentiary—is called the "Alcatraz of the Rockies". He has the Federal Bureau of Prisons number 51427 054. On 20 November 2007, Judge Brinkema publicly stated that the US government had provided incorrect information about evidence in the Moussaoui trial and that due to those actions, she was considering ordering a new trial in a related terrorism case, that of Ali al Timimi, a Virginia Muslim cleric. Brinkema said that she could no longer trust the CIA and other government agencies on how they represent classified evidence in cases regarding terrorism after Moussaoui case prosecutors admitted that the CIA had assured her that no videotapes or audiotapes existed of interrogations of certain high profile terrorism detainees, but later, in a letter made public 13 November, two such videotapes and one audio tape were made known. According to his testimony, the citizen had training in accounting and organized the Al Qaeda's finances.

On 23 May 2006, an audio recording attributed to Osama bin Laden said in translation that Moussaoui "had no connection at all with 11 September I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission Since Zacarias Moussaoui was still learning to fly, he wasn't number 20 in the group, as your government claimed". The voice alleged to be bin Laden also suggested that Moussaoui's confession was "void" as it was a result of pressures applied during his incarceration.

Civil action is being taken by relatives of 9/11 victims, insurers and others against the Saudi Arabian government. In the course of this, Zacarias Moussaoui has stated on oath and wrote to Judge George B. Daniels that Saudi royal family members helped finance the 11 September attacks and al Qaeda. Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan and Prince Al Waleed bin Talal, of the Saudi royal family were specifically mentioned as Al Qaeda donors—but the project's major patron was Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who in January 2015 became Saudi Arabia's king. In 2016 a partially redacted form of the pages were declassified by the Obama administration.

On 24 January 2008, Clarence Prevost, the flight instructor who led authorities to Moussaoui, received a $5 million reward from the U. S. government. The payment was questioned by agent Coleen Rowley and Senators Amy Klobuchar and Norm Coleman, among others, on the basis that two other flight instructors had made the initial calls to the FBI.