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April 13, 2006
US: Moussaoui Says Muslims Have To Be The Superpower
Today, Zacarias Moussaoui told the court in Alexandria, Virginia, that Muslims are called to fight for the rulership of Allah. "We have to be the superpower, we have to be above you" he told the court. Reports of his bizarre behaviour are currently found in the Times, the Guardian, and icWales and the BBC.
His appearance on the stand should have been an opportunity for him to argue the reasons why he should not receive the death sentence, but French national Moussaoui, who is of Moroccan descent, seemed more interested in inspiring contempt and hatred.
Against his lawyers' advice, he testified that he felt "no regret, no remorse" about the attacks on 9/11. When asked if he would be prepared to kill Americans, he answered: "Anytime, anywhere."
He had earlier mounted an attack upon his lawyers, who have tried to portray him as being mentally ill, and as a failed hijacker who is trying to become a martyr for islam. Moussaoui accused his defense team of "criminal non-assistance".
He said he had not been allowed to have a Muslim lawyer, and claimed his defense team was letting him be condemned to death.
When Gerald Zerkin, his lead defense lawyer asked: "Do you believe that your attorneys are in a conspiracy to kill you?", Moussaoui had answered: "I will say that I believe you have, in the last four years, been doing what I will call more precisely 'criminal non-assistance' ."
"You are American, you are Jewish... You showed clearly to me that you didn't have my best interests at heart," he said.
37-year old Moussaoui showed resentment that the trial was taking place in Alexandria, Virginia, a few miles from the Pentagon, which had also been attacked on September 9, 2001.
Zerkin referred to Moussaoui's earlier shock confession that he had been earmarked to fly a plane into the White House, in association with the British wannabe shoe-bomber, Richard Reid. Zerkin asked if this had helped his case.
"I was putting my trust in God, so from an Islamic point of view, yes", Moussaoui replied.
Reid, currently serving 60 years in a maximum security jail in Colorado, is expected to arrive in court soon to verify or deny the allegation. Zerkin asked the jury to show clemency, even if Moussaoui seemed not to wish it. He said: "We will ask you for what Mr Moussaoui believes is impossible because you are Americans, and for what we believe is possible for that same reason: a sentence of life in prison without possibility of release."
Prosecutor Rob Spencer asked him: "So you would be happy to see 9/11 again?"
"Every day until we get you," Moussaoui retorted.
Moussaoui said Army Lt. Col. John Thurman's account of escaping the blazing Pentagon left him with "regret that he didn't die."
He derided a Navy officer who wept as she described the death of two subordinates in the attack on the Pentagon.
"I think it was disgusting for a military person to cry", Moussaoui said, talking about Lt. Nancy McKeown. "She is military. She should expect people at war with her to want to kill her."
Asked if he was happy to hear her sobbing, he said, "Make my day."
Moussaoui noted many relatives of victims wept on the witness stand. "I find it disgusting that people come here to share their grief over the death of some other person," he said.
"I'm glad there was pain, and I wish there will be more pain,? Moussaoui said. "The children in Palestine and in Chechnya will have pain. I want you to share their pain."
Spencer asked: "You have no regret, no remorse?"
"No regret, no remorse," Moussaoui replied.
When Moussaoui was led out of the court for a brief and closed legal argument, he shouted "Victory for Moussaoui! God curse you all!"
His testimony became an impassioned bout of Muslim antisemitism. He called the US "the head of the snake for me. If we want to destroy the Jewish state...we have to destroy you first."
After claiming that Islam demands that Muslims have to be the superpower, above the US, he was asked by Ferald Zerkin why he hated the US and the Americans.
Moussaoui replied: "For theological reasons and life experience reasons. You are on a crusade, like George W. Bush says. In Europe, they call New York 'little Israel'.......There is no difference between the Jewish state of Palestine (Israel) and Hawaii."
On being asked what his defense might be, Moussaoui claimed that if Americans fighting abroad were taken hostage, his freedom could be traded for theirs. "This could work on even the most revengeful juror," he said. "Let's put him in jail, and one day he can save American life."
He argued that martyrdom was a reward, and life imprisonment was a harsher punishment.
The prosecution wound up their case yesterday with harrowing accounts from relatives of those murdered on 9/11, with recordings from people about to die, made on their mobile phones, and the voice recordings from the last moments of Flight 93.
The graphic below shows the flight paths of the four hijacked planes on 9/11.
On April 3, Moussaoui had been found "eligible for death". He had confessed and been found guilty on April 22 last year on charges of conspiracy, connected with his involvement with the 9/11 attacks. His current trial, watched by relatives and surviving victims of 9/11 in videolinks played to six courthouses in America, was held to ascertain if Moussaoui should receive a life in prison or if he should be executed.
He had been arrested in Minnesota on August 16, 2001, a mere three weeks before the horrors of 9/11. He surprised the court on March 27 when he claimed he had known the attacks were going to happen, but deliberately lied to FBI investigators. He even said that while in prison, he had bought a radio, so that he could hear the live news reports of the atacks as they took place. This, and his confession that he had been scheduled to fly one of the 9/11 planes, before arrest had scuppered these plans, was probably the point over which the jury decided to find him "eligible" for the death penalty.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at April 13, 2006 9:30 PM
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