Moussaoui sentenced to life in prison

[dude1394]

Moussaoui sentenced to life in prison

03:42 PM CDT on Wednesday, May 3, 2006

Associated Press

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A federal jury rejected the death penalty for al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui on Wednesday and decided he must spend life n prison for his role in the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history.

He's going to wish he were in Guantanamo.

[Drbio]

What a shame. Although death is what he preferred I am sure so he could obtain martyr status, I was more than willing to accomodate him. Interestingly enough, this provides a real world example that could relate to some of dalm's questions in the ethics thread. I'm still pondering a response there.

[dalmations202]

Hope they send him to Fort Leavenworth.

[Wiley_e]

I think it was a wise decision by the jury.
There now is hardly a way this can be used in any kind of agitation by extremists in the future. It takes the wind out of the topic and puts the man where he belongs - under tight control without the possibility of further publicity.
Death penalty would have served all the terrorists purpose best. This is one of the better days for the world's case against extremism.

[MavKikiNYC]

I sure hope he can be rehabilitated and returned to a productive role in society.

[FishForLunch]

When will liberals get his face on T-Shirts?

Free Moussaoui

[Mavdog]

did you read he had dreams that he would be sent to paris on a 747 jet?

I doubt he will even be able to see a jet in the sky. this guy is going into a hole, sort of a black hole. he will never have his voice or face seen again save for the guards who watch him.

it's not quite death, some might say it's worse. I hope they're right.

[Drbio]

Here's hoping that some huge man with braided back hair makes moussaoui his bitch.

[Mavdog]

moussaoui says "can I have a do-over?"
judge says "get outta here..."
off to your cell you go.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Moussaoui Has New View of Justice System
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer

Stunned that he was sentenced to life in prison rather than execution, Zacarias Moussaoui now believes he could get a fair trial from an American jury. Too late, the judge says.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema quickly rejected a motion the confessed al-Qaida conspirator filed Monday to withdraw his guilty plea and get a new trial.

In his motion, Moussaoui said he lied on the witness stand March 27 when he reversed four years of denials and claimed he was to have hijacked a fifth jetliner on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed it into the White House, "even though I knew that was a complete fabrication."

The 37-year-old Frenchman blamed his behavior on the effects of solitary confinement, his inability to get a Muslim lawyer and his misunderstanding of the U.S. justice system.

Moussaoui said he was "extremely surprised" by his life sentence by a federal court jury last week.

"I had thought I would be sentenced to death based on the emotions and anger toward me for the deaths on Sept. 11," he explained in an affidavit. "But after reviewing the jury verdict and reading how the jurors set aside their emotions and disgust for me and focused on the law and the evidence ... I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial even with Americans as jurors."

After seven days of deliberation, the jury of nine men and three women on Wednesday rebuffed the government's appeal for the death penalty for Moussaoui, the only person charged in this country in the 9/11 suicide hijackings of four commercial jetliners that killed nearly 3,000 people.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema gave Moussaoui six life sentences, to run as two consecutive life terms in the federal supermax prison at Florence, Colo.

At sentencing, Brinkema told him he could not appeal the conviction he got when he pleaded guilty in April 2005. "You waived that right," she said. She said Moussaoui could appeal the life term but "I believe it would be an act of futility."

On Monday, Brinkema said federal rules prohibit withdrawing a guilty plea after sentencing so his request must be rejected.

In filing Moussaoui's motion, his court-appointed lawyers told the court they knew that rule would doom the effort but filed it anyway because of their "problematic relationship with Moussaoui" and because new lawyers have yet to be appointed to replace them.

Brinkema had told the defense team, with whom Moussaoui never cooperated, that they finally could leave the case after filing any motions Moussaoui wanted.

Explaining his twists and turns, Moussaoui wrote in the affidavit, "Solitary confinement made me hostile toward everyone, and I began taking extreme positions to fight the system."

Moussaoui said that, coupled with his inability to get a Muslim lawyer, led him to distrust his lawyers when they told him he could be convicted of being an al-Qaida member but acquitted of involvement in 9/11.

The motion said Moussaoui told his lawyers he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea because when he entered it his "understanding of the American legal system was completely flawed."

Moussaoui wrote that he pleaded guilty because he mistakenly thought the Supreme Court would immediately review his objection to being denied the opportunity to call captured enemy combatant witnesses to buttress his claim of not being involved in the 9/11 plot.

An appeals court agreed with the government that national security would be at risk if captured operatives like 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed testified or were even questioned by Moussaoui's lawyers. Instead, statements taken from their interrogations were read to the jury.

Mohammed's statements said Moussaoui was never considered for the 9/11 plot, only a later attack.

Moussaoui's shocking testimony that he was to crash a 747 jetliner into the White House on 9/11 revived the government's flagging case in the first part of the sentencing trial. Previously, he had claimed he had nothing to do with 9/11, but rather was to fly the 747 into the White House later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik serving life for terrorist acts.

On April 3, the jury found Moussaoui eligible for the death penalty. It apparently accepted prosecutors' arguments that by withholding information from federal agents who arrested him on Aug. 16, 2001, he bore responsibility for at least one death on 9/11 by preventing the agents from identifying and stopping some hijackers.

Nevertheless, the same jury was unable to unanimously find that Moussaoui, who was in jail on 9/11, deserved execution. Three jurors wrote on the verdict form that they doubted he knew much about the 9/11 plot.

Moussaoui's lawyers made clear to the jury they thought he was lying to achieve martyrdom through execution. Prosecutors even stipulated the government doubted his claim that shoe-bomber Richard Reid was to be part of his hijack team on 9/11.

[sixeightmkw]

we'll let the inmates deal with the death part.

[TripleDipping]

Now he knows who won and who lost.

Just stuff him in a tiny hole and bury him there.

[dude1394]

Right out of the terrorist handbook. Next he'll claim abuse like they did in guantanomo.

[Arne]

Originally Posted by Drbio

Here's hoping that some huge man with braided back hair makes moussaoui his bitch.

Haha, my feelings exactly...

Seriously, that was the best punishment one could give him.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Arne

Haha, my feelings exactly...

Seriously, that was the best punishment one could give him.

Not me, I'd much rather see him dead and laid out like huday, quasay. I don't see a lot of matyr crapola for them.

[mcsluggo]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Right out of the terrorist handbook. Next he'll claim abuse like they did in guantanomo.

Fortunately the fed pens inside the US have enough transparency to prove or disprove any claims like that. It is just a shame that the admin can't seem to figure out that transparency is a shield FROM the opposition, not a weapon FOR the opposition.

[dalmations202]

Moussaoui just needs a room with "Bubba" in General Population. I'll bet it would do wonders for him..............

I would rather they sent him to Levenworth, and he got to know the rockpile.

[EricaLubarsky]

I wonder if Moussaoui wanted more attention when he asked for another trial or if it just dawned on him after the trial that he was going to face years upon years in a tiny cell with absolutely no attention. Maybe he's really starting to understand the situation he's in

anyway, Moussaoui is in for the biggest punishment-- life in prison. As I said before, its easy for someone to be brainwashed into thinking that death isnt a big deal. They get prepared, and they die within a split second without realizing what life is all about. Spending his life in prison, Moussaoui will be forced to live, and to face a situation which he cannot deny. He'll get hit in the ass every day with a reminder of what its like to live life in pain like the survivors of terrorism have to.

Anyway, sometimes I watch pulp TV and on MSNBC or National Geographic they have shows about prison gangs. My real concern is that there are black gangs, latin gangs and white gangs and Moussaui will be killed in prison quickly.

[FishForLunch]

I thought he was supposed to be in Solitary confinemnet 23 hours a day and he excersices alone. He will have no contact with anybody except the guards. Lonely Lonely life, his television should be tuned to "The 700 Club" 24x7 to drive him mad

[EricaLubarsky]

Originally Posted by FishForLunch

I thought he was supposed to be in Solitary confinemnet 23 hours a day and he excersices alone. He will have no contact with anybody except the guards. Lonely Lonely life, his television should be tuned to "The 700 Club" 24x7 to drive him mad

hilarious.

I would have also chuckled at DVDs of Temptation Island, or any FOX reality show.

[MavKikiNYC]

Tammy Faye pinups.

[dalmations202]

Originally Posted by MavKikiNYC

Tammy Faye pinups.

I was onboard until this one. You know there are rules in this country against cruel and unusual punishment.

[MavKikiNYC]

Single Juror Reportedly Spared Moussaoui

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 12, 2006
Filed at 6:54 a.m. ET
Skip to next paragraph CNN/Getty Images
Zacarias Moussaoui in a photograph released in 2002.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A single holdout kept the jury from handing a death sentence to Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in this country in the 9/11 attacks.
But that juror never explained his vote, said the foreman of the jury that sentenced the confessed al-Qaida conspirator to life in prison last week.

The foreman, a math teacher in Northern Virginia, told The Washington Post that jurors voted three times -- 11-1, 10-2 and 10-2 -- in favor of the death penalty on the three terrorism charges that each qualified Moussaoui for execution.

On April 26, the third day of deliberations, the jury's frustrations reached a critical point because of several 11-1 votes on one charge. But no one could figure out who was casting the dissenting vote, the foreman said, because that person didn't identify himself during any discussion -- and each of the votes were done using anonymous ballots.

''But there was no yelling,'' she said in an interview for the Post's Friday editions. ''It was as if a heavy cloud of doom had fallen over the deliberation room, and many of us realized that all our beliefs and our conclusions were being vetoed by one person. ... We tried to discuss the pros and cons. But I would have to say that most of the arguments we heard around the deliberation table were'' in favor of the death penalty.

The foreman, who was not identified by the Post, said she voted for the death penalty because she believed the government proved its case. She was the second juror to be interviewed by the Post since the trial ended. The first juror said he voted for life in prison because he thought that Moussaoui, 37, had only a marginal role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema had ordered the identities of the jurors withheld for security reasons. The Post said the foreman contacted the newspaper and was interviewed on the condition of anonymity by a reporter who recognized her from the trial.

After the jury of nine men and three women rejected the government's appeal for the death penalty for Moussaoui, Brinkema gave him six life sentences, to run as two consecutive life terms in the federal supermax prison at Florence, Colo.

[Arne]

One person made Moussaoui's life a living hell. Great!

When Moussaoui dies in jail, there's either hell facing him after death or like Camus would think: nonentity.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by EricaLubarsky

I wonder if Moussaoui wanted more attention when he asked for another trial or if it just dawned on him after the trial that he was going to face years upon years in a tiny cell with absolutely no attention. Maybe he's really starting to understand the situation he's in

anyway, Moussaoui is in for the biggest punishment-- life in prison. As I said before, its easy for someone to be brainwashed into thinking that death isnt a big deal. They get prepared, and they die within a split second without realizing what life is all about. Spending his life in prison, Moussaoui will be forced to live, and to face a situation which he cannot deny. He'll get hit in the ass every day with a reminder of what its like to live life in pain like the survivors of terrorism have to.

Anyway, sometimes I watch pulp TV and on MSNBC or National Geographic they have shows about prison gangs. My real concern is that there are black gangs, latin gangs and white gangs and Moussaui will be killed in prison quickly.

I think you discount how easy it is to walk into the death chamber. Doing something in the heat of the moment is one thing, walking into it is another.

With respect to jail-gang violence I am adamantly opposed to it. I think to be honest it's atrocious. I also feel that in some respect the anti-death-penalty crowd knows it's atrocious and sort of continues to take a blind eye to it so they can get their feelings of letting some monster off the hook of the death penalty by not making more of an outrage about it.

I'd much rather kill the monsters and crack down really heavily on violence in prison, I think it's a much,much more abhorrent practice than a merciful death is.

As far as moussaui, I do hope someone kills the sob quickly so that he either doesn't kill someone else or convert some idiot to his brand of radicalism. The jails are quite a fervent breeding ground for the desperate.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by FishForLunch

I thought he was supposed to be in Solitary confinemnet 23 hours a day and he excersices alone. He will have no contact with anybody except the guards. Lonely Lonely life, his television should be tuned to "The 700 Club" 24x7 to drive him mad

Great a personal cell. What a waste of oxygen.

[dude1394]

When/if Moussaoui commits some other outrage against someone, I hope this juror gets to know about it.

Wimp.