TIME.com:
TIME Magazine
~
How the MoussaouiCase Crumbled
Page 1
of5
TIME
FROM
THE
MAGAZINE
Sunday,
Oct.
19,2003
How
the
Moussaoui Case Crumbled
TIME in
depth:
A trial once described as a siam dunk is caught
in
a
post—9/11
legal
wrangle
By
VIVEGA
NOVAK
I
WASHINGTON
U.S.
authorities easily nabbed
Zacarias
Moussaoui
in the
weeks before9/11,
but
prosecuting
the
alleged terrorist
has
been
far
from
smooth. Here
are
the twists and turns in a case many thought would be open-and-shut:When Zacarias Moussaoui was enrolled in
flight
school in Eagan, Minn.,he could have easily looked up in the sky to see the kind of airplane he
wanted
tofly. Alongtheapproachto theMinneapolis-St. Paul airport, 747sscreamed overhead
day and
night.
His flight
instructor
at Pan Am
International Flight Academy
found
Moussaoui genial
but
clueless
and
totally unable to explain why he wanted to pilot a 747. The school'sadministration called
the
fbi,
and he was
arrested nearby
on
Aug. 16, 2001.
When
investigators interviewed
the
3
3-year-old French Moroccan
and
askedhimwhetherheplannedto use aplanefor aterrorist attack,heeither
did
not
answer
or
asked
for a
lawyer, according
to
different
sources
familiarwith
the
session.
He was
then held
for
overstaying
his
visit
to the
U.S.
Less
than
a
month
after
he was
locked
up,
19
al-Qaeda operatives boarded
four
commercial jetliners and turned them into aerial bombs, killing morethan
3,000 people
in the
worst terrorist
attacks
ever
on
U.S.
soil.
Within
days,
investigators began piecing together intriguing parallels betweenMoussaoui's actions and those of the hijackers. He had come to the U.S. to
attend
flight school, just like the hijackers; he too had purchased knives; he
too
possessedflightmanualsforcommercial jets. Three monthsto the day
after
the attacks, Attorney General John
Ashcroft
proudly announced ashowstopping list of conspiracy charges against Moussaoui—who thegovernment
strongly
hinted
was the missing
20th
hijacker—calling the
indictment "a chronicle of evil." He
was—and
remains—the only person in
the
U.S. charged
in
connection with 9/11.
Nearly
two years later, the government's case, which had been billed as a
slam
dunk, is a shambles. On Oct. 2, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema
said
prosecutors could
not
seek
the
death penalty
for
Moussaoui
and
couldnot
even
allege
that
he had a
link
to the 9/11
conspiracy.
She put
those
shackles on the government's case because it had denied the defendant, onhttp://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,524419,00.html
10/26/03
Leave a Comment