Word: moussaoui
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...months, Moussaoui had continued to file pleadings from his cell, but when he learned last April that the government, in a closed hearing, had presented a new theory of his role in 9/11--that he was meant to pilot a fifth plane into the White House in a separate attack--he called on Brinkema to send Ashcroft a multiple-choice question asking how he saw Moussaoui. "Death Judge you must force Ashcroft to tick the box," he scrawled. Each choice had a blank box next to it: "20th Hijacker," "5th Plane to Dark House," "I, Ashcroft don't know" and "Lets...
...Brinkema announced her sanctions against the government for defying her order to produce Moussaoui's witnesses, telling prosecutors that the death penalty was off limits and that they had to make their conspiracy case without reference to Sept. 11. Back in France, Moussaoui's elated mother said she had ceased to worry that "my son has one foot in this world and one foot in the death chamber." Brinkema, after evaluating the government's case and reviewing all the classified material, basically agreed with Moussaoui that he was only on the fringes of the 9/11 attacks. "It simply cannot...
...Brinkema had dismissed the case; they believed it would mean a cleaner and easier appeal. That's because, as public defender Dunham puts it, "it's a harder appeal for the government when it has lost the argument that we either have to compromise our national security or let Moussaoui go free. Instead, it's 'We either have to compromise our national security, or we can't kill him,'" which is exactly what government lawyers will have to argue now that Brinkema has taken away much of their case...
...Brinkema's order also has the effect of offering the government a conspiracy case that it can more easily win; it just has to delete any reference to 9/11. After all, Moussaoui has admitted to being an al-Qaeda member, even saying that he was planning an attack. "I was part of a different operation, with different al-Qaeda member and target," he wrote last January. Prosecutors can also place him at meetings with a number of al-Qaeda leaders. Moussaoui might even plead guilty to such a case and would be locked up for life...
...appellate judges uphold Brinkema's ruling, the government could end up with exactly what it does not want: a precedent requiring it to provide access to captured terrorists being held overseas. This would surely lead to a greater use of military tribunals or the designation of defendants like Moussaoui as "enemy combatants," a label the government has given three men being held without recourse to lawyers or judicial review. Whichever way the ruling goes, the case will surely go to the Supreme Court...