Word: moussaoui
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...failure to find and punish Osama Bin Laden leaves a hole in our sense of justice. From the day they indicted Zacarias Moussaoui, the only al-Qaeda conspirator to be tried in the U.S. , prosecutors were determined to start patching that hole with a conviction, and a death sentence. He signed his guilty plea "the 20th hijacker," suggesting that he was meant to be onboard Flight 93, the plane with only four terrorists, which crashed into a Pennsylvania field. Having been ruled eligible for the death penalty, Moussaoui now begins his sentencing phase, which invites us once again...
...prepared to put memory and mourning on the witness stand, Moussaoui prosecutor Rob Spencer told the jurors: "You cannot understand the magnitude of that day unless you hear it from the victims themselves." On Thursday the jurors heard the heartbreaking calls to emergency operators from people trapped in the burning towers; watched a videotape of the carnage; heard Rudy Giuliani talk about seeing victims jump from the 101st floor rather than face the flames. The New York City mayor said the image of two people jumping together, appearing to hold hands, remains with him, every day. Prosecutors planned to play...
...remorseless testimony, Moussaoui presented himself as a hideous and dangerous character, eager to kill, indifferent to the sorrow his co-conspirators had unleashed. But let reason and logic now interrupt us. He also appeared sufficiently crazy that, apart from an insanity exemption, you can easily conclude that he was an extra in the plot, a B player who was not smart or steady enough to have been trusted with a central role. The government argued that Moussaoui had information that could have prevented the attacks if he had told interrogators the truth; he has since admitted that he wanted...
...That Moussaoui would have been delighted to kill 3,000 innocent people does not mean that he should be treated as though he succeeded. He was already sitting in a Minnesota jail on Sept. 11, for immigration violations. The 19 actual hijackers died with their victims. Some architects of the attack, like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, have been captured; others, like Osama, have not. But Moussaoui is the only one to come to trial, to smirk and yawn and taunt and defy those who confront him. It may be satisfying to make him a surrogate for the smarter, more elusive enemies...
...honor the memory of those lost in this battle. One victim?s mother said she hoped he would not get the death penalty, to "demonstrate that we are a nation of mercy." And for those still looking for vengeance as well as justice, it is worth asking: If Moussaoui dreamed of martyrdom in a suicide attack, isn?t death at the hand of the U.S. government giving him, and all who would follow his footsteps, exactly what they want...