Moussaoui gets life, talks shit
rootlesscosmo
12,848 Posts
Anyone know anything about his bizarre claim that Bush will release him? One Last Appearance, and Outburst, From Moussaoui [/b] By NEIL A. LEWISPublished: May 5, 2006ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 4 ??? Judge Leonie M. Brinkema sentenced Zacarias Moussaoui to prison for the rest of his life on Thursday, saying he would be denied his wish to die in a blaze of glory and instead would "die with a whimper."The courtroom, held under a tight rein during the two-month trial, became a stage for an unexpected outpouring of emotion Thursday as Mr. Moussaoui exchanged barbs with the judge, and family members who lost loved ones excoriated him to his face. Mr. Moussaoui, in his last chance to be heard in public, delivered a political speech about his hate for America, concluding: "God curse America and save Osama bin Laden. You'll never get him."Judge Brinkema was clearly angered that when the jury spared Mr. Moussaoui's life on Wednesday, he exulted, "America, you lost," and said he had won."Well, Mr. Moussaoui, if you look around this courtroom today, every person in this room when this proceeding is over will leave this courtroom, and they are free to go anyplace they want," she said. "They can go outside, they can feel the sun, they smell fresh air."But she said that when he walked out of the courtroom: "You will spend the rest of your life in a super-maximum security facility. In terms of winners and losers, it's quite clear who won and who lost."Mr. Moussaoui shot back, "That was my choice." "It was hardly your choice," Judge Brinkema retorted.Judge Brinkema, who had been scrupulous about maintaining a neutral stance during the trial, concluded by saying, "As for you, Mr. Moussaoui, you came here to be a martyr and to die in a great big bang of glory, but to paraphrase the poet T. S. Eliot, instead you will die with a whimper."Mr. Moussaoui tried to interject again, and Judge Brinkema spoke over him, saying, "You will never again get a chance to speak, and that is an appropriate and fair ending."Because Judge Brinkema was required to sentence Mr. Moussaoui to life in prison after the jury's decision on Wednesday, there was little suspense, but an abundance of drama. It began when Judge Brinkema asked whether there were any family members of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the audience who wanted to be heard. No one responded initially. As the judge prepared to move on, Rosemary Dillard, whose husband died on American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon, rose from the audience.Walking to a lectern a few feet from Mr. Moussaoui, Mrs. Dillard looked at him and said: "I want you, Mr. Moussaoui, to know how you wrecked my life. You wrecked my career. You took the most important person in my life from me."As Mr. Moussaoui stared back impassively, she continued, "I hope that you sit in that jail without seeing the sky, without seeing the sun, without any contact with the world and that your name never comes up in any newspaper again during the rest of my life."She then thanked the judge for "what you did," thanked the prosecutors "for what you tried to do," and the court-appointed defense lawyers for "what you had to do."She was followed to the lectern by Abraham Scott, who lost his wife at the Pentagon on Sept. 11. Mr. Scott told Mr. Moussaoui that "you and all the rest of your colleagues will not deter this country from continuing to enjoy the freedom that it has for the past 200 years." He added that he was confident Mr. bin Laden would eventually be captured and face justice.Finally, Lisa Dolan told the court that her husband, a naval officer who died at the Pentagon, had served his country to ensure that it maintained the freedom to conduct fair and open trials like the one just concluded. "There is still one final judgment day," Ms. Dolan concluded, staring at Mr. Moussaoui.Mr. Moussaoui then took the witness stand after Judge Brinkema invited him to speak before he was sentenced. He said he wanted to respond to the family members who had just spoken."The first one say that I destroy her life and she lost her husband," said Mr. Moussaoui, whose native language is French. "Maybe one day she can think how many people the C.I.A. have destroyed their life."He said Americans had "an amount of hypocrisy which is beyond any belief," adding, "Your humanity is a very selected humanity ??? only you suffer, only you feel."When Robert A. Spencer, the chief prosecutor, objected that it was inappropriate for Mr. Moussaoui to make a political speech, Judge Brinkema agreed.Mr. Moussaoui continued, nonetheless, saying, "You have branded me a terrorist or criminal." In fact, he said, he was a soldier in the Islamic cause, and "I fight for my belief."He said Americans had forfeited an opportunity to use the trial to discover why people like himself and Mohamed Atta, the pilot of one of the hijacked planes of Sept. 11, "have so much hatred for you." Mr. Moussaoui, who was arrested on immigration charges three weeks before Sept. 11, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy in the attacks.As he left the courtroom, Mr. Moussaoui repeated his earlier claim that he would be released by President Bush before he left the White House. 
"In your dreams!" Lisa Beilke shouted from the spectator section. Mrs. Beilke's husband died in the Pentagon.Officials said Mr. Moussaoui would soon be transferred to the federal prison in Florence, Colo., used to house the inmates requiring the greatest security. A prison expert testifying for the defense during the trial said that at the prison Mr. Moussaoui would have no contact with others and would be spoken to only sporadically by guards, probably causing him to deteriorate quickly.
"In your dreams!" Lisa Beilke shouted from the spectator section. Mrs. Beilke's husband died in the Pentagon.Officials said Mr. Moussaoui would soon be transferred to the federal prison in Florence, Colo., used to house the inmates requiring the greatest security. A prison expert testifying for the defense during the trial said that at the prison Mr. Moussaoui would have no contact with others and would be spoken to only sporadically by guards, probably causing him to deteriorate quickly.
Comments
Wouldn't this be worse than execution? Like absolutely mind numbingly painful?
And isn't the convoluted process of organising an execution far more expensive then keeping a prisoner in gaol for life?
yes and yes, which is probably why they did it.
I kept thinking about that movie Sleepers, where the prosecution took the case to lose. Who knows what really happened here.
I would have been curious to see what would have happened if he did get the death penalty. France was talking about extraditing him if that was the outcome.
I believe he got his just deserts.
no believe me they tried HARD to secure the death penalty.
but the jury was allowed to vote on a list of several mitigating factors and ultimately there were enough jurors who voted for enough mitigating factors so as to deny the prosecution the death penalty.
my problem with the whole sentence deliberations: three of the jurors voted to mitigate on the basis of their belief that Moussaoui was not even involved in 9/11.
Not everything that expert witnesses say is true.
true. this appears to be a quote from the trial (i.e. before he had been convicted and before they had to determine sentencing) by an expert paid by the defense to describe how bad prison would be if they convicted this guy.
Right. And to clarify: what I should have said is that not everything that every expert witness says is true. Some of them are people of real integrity, but there are others that for $500 an hour will act as the virtual puppet of whoever retains them.
Moussaoui = lame duck poster child
And here is where he'll spend the rest of his life in quiet contemplation.
Mouhammed was also tortured by his American detainers. At the minimum they waterboarded him where they tied him up to a board and dunked him in water to make him feel like he was drowning and then would pull him up for a quick breath and then dunk him again. This has been reported several times in the mainstream media. That would make it difficult to use some testimony against him because they could say that it was forced from him and other al-Qaeda captives that went through similar procedures.
I don't think the Bush administration has any real thoughts about putting any of the serious Al-Qaeda members on trial. They'll put these little dudes like Moussaoui and the American Taliban on trial as a little show, but most of their cases have actually gone pretty badly such as the two Pakistanis that just finished trials here in CA. Their star informer claimed that they worked for Al Qaeda, but it turned out the son went to some Islamist training camp in Pakistan and the dad knew about it and lied to the FBI about it. The kid got prison, but the dad got off. Other cases have also turned out to be duds where they have had to drop most of the charges against the defendants because of lack of evidence and gotten them busted on lesser charges.
I've read that after 9/11 the Bush administration just wanted to round up anyone they could find, send them to Guantanomo and just let them rot. It was only beacuse of public and legal pressure that they started talking about any kind of trials and tribunals and all of that has gone no where. It will probably be up the next administration to decide what to do with all of them.
As far as Moussaoui and 9/11 I'm not sure he was really involved. He and the government claimed that he was a missing hijacker. He said that he was going to fly a plane into the capitol or the White House, but there's a lot of evidence to contradict that claim. For example, he said the shoe bomber guy was suppose to be his co-hijacker, which I think is alittle wild. He definitely wanted to carry out terrorist acts in the U.S. and was taking flying lessons, but I don't think it was part of 9/11.
there was a really good docu-film out recently (in the UK at least) called Road to Guantanamo which covers these issues. If you can find it somewhere it's worth a watch.
not to be hateing, but I think dude actually has a few valid points. It does seem to me that a lot of the problems need to be solved by looking for the root cause, not taking military action on suspect evidence that may only inflame the situation...
to be honest I'm glad that he was given a prison sentance rather than death. Spending the rest of your life in confinement must be worse, besides I don't think capital punishment can ever be justified.
[/serious brain hat on]
He shoulda held up a sign like "AL Queda > America" or something too.
BUSH BLEW UP THE TOWERS!!!
Only a 13" television??? YOU MONSTERS!
BAM
Dude was a threat to America, he may have been a kook but that doesn't lessen his ability to hurt, kill, or destroy
and now we got people spouting off that Bush knocked over the towers.
Give me a fucking break
It's moronic statements like this and the morons that make them that will insure Republicans victories for years to come whether they deserve to win or not.
I thought it was understood that when you say bush you also are inferring his masters the lizard people as well.
My bad
Your sarcasm meter must not be working.
hell no. no sympathy here. never that.
I am against the death penalty but that's another matter.
I was merely pointing out the strange procedural twist that allowed his innocence of the charges to be used as a mitigating factor in his sentencing after he had already been convicted. Wierd shit.
but yeah I am pretty much against everything this guy stands for. His swipe at the CIA was pretty savvy; after all this is a charge that even I have to agree with on some level. The CIA is responsible for all sorts of fucked up shit over the years.
But the truth is dude didn't say what he really feels, which is that he's a committed Islamist, hates the US because we are infidels (not because of the CIA), would like to see Islam dominate the world, worked actively to bring about the destruction of the US, kills innocent people, etc. etc. etc.
That's why I have no sympathy. He had a point about the CIA though.
And as to the issue of using domestic criminal courts to try terrorists vs. special military tribunals, that's a whole 'nother debate. To the extent that we can use the courts effectively to prosecute these guys, by all means we should. I think taking these crimes out of the realm of domestic law could come back to bite us in the ass later.
I almost passed out in the steam room yesterday. I had to crawl out of there with lots of most middle aged guys wondering what the hell was wrong with me.
I feel discombobulated
Naw....that's just "cruel". If it was 13" and B&W it would be both "cruel and unusual" and cause real problems...
If it was 13", B&W, and had one of those old knob switches on it with no remote control, THAT would be "cruel and unusual," especially because if he turned channels enough he would break off the knob and would then be stuck on one channel without a pair of pliars, which of course would be denied to him as a potential weapon!
Excellent point!