(Part of UPI's Special Report on Sept. 11)
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (UPI) -- When French citizen Zacarias Moussaoui, 33, was detained for questioning by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last August while attending flight school in Minnesota, it would have been the typical detention of a foreigner with a bad visa. But less than a month later, after some 3,000 Americans were killed in four terror attacks, Moussaoui found himself accused of being the "20th hijacker."
After a massive, yearlong Department of Justice investigation, Moussaoui remains the only person charged in the United States with direct involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.
According to the government's eventual indictment of Moussaoui on a series of conspiracy charges -- four of which carry the death penalty -- he would have participated in the Sept. 11 attacks had he not been detained. The indictment claims that Moussaoui had conspired with the hijackers because he trained at flight schools, bought knives, downloaded information about crop dusters, trained at an al Qaida camp in Afghanistan, received money through suspected al Qaida channels, and had the phone number of a previous roommate of one the hijackers.
But they have presented no evidence that Moussaoui ever met with or talked to any of the hijackers themselves.
Helping the government's case is that Moussaoui admitted in open court that he belonged to al Qaida, knew of the plot, and came to the United States to commit terrorist acts. But he also denies direct involvement in the Sept. 11 plot and no evidence yet presented by the government seems to establish a direct connection between Moussaoui and the 19 hijackers.
Unless the government presents classified evidence that links Moussaoui to the al Qaida cells here in the United States, it could have trouble supporting the indictment. Nonetheless their case is strengthened not just by Moussaoui's admissions, but by his insistence on representing himself and by his erratic courtroom behavior, including his public proclamation that he works for Osama bin Laden.
Although previous attempts to arraign Moussaoui had led to interesting outbursts and the dismissal by the defendant of his court-appointed attorneys, his re-arraignment on July 18 was when he apparently decided to pursue a defense that he had plotted an attack on the United States, but not the hijackings on Sept. 11.
"The jury will be inflamed by the serious nature of Sept. 11," he added. "In the interest of saving my life, I want to enter a guilty plea. I am a member of al Qaida and I pledged bayat to Osama bin Laden." A bayat is a medieval Arabic oath of fidelity.
"You know that there is a guilt phase and a penalty phase," Moussaoui said, explaining his logic to a visibly baffled courtroom of observers. "For the guilt phase: I am guilty. For the penalty phase: Who knows?"
But Judge Leonie Brinkema, who has been a frequent target of Moussaoui's outrage despite her patience with his courtroom antics and bombastic motions, rejected the plea, asking him to wait a week to decide. She also explained that these and any other statements made in court were part of the trial record and could be used by prosecutors.
A week later, after again attempting to plead guilty, Moussaoui showed some mental agility when he realized that because of mandatory minimums on the conspiracy charges, he would face life in prison even if he could convince a jury to spare his life.
"Today I had asked to plead guilty," he began. "How does the question go? To be or not to be? Guilty or not guilty, that is the question. I cannot endorse any action that would lead to suicide.... My point was to put before the American people what I did and what I knew about... I have withdrawn my guilty plea."
At an earlier hearing, Moussaoui had decided to act as his own attorney because of his combative relationship with a series of court-appointed lawyers, who he playfully refers to as his "court-appointed death lawyers," or the more succinct "bloodsuckers."
Led by federal public defenders Frank Dunham and Gerald Zirkin, or as Moussaoui likes to call him, "the Jew Zirkin," the defense team has been relegated to standby counsel status by Brinkema. But Moussaoui refuses virtually all contact with them about his case, apparently convinced that, because they are paid by the government, they are conspiring to get him executed.
Nonetheless, on July 25, after deciding to go ahead with his defense, Moussaoui said that he would work with the "death lawyers" in order to prepare for trial and so that he could prove they are working with the FBI, Brinkema, and prosecutors to convict and execute him.
He also is furious that the standby team has petitioned to have him removed as counsel due to mental incompetence, a charge that particularly infuriates Moussaoui.
"I still have to fight (the standby lawyers') attempt to remove me from this case," Moussaoui told the court. "I'm going to assign them to find different witnesses. This will expose them as my enemy."
Brinkema then said that she rejected the call to remove Moussaoui based on his performance in court July 25, where he clearly understood the repercussions of his actions and changed tactics to adjust for them, and because he had stopped filing repetitive motions as asked by the court.
"His pleadings are somewhat confrontational and somewhat unusual, but they do not give the court any basis to assume that the defendant is not competent," she said.
Moussaoui had previously become furious when Dunham had asked him to meet with a psychologist to evaluate his mental state. Moussaoui pointed out that any doctor that engaged in Freudian analysis -- with its Oedipal theories -- was himself sick and should not meet with a devout Muslim like himself.
Moussaoui's theory of the case -- as it seems from the dozens of motions he has filed -- appears to be that the FBI had the 19 hijackers and himself under surveillance prior to the attacks, and only arrested Moussaoui when they realized he was not involved in those attacks. This has led to his repeated motions that the FBI prove that he was not being tailed by agents, a charge the government denies.
But for his candor about being part of al Qaida and having plotted to kill Americans, he continues to deny involvement in Sept. 11, when he was already in custody.
Because the Justice Department continues to insist on trying him as a co-conspirator in those attacks, it seems a diligent defense attorney might have a chance to win an acquittal. But despite his flair for courtroom theatre, Moussaoui's previous statements about allegiance to Osama bin Laden raises the bar for him as an attorney trying to convince a jury selected from a population that lives within miles of the Pentagon that he should be spared.
