Not Guilty Plea Is Set for Man in Terror Case
January 3, 2002
The New York Times
THE LEGAL CASE
By DAVID JOHNSTON
ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 2 -
Invoking the name of Allah,
Zacarias Moussaoui refused to enter a
plea today to a six-count criminal
indictment that accused him of a role
in the Sept. 11 terrorist plot. His
lawyer and the judge in the case then
entered a plea of not guilty for him.
At a half-hour hearing conducted
under heavy security at the federal
courthouse here, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of Federal District Court scheduled
Oct. 14 to start the trial for Mr. Moussaoui, the first person directly charged in the
hijackings. The authorities say they believe that he was meant to be the 20th
hijacker.
Under the schedule, jury selection will begin on Sept. 30, a few weeks after the
first anniversary of the hijackings. Judge Brinkema rejected arguments by Mr.
Moussaoui's court-appointed lawyers that prospective jurors would be influenced
by the expected extensive publicity shortly before the trial. The lawyers had sought
to have the trial postponed until next year.
At the hearing, Mr. Moussaoui, 33, a French citizen of Moroccan descent,
addressed the court once, when asked to enter his plea.
"In the name of Allah, I do not have anything to plead," he said in heavily accented
English. "I enter no plea. Thank you very much."
Judge Brinkema replied, "I will interpret that as a plea of
not guilty."
In response, Mr. Moussaoui's lead lawyer, Frank W.
Dunham Jr., said, "Yes."
The judge scheduled a series of potentially crucial pretrial
hearings in what is highly likely to be a complex case.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers are widely expected to
clash over the government's use of classified information
in the trial and the prosecutors' expected effort to seek the
death penalty.
Defense lawyers may seek to move the trial from this city a
few miles from where one airliner smashed into the
Pentagon.
From the wide-ranging scope of the arguments today, it
seems evident that the trial will provide the government
with its best opportunity so far to lay out its evidence
against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks and to
present its full case against Osama bin Laden and his
Qaeda terrorists.
The possibility of a death sentence has turned the case
into a greater spectacle, particularly in France, where
strong sentiment against using the death penalty against
Mr. Moussaoui has brought harsh criticism of the
prosecution. Senior Bush administration officials have
privately said they were careful to obtain necessary
evidence from abroad before indicting Mr. Moussaoui,
predicting that other governments might not have
cooperated as fully had they known that the United States
might seek a death sentence.
A federal grand jury indicted Mr. Moussaoui on Dec. 11 on
six counts of conspiracy, four of which carry a possible
death penalty. The indictment accuses him of conspiring
with Mr. bin Laden and Al Qaeda to kill thousands of
people on Sept. 11. Judge Brinkema set March 29 as the
deadline for prosecutors to decide on seeking the death
penalty.
The indictment said Mr. Moussaoui had engaged in some
of the same activities as the 19 hijackers. It said he had
visited a Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, enrolled in
flight training, asked about crop dusting and bought
knives.
The indictment said Mr. Moussaoui had received
payments from a man in Germany, Ramzi Muhammad
Abdullah bin al-Shibh, who officials theorize was a
paymaster for at least one hijacker and shared an
apartment with Mohamed Atta, who the authorities say
was the ringleader of the plot.
After speaking today, Mr. Moussaoui, who wore a dark-green jump suit with
"PRISONER" across the back, slumped in his chair at the defense table. He said
nothing to his lawyers and stared ahead impassively as his lawyers and prosecutors
wrangled over hearing dates. Mr. Dunham said Mr. Moussaoui could speak English
and did not need an interpreter.
Judge Brinkema swept aside a defense request to postpone the trial until next
year, dismissing defense contentions that the complex international nature of the
case, publicity and complex classified evidence would require additional time.
Another lawyer for Mr. Moussaoui, Gerald Zerkin, urged the judge to postpone the
trial.
"The defense feels it cannot prepare its case for trial in the time proposed by the
United States," Mr. Zerkin said. "The need to be further away from Sept. 11 is
obvious."
A federal prosecutor, Robert Spencer, said that the trial date was reasonable and
that publicity about the hijackings was "going to have to be dealt with by the court
no matter when" the trial was held.
Federal marshals ringed the building before the hearing. Mr. Moussaoui was taken
to the courthouse four hours before the arraignment, and spectators passed
through metal detectors before entering the courtroom.
After the hearing, François Roux, a lawyer for Mr. Moussaoui's mother, Aïcha
el-Wafi, told reporters outside the courthouse that Mrs. el-Wafi had decided not to
attend because she thought that it would be too upsetting.
"She decided it would be too difficult for her to see her son at the hearing," Mr.
Roux said. "She was very upset, and she thinks if she came this morning she
would have disturbed her son at this important judicial moment."
Mrs. el-Wafi, who has insisted that her son did nothing wrong, was generally
expected to return to France soon.
United States officials have said Mr. Moussaoui may have been preparing to join a
hijacking team. The plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field had four hijackers;
the other three aircraft had five each.
Mr. Moussaoui was arrested on Aug. 16 in Minnesota on immigration violations
after he had aroused suspicion by trying to buy time at a flight school on a flight
simulator for a jumbo jet.
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