Federal Jury Gives Moussaoui Life in Prison Without Parole

A fed­er­al jury vot­ed today that Zacarias Moussaoui should serve a sen­tence of life in prison with­out parole despite the gov­ern­men­t’s asser­tion that his lies to FBI offi­cials con­tributed to the ter­ror­ist attacks of September 11, 2001. Earlier the jury had found that Moussaoui was respon­si­ble for some of the deaths that took place on September 11, and that he was eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. After weeks of tes­ti­mo­ny dur­ing the sen­tenc­ing phase of the tri­al, the jury took 7 days to rec­om­mend a sen­tence of life with­out parole. In their ver­dict, the jury unan­i­mous­ly agreed that Moussaoui ​“know­ing­ly cre­at­ed a grave risk of death” for more than the intend­ed vic­tims of September 11^th, and that he com­mit­ted his acts with ​“sub­stan­tial plan­ning,” two of the aggra­vat­ing fac­tors list­ed in the death penal­ty statute.

Moussaoui’s defense team, with whom he did not coop­er­ate, argued that he is a delu­sion­al schiz­o­phrenic. They main­tained that Moussaoui took the wit­ness stand to con­fess his role in the September 11 attacks because he want­ed to achieve mar­tyr­dom through exe­cu­tion. During the sen­tenc­ing phase, jurors heard tes­ti­mo­ny from vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers, some of whom sup­port­ed and some who opposed the death penal­ty for Moussaoui, from men­tal health experts, and oth­ers who were direct­ly impact­ed by the events of 9/​11.

Following the ver­dict, Terry Rockefeller, whose sis­ter was killed in the World Trade Center attacks, not­ed, ​“Had the jury sen­tenced Zacarias Moussaoui to death we would have turned a man with long-term men­tal health prob­lems, whose direct respon­si­bil­i­ty for the 9/​11 attacks are ten­u­ous, into a mar­tyr. Evidence intro­duced dur­ing the tri­al cast sig­nif­i­cant doubt on Moussaoui’s impor­tance with­in al Qaeda.… [M]ost fun­da­men­tal­ly, I oppose the death penal­ty because I do not want to be the cit­i­zen of a state that kills. I do not want to be a par­ty to more vio­lence and killing.”

The attacks took the lives of near­ly 3,000 peo­ple and were the dead­liest ter­ror­ist attack in U.S. his­to­ry. The Alexandria cour­t­house where the tri­al was held is just miles away from the Pentagon, where one of the 9/​11 attacks occured. Federal judge Leonie Brinkema is expect­ed to impose the life sen­tence on Thursday, May 4.

(CNN & Associated Press, May 3, 2006, and Statement issued by Terry Rockefeller, May 3, 2006). Read the Jury’s Verdict Form. See Federal Death Penalty and Arbitrariness.