In a recent speech at the American University school of law, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who presided over the tri­al of 9/​11 con­spir­a­tor Zacarias Moussaoui, said that the government’s deci­sion to seek the death penal­ty against Moussaoui appeared to be polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed. Judge Brinkema also stat­ed that because Moussaoui’s case involved the death penal­ty, it unnec­es­sar­i­ly exposed clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion and inter­fered with the gath­er­ing of oth­er infor­ma­tion that could have been use­ful in inves­ti­gat­ing ter­ror­ist net­works.

Moussaoui plead­ed guilty to con­spir­ing with al-Qaeda in 2005, and at the sen­tenc­ing phase of the tri­al he was per­mit­ted to sub­mit into evi­dence state­ments from cap­tured al-Qaeda lead­ers. These state­ments said that Moussaoui only played a small part in their ter­ror­ist plans. Moussaoui was sen­tenced to life in prison in 2006.

Judge Brinkema also stat­ed in her speech that Moussaoui would have like­ly coop­er­at­ed with author­i­ties and giv­en them use­ful infor­ma­tion. She said that if inves­ti­ga­tors ​“could put up with his ram­blings, that they could have got­ten some infor­ma­tion from him because he could­n’t keep his mouth shut.”
(“Moussaoui judge says pros­e­cu­tors’ pur­suit of death penal­ty made more evi­dence pub­lic,” Associated Press, February 2, 2008). See New Voices and Federal Death Penalty.

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