Doing Justice to Zacarias Moussaoui

Policy Review, Dec 2007/Jan 2008 by Rosenthal, John

The only real novelty in Moussaoui's March 2006 response to Zerkin was his specification that the attack on the White House was scheduled to be carried out on the same day as the other attacks. Although the defense undoubtedly hoped to convince the jury otherwise - and the major media may indeed have managed to convince a large part of the public as much - nothing in the case hinged on this scheduling question. Despite the testimony to the contrary of the defendant, the defense would continue to insist, based upon the reported claims of captured 9/11 "mastermind" Khalid Sheik Mohammed, that Moussaoui was in fact preparing for a "second wave" of attacks supposed to take place after 9/11. But as prosecuting attorney David Novak noted in his closing rebuttal to the defense's case, "whether he's on the first wave, the second wave, or the 20th wave, he still had the same knowledge: I'm al Qaeda. We're flying planes into buildings. We're going to take those planes over with short-blade knives. Two of the targets are the World Trade Center and the White House," and so on (March 29, 2006; 2813). According to the prosecution's case, Moussaoui's specific contribution to 9/11 was to have failed to divulge this information to the FBI when questioned in August 2001. The projected date of his own operation was thus immaterial.

It should be recalled in this connection, moreover, that Moussaoui had pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy - including Conspiracy to Commit Acts of Terrorism Transcending National Boundaries, Conspiracy to Commit Aircraft Piracy, Conspiracy to Destroy Aircraft, and Conspiracy to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction - and that five of the six charges as laid out in the indictment specifically alleged that the conspiracy in question led to "the deaths of thousands of persons on September 11, 2001."12 But for the bulk of the American media, Moussaoui's March 2006 admission was apparently supposed to represent a "shocking" revelation.

Very quickly, however, the same media began to counteract the effect of this "revelation" by aggressively disseminating what is undoubtedly the major abiding myth associated with the Moussaoui trial: namely, the notion that Moussaoui was actively seeking the death penalty in order to have the glory of dying a martyr's death. This supposition effectively rendered Moussaoui's testimony "confession-proof," transforming every attempt by him to assume responsibility for his role in the 9/11 plot into just further evidence of his mad quest for martyrdom. There is no need to cite specific examples of this spin. It has become the received wisdom that Moussaoui lied on the stand in order to realize his "dream" of martyrdom, and this supposed "insight" is widely held to explain the jury's decision in ultimately refusing to apply the death penalty.

Yet, in light of the actual record of the trial and pre-trial proceedings, the suggestion that Moussaoui was actively seeking to be put to death may be the single most outrageous instance of brazenly misleading reporting by the news media in all the coverage of the Moussaoui case. Not only was there virtually nothing - apart from preconceived notions and crude stereotypes - to support this supposition, but, as we shall see momentarily, Moussaoui's behavior before the court from the time of his arraignment in January 2002 onwards persistently and obviously belies it. This did not, however, prevent the defense from floating the idea in its opening statement to the jury on March 6, 2006. "We know that Moussaoui is an admitted al Qaeda member and that he yearns for martyrdom, ladies and gentlemen," defense lawyer Edward MacMahon said in wrapping up, "but now the only way he can achieve that dream and then live on as some smiling face on a recruiting poster for Usama Bin Laden is by your verdict. Please don't make him a hero, ladies and gentlemen. He just doesn't deserve it" (March 6, 2006; 76). But by the close of the "eligibility" phase of the trial - which ended with the jury's unanimously finding Moussaoui "eligible" for the death penalty - the suggestion that Moussaoui was seeking martyrdom had become so blatantly untenable that even the defense was loath to invoke it. Thus, in his closing statement, given just two days after Moussaoui took the stand and admitted his involvement, MacMahon was reduced to pitching around feebly for other possible motives that Moussaoui might have had for lying. "Moussaoui admitted that he's a propagandist for Al Qaeda," MacMahon said, twisting his client's remarks about his earlier hand-written motions. "That's obviously one of his motives" (March 29, 2006; 2788). MacMahon insisted that Moussaoui was "manipulating" the jury and that his admissions were part of a "plan" - but he repeatedly let slip that he had no idea what this mysterious "plan" was supposed to be.