US had no evidence linking shoe bomber to Moussaoui

THE US government yesterday conceded it had no evidence that shoe bomber Richard Reid was to have conducted a terror hijacking with Zacarias Moussaoui on September 11, 2001, as Moussaoui has claimed.

The defence introduced a statement, agreed to by the government, that was presented to the jury considering whether Moussaoui should be executed or imprisoned for life.

Moussaoui had stunned his trial on March 27 by claiming for the first time that he had intended to participate in the 2001 terror attacks on New York’s World Trade Center before his arrest a month earlier, and that Reid was to have been one of his accomplices.

His lawyers hoped the government statement would help undercut that claim and bolster their argument that their client is lying about his role in the attacks to inflate his place in history or achieve martyrdom through execution.

Earlier, defence lawyers tried to bring Reid to court from the federal prison in Colorado, where he is serving a life sentence for attempting to detonate a shoe bomb on a transatlantic flight in late 2001.

The bid to bring him to court was thwarted. But defence attorneys were able to obtain from the government its agreement on the statement about Reid instead.

“No information is available to indicate that Richard Reid had pre-knowledge of the September 11 operation or was instructed by al-Qaida leaders to conduct an operation in coordination with Moussaoui,” it said.

The statement also said Reid had named Moussaoui as the beneficiary in his will and two FBI analysts concluded that was an unlikely decision for him to make if they were going to be on a joint suicide mission.

The courtroom development followed a second round of testimony from families of 9/11 victims who were brought forward by the lawyers trying to spare Moussaoui’s life. These witnesses pressed their point that they don’t seek revenge for their loss.

Testimony from about a dozen relatives was meant to counter the emotional punch of nearly four dozen witnesses who gave heartbreaking testimony for prosecutors about the impact of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Moussaoui has pleaded guilty to conspiring with al-Qaida to fly planes into US buildings, but not on September 11.