‘20th hijacker’ to plead innocent

Zacarias Moussaoui, the first person accused of being an accomplice in the September 11 terrorist attacks, will today plead not guilty to conspiring to kill and maim thousands of victims.

‘‘We will be entering a plea of not guilty to all of the charges,’’ his lawyer, Frank Dunham, said prior to Moussaoui’s arraignment today.

If Moussaoui is convicted he could face the death penalty. Prosecutors have been told they must decide before March 29 whether to seek his execution.

His mother, Aicha el-Wafi, came to the US from France last week and said her son had said he could prove his innocence. Moussaoui, 33, is a French citizen of Moroccan descent who studied in England.

Security around the Virginia court was expected to be extraordinarily heavy today.

Although Moussaoui has been in custody on immigration charges since August, when he aroused suspicions at a Minnesota flying school, the indictment says he conspired with the September 11 hijackers. While accusing him of links to Osama bin Laden’s terror network, the indictment does not specifically explain his role in the terror attacks.

Nonetheless, Attorney General John Ashcroft called Moussaoui an ‘‘active participant’’ with the 19 hijackers who crashed four passenger jets in New York, Washington and western Pennsylvania, killing more than 3,000 people.

The indictment accuses Moussaoui of pursuing some of the same activities as the hijackers, by taking flight training in the United States, inquiring about crop dusting and purchasing flight-deck training videos.

The indictment also said Moussaoui had received money in July and August from Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, an alleged member of a German terrorist cell who was a roommate of Mohammed Atta, the suspected ringleader in the attacks.

Moussaoui is also accused of visiting the al-Qaida-affiliated Khalden Camp in Afghanistan.

He attended the Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma, between February 26 and May 29, 2001, but ended his classes early.

By August 10, the indictment said, he was attending the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan, Minnesota, for simulator training on a Boeing 747 Model 400. Among his possessions was a computer disk with information related to crop dusting with pesticides.

Moussaoui was arrested on August 17, two days after an instructor at the academy contacted the FBI.

According to reports, Moussaoui aroused suspicion because he did not seem to understand French - although he said he was from France. Suspicions were sharpened because of Moussaoui’s limited flying skills. He could not fly solo despite his previous lessons in Oklahoma.

A US cable TV network has appealed for the proceedings to be broadcast on closed-circuit television in the cities most affected by the hijackings.