Prosecution to rest case in Moussaoui trial

Prosecutors approached the end of their US death-penalty case against September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui after a gruelling week of testimony about the appalling impact of the September 11, 2001, attacks on victims and their families.

Today, the jury in Alexandria, Virginia, was to hear the cockpit voice recorder from United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in a western Pennsylvania field after passengers attempted to take control of the plane from hijackers. The 30-minute recording has never before been aired publicly.

After several days of testimony related to the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, the focus shifted yesterday to the US military’s Pentagon headquarters, where the jury saw some of the most gruesome evidence in the trial.

Several photos showed badly burned bodies, facial features still discernible. Defence lawyers objected unsuccessfully to their display.

Lt. Col. John Thurman testified that when the Pentagon was hit, he thought a bomb had exploded, then later described a sensation similar to an earthquake as the plane moved under his second floor office.

Thurman crawled through the office, unable to lift his head above the carpet because the smoke was so intense.

He said he felt an overwhelming need to take a nap, and “that’s when it hit me: I’m going to die. And I got very angry. Angry that terrorists would take my life on the same day my parents were getting their first grandchild” (from his sister).

“I realised I had to get out. I pushed file cabinets with all of my strength and found an opening,” Thurman said.

Thurman left the Pentagon coughing up black soot and was taken to a hospital.

He fully recovered from his injuries after a week-long hospital stay that included a medically-induced coma.

“I feel incredibly lucky,” he said. “But there’s guilt about getting the lucky break.”

Moussaoui, a Morocco-born Frenchman, is the only person charged in the US in connection with the September 11 attacks. The jury deciding his fate already declared him eligible for the death penalty by determining that his actions caused at least one death on 9/11.

Even though he was in jail in Minnesota at the time, the jury ruled that lies told by Moussaoui to federal agents a month before the attacks kept them from identifying and stopping some of the hijackers.

Now they must decide whether Moussaoui deserves execution or life in prison.

Defence lawyers say the jury should spare Moussaoui’s life because of his limited role in the attacks, evidence that he is mentally ill and because his execution would play into his dream of martyrdom.

Also yesterday, the judge issued an order requiring an unidentified individual to be produced for testimony.

The order apparently applied to would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid; defence lawyers issued a subpoena last week seeking his testimony. Prosecutors had opposed the subpoena.

Moussaoui testified previously that he and Reid, serving a life sentence after a failed attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001, were to have hijacked a fifth plane on September 11 and flown it into the White House.

The defence lawyers, who have tried to discredit their client’s credibility, said Moussaoui was exaggerating his role in September 11 to inflate his role in history.