Moussaoui's mental health questioned

A defence psychologist today said he concluded that Zacarias Moussaoui is a paranoid schizophrenic based on observations of the actions and writings of the confessed terrorist conspirator who was described earlier as convinced US President George Bush will set him free.

Psychologist Xavier Amador said the clincher in making his diagnosis was an April 2005 encounter with Moussaoui in which the defendant in the nation’s only September 11, 2001, prosecution repeatedly spit water on him and appeared to be talking to himself.

Amador said the visit lasted for about an hour, and that Moussaoui spent much of the time telling Amador to go away. Amador observed Moussaoui talking to himself in a manner that did not appear to be prayer, the witness told the jury in Alexandria, Virginia.

When Amador refused to go away, he said, Moussaoui spit water at him more than a dozen times before finally resigning himself to Amador’s presence.

Moussaoui then complained that jail guards used excessive force in taking him from his Alexandria jail cell to a deposition at the federal courthouse.

He also told Amador that Bush would release him from prison.

Amador testified that he had become convinced Moussaoui was suffering from a delusional thought disorder before the incident, and that encounter reinforced his belief.

Government experts have reached conclusions that diverge from Amador’s statements and are expected to testify later this week in rebuttal.

Moussaoui mocked the testimony about his having schizophrenia.

He said “beautiful terrorist mind” as he was led from court during a recess, referring to the movie A Beautiful Mind, which is about a mathematician with schizophrenia.

He once said in court he did not want to end up in a dungeon like cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.

While prosecutors’ experts have been able to examine Moussaoui, he refused to cooperate with Amador or any other defence expert.

Amador based his diagnosis, revealed during testimony yesterday, largely on conclusions of other mental-health professionals and an analysis of Moussaoui’s actions and writings over a period of years.

These included the numerous rambling, often insulting, legal motions that Moussaoui filed during an 18-month period in which he represented himself.

Moussaoui’s defence lawyers, who are at odds with their client, say he is delusional and cite his testimony last week about a dream that Bush would free him from prison before his lifetime sentence has expired.

It remains uncertain whether he will be sentenced to life.

The job of the jury sitting in federal court in Alexandria is to decide whether Moussaoui should be executed or serve life in prison without parole.

Those options are all they have since Moussaoui has pleaded guilty to conspiring with al-Qaida to fly planes into US buildings.

One of Moussaoui’s jail guards offered a few more details of Moussaoui’s dream during testimony Monday.

Deputy Vikas Ohri said Moussaoui has told him that after Bush frees him, he will “fly to London, write a book, make some money and go back to the mountains of Afghanistan and be al-Qaida”.

He said he has also seen Moussaoui standing in front of a wall talking to himself. He asked Moussaoui about it once, and Moussaoui said he was practising for court.

Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country in the September 11 attacks. The jury deciding his fate has already declared him eligible for the death penalty by determining that his actions caused at least one death on 9/11.

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

Amador cited other evidence of Moussaoui’s paranoia, including his belief that his court-appointed lawyers are in a conspiracy to kill him and his belief that an electric fan that he picked up from the curb outside his Oklahoma apartment was bugged by the FBI.

Moussaoui previously said he believes all Americans, including his lawyers, want him killed. He acknowledged in testimony that he thought the fan may have been bugged, but he was not convinced of it.

Amador said Moussaoui, in his testimony, was trying to ”normalise” his paranoid beliefs.

Amador said Moussaoui’s behaviour is inconsistent even with that of his al-Qaida comrades. He noted that earlier trial evidence showed Moussaoui was unable to follow basic instructions from al-Qaida leaders.