Moussaoui Eligible For Execution

Jury Decides Al Qaeda Conspirator Was Responsible For At Least One 9/11 Death

(CBS/AP) 
Rosemary Dillard, whose husband Eddie died in the attacks, said she felt a sense of vindication from the verdict.

"This man has no soul, has no conscience," she said of Moussaoui. "What else could we ask for but this?"

Abraham Scott, who lost his wife Janice Marie on 9/11, said: "I describe him like a dog with rabies, one that cannot be cured. The only cure is to put him or her to death."

He told CBS' Alison Harmelin that the death of Moussaoui might bring the families of 9/11 victims some comfort.

But Scott said he blamed the government equally "for not acting on certain indicators that could have prevented 9/11 happening."

The jury began weighing Moussaoui's fate last Wednesday. During its deliberations, jurors asked only one question, seeking a definition of "weapon of mass destruction." One of the three convictions for which Moussaoui could be executed is conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

The jurors were told that a plane used as a missile — the tactic employed on Sept. 11 — qualifies as a weapon of mass destruction.

Moussaoui pleaded guilty last April to conspiring with al Qaeda to hijack aircraft and other crimes. At the time, he denied being part of the 9/11 plot, saying he was being trained for a separate attack, but he changed his story when he took the stand and claimed he was to have flown a hijacked airliner into the White House that day.

Moussaoui was in jail at the time of the attacks, but prosecutors argue federal agents would have been able to thwart or at least minimize the attacks if he had revealed his al Qaeda membership and his terrorist plans when he was arrested and interrogated by federal agents.

The court proceeding took just nine minutes.

"The reading of the verdict was short and to the point," said CBS' Lambidakis. "The clerk asked the foreperson if the jury had reached a verdict, and she replied, 'yes,' in a soft voice."

Then U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema accepted the verdict from the forewoman and read it to the court. The clerk asked the defendant to rise just before she read it. Moussaoui remained seated, but his lawyers rose.

The judge said the jury was unanimous on all four aspects of each of the three counts against Moussaoui. Those counts were conspiracy to commit international terrorism, to destroy aircraft and to use weapons of mass destruction.

On each count, the jurors found the defendant was 18 or older at the time of the offense, intentionally lied to federal agents on Aug. 16-18, 2001, and did so "contemplating the life of a person would be taken or intending that lethal force would be used." Further, they determined at least one person died Sept. 11 as a direct result of the lies.

The judge asked the jurors if their verdicts were all unanimous, and all nodded affirmatively.

Neither the prosecution nor the defense wanted the jurors polled, Lambidakis reports.