Moussaoui Wants 9/11 'Every Day'

Al Qaeda Conspirator Said It Made His Day To Hear Of Americans Suffering

(CBS/AP) 

Moussaoui told jurors that Islam requires Muslims to be the world's superpower as he flipped through a copy of the Koran searching for verses to support his assertions. One he cited requires non-Muslim nations to pay a tribute to Muslim countries.

"We have to be the superpower. You have to be subdued. We have to be above you," Moussaoui said. "Because Americans, you are the superpower, you want to eradicate us."

At one point, defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin asked Moussaoui if he thought he was helping his case when he testified earlier that he planned to pilot a plane into the White House on Sept. 11.

"I was putting my trust in God, so from an Islamic point of view, yes," Moussaoui responded, acknowledging that non-Muslims might view his testimony as harmful to his case.

At several points during his afternoon testimony, Moussaoui acknowledged that he has lied when it has suited his interests throughout the course of his four-year case.

Defense lawyers have said Moussaoui is lying about his role in Sept. 11 — the worst terrorism attack ever on U.S. soil — in the hopes of achieving martyrdom through execution.

Moussaoui testified Thursday that "for the last four years, I have been fighting" against the death penalty. He said he considered the consequences of his previous testimony about his role in Sept. 11 and "decided to just put my trust in God, tell the truth and time will tell."

"First he says he wants to die a martyr and now he is begging the jury to spare his life and telling the panel that his dedicated lawyers are out to get him. It doesn't add up and perhaps that's exactly what he has in mind," said CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen.

Assailing his court-appointed lawyers, Moussaoui said: "You have put your vested interest in keeping this case in your hands, above my interest to save my life."

Moussaoui suggested they preferred the fame that comes from handling a high-profile trial rather than seeking a change of venue to move the case away from Virginia, a state with a reputation for jurors amenable to the death penalty.

In April 2002, when he was serving as his own defense counsel, Moussaoui filed a motion seeking to move the trial, citing an overrepresentation of government employees in the area. He also said there was more intense media attention in the northern Virginia area due to the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon, which is a short distance from the courthouse.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, however, rejected the claim and said Moussaoui would be able to get an impartial jury.

Zerkin had asked him if he believed that his defense team was in a conspiracy to kill him. Moussaoui responded that they have been engaged in "criminal non-assistance."

Earlier, Moussaoui's lawyers opened his defense by seeking to convince jurors to spare his life and put him in a place from which he could never escape.

James E. Aiken, the first defense witness in the second phase of Moussaoui's death-penalty trial, said Moussaoui would always require the highest level of supervision and would be isolated not only from the outside world but also from other prisoners, reports Lumpkin.

"We are not preparing him for a return to society, not even preparing him for a return to the general population," Aiken said. What the mission is here is incapacitation."

Moussaoui's defense team is expected to argue in the next few days that his life should be spared because of his limited role in the 9/11 attacks. They plan to present evidence that he is mentally ill and that his execution would only play into his dream of martyrdom.

"I'm not sure that jurors are really going to care about the niceties of mental illness when they hear someone mock 9-11 that way," Cohen said. "It's such an inhuman perspective on a tragedy, so full of spite and hate, that jurors may decide there is no place on this earth for this guy."

Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country in connection with the Sept. 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 Sept. 11.

Even though he was in jail in Minnesota at the time of the attacks, 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.