Bin Laden Tape: No Moussaoui-9/11 Link

Purported Tape Of Al Qaeda Leader Denies Moussaoui Worked On Attack

(CBS/AP)  An Internet audio tape attributed to Osama bin Laden said Tuesday that Zacarias Moussaoui — the only person convicted in the United States for the Sept. 11 attacks — had nothing to do with the operation.

"He had no connection at all with Sept. 11," the voice, apparently of bin Laden, said.

"I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers, and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission," he said, referring to the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001.

The al Qaeda chief said the Sept. 11 hijackers were divided into two groups, "pilots and assistants."

"Since Zacarias Moussaoui was still learning how to fly, he wasn't No. 20 in the group, as your government has claimed," bin Laden apparently said on the tape, the authenticity of which has not been completely verified. "It knows this very well," he added.

The tape said Moussaoui was not a security risk for al Qaeda, because he did not have knowledge of the plot. CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports that what differentiates this tape from past audio tapes of bin Laden is his tone.

In the new tape, Logan says, bin Laden is very direct. The message is much shorter than usual and he opens in an almost American way by saying, "I'm going to be short with this message," Logan reports.

"Brother Moussaoui was arrested two weeks before the events (of Sept. 11, 2001), and if he had known something — even very little — about the Sept. 11 group, we would have informed the leader of the operation, Mohammad Atta, and the others ... to leave America before being discovered," the tape said.

Reportedly, bin Laden also said Moussaoui's confession that he helped plan the attacks was "void," calling it the result of "pressures exercised against him during four and a half years" in U.S. prison.

It was not clear which confession bin Laden was referring to by Moussaoui, who frequently trumpeted his claim that he was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But his defense lawyers cast doubt on his claims, saying he only wanted to be sentenced to death to become a martyr.

Moussaoui, a French national of Moroccan descent and an admitted al Qaeda member, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month after a jury ruled that he was responsible for at least one death on Sept. 11. U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema sent Moussaoui to prison for life, to "die with a whimper," for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Moussaoui declared: "God save Osama bin Laden, you will never get him." Hear Moussaoui's last public words from his outburst while being sentenced to life without parole.

Brinkema and the unrepentant Moussaoui capped the two-month trial with an intense exchange that will mark the defendant's last public words before his incarceration.