After the verdict, family members of victims are still grieving
Several relatives of victims of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, had mixed reactions yesterday to the jury's decision to sentence Zacarias Moussaoui to life in prison, but as they gathered outside the federal courthouse in Boston they agreed that there had been no winners in the death-sentence case.
''He put up the victory sign, but no one won," said Tina Fisher of Weymouth, whose brother, John Fisher, a father of seven from Bayonne, N.J., was killed while working in the command center at one of the World Trade Center towers.
''No one is ever going to win because 3,000 people are dead," Fisher said.
John Fisher, a security consultant for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, rushed into the burning building after the planes hit.
His sister said yesterday's jury decision ''proved what America is all about, that we are a just society."
Fisher said the death penalty would have been ''an easy way out" for Moussaoui. She added: ''Life without parole was justice."
But Katherine Bailey of Lynnfield, whose husband, Garnet ''Ace" Bailey, was a passenger on United Airlines Flight 175, choked back tears as she voiced disappointment over the jury's failure to order death for Moussaoui.
''It's certainly not the outcome I wanted," said Bailey, calling Moussaoui ''an evil, vile man."
''I do believe that he's happy with life in prison," Bailey said. ''I don't think that man wanted to die, unless he was killing Americans."
Bailey added that the United States might need to start building separate prison wings if it wants to detain all the terrorists.
''I'm just terrified for all of us," she said. Garnet Bailey was a professional hockey scout for the Los Angeles Kings and had been a Boston Bruin.
Katherine Bailey's sister, Margaret Pothier of Brookline, said that she fears it was dangerous for Moussaoui to be sent to prison because he could be pardoned some day or could be used in a hostage situation by terrorists who try to secure his release.
''I can understand some thinking that he should rot in prison," said Pothier, but she added that prisoners have rights and that Moussaoui will not rot in a US prison.
Local residents whose family members were killed during the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks watched Moussaoui's trial via closed-circuit televison in a courtroom at the John Joseph Moakley US Courthouse.
Families were alerted by telephone that a verdict had been reached and that it would be announced at 4:30 p.m., but only a few were able to make it through rush-hour traffic to hear the decision.
Christie Coombs of Abington -- whose husband, Jeff, was killed on American Airlines Flight 11 -- said she had been shopping for prom accessories with her 15-year-old daughter, Meaghan, and immediately rushed to the courthouse. She arrived just after the jury's decision had been announced.
''It's how I had hoped it would come out," said Coombs, adding that she believed that evidence at trial had proved that Moussaoui was not the 20th hijacker on Sept. 11, but ''an Al Qaeda wannabe" who had been rejected by the terrorists.
''I don't think he'll have a very happy life in prison," said Coombs, pointing out that Moussaoui will have to live with the knowledge that he had failed to meet his goal to kill Americans.
''We're not celebrating; there's nothing to celebrate," Coombs said. 