Moussaoui's harsh upbringing recounted in a defense of his Sept. 11 conspiracy acts

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The admitted coconspirator in the Sept. 11 blasts, Zacarias Moussaoui, suffered a traumatic childhood that transformed him from a boy with a sense of humor who made friends easily to a man who spurned his family and embraced radical Islam, a defense witness testified yesterday.

Jan Vogelsang, a clinical social worker, said at Moussaoui's death-penalty trial that the 37-year-old Frenchman, of Moroccan descent, was in and out of orphanages for the first six years of his life. As a teenager, she said, he was rejected as a ''dirty Arab" by the family of his longtime girlfriend, with whom he lived briefly and with whom he won dance contests.

Moussaoui was dismissive of the social worker's analysis. He shouted, ''It's a lot of American B.S." as he left the courtroom for the lunch recess.

The jury also heard taped testimony taken in France in December from one of Moussaoui's sisters, Jamilla, who described him as ''always smiling . . . he was the little sweetheart of the family."

The sister also described the abusive atmosphere caused by their father, Omar, who repeatedly beat Jamilla and the siblings' mother.

Moussaoui was in jail in Minnesota when the attacks took place. The jury has decided that lies he had told federal agents a month earlier had prevented authorities from identifying and stopping some of the hijackers, making him responsible for at least one death that day and qualifying him for the death penalty.

Now jurors are deciding whether Moussaoui deserves execution or life in prison. In her videotaped testimony, Moussaoui's sister said that their father intervened in their lives even after the parents had divorced, and that ''each time he reappeared in our lives, it was to traumatize us."

''He left us completely destitute," she testified. ''He was a man who never should have had children."

At the outset of her testimony, Vogelsang said she did not intend to make excuses for Moussaoui's actions. The clinical social worker had not interviewed Moussaoui herself.

The worker relied instead on talks with 50 family members, friends, and others, like teachers, who knew him.

Vogelsang said that Moussaoui's mother, Aicha el-Wafi, had been beaten throughout her pregnancies -- including six before she gave birth to Moussaoui.

Moussaoui, who was born in a French town near the Spanish border and of Moroccan descent, went to an orphanage four months after his birth, when his mother was placed in a convalescent home, she said.

As a boy, Moussaoui made friends and displayed a sense of humor, Vogelsang said, despite the beatings his father inflicted on his mother and sister. When Moussaoui was 6 and his mother had divorced Omar, an uncle moved into the home and beat Moussaoui and other family members.

Mental ills afflicted the family, according to the testimony. Omar has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is institutionalized, Vogelsang said. Moussaoui's two sisters have been diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychosis with schizophrenic features.