Moussaoui jury heads into third day

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Jurors in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui completed their second day of deliberations yesterday, without deciding whether the admitted conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks should receive a death sentence or life in prison.

They went home after working almost seven hours, bringing their deliberation time over two days to almost 10 hours. They will return this morning.

Earlier in the day, the jurors asked for, but were denied, a dictionary.

Before lunch, the jurors and Moussaoui filed into the courtroom to hear Judge Leonie Brinkema's response to the request.

Brinkema told them that sending a dictionary in would be like adding evidence in the case, but she invited them to come back if they had questions about specific definitions. They asked no additional questions yesterday.

Brinkema also warned the jury against doing their own research, including looking up definitions.

After she and the jury left, Moussaoui said, ''747 fly to London," apparently an allusion to his hope that President Bush would release him and that he would fly to London.

The jury has only two choices in the Moussaoui case: death, or life in prison. Brinkema instructed jurors to balance the factors that argue for death or life in making their decision.

If the jury cannot reach an unanimous decision, Brinkema will sentence Moussaoui to life.

Before boarding a flight from Paris to the Washington area yesterday, Moussaoui's mother, Aicha El Wafi, told AP Television News: ''My life is hell."

''This has been going on for four years, but now my life is hell. It's hell and that's all," she said. ''I feel too much pain to speak." She has said her son was being made a scapegoat for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Although Moussaoui was in jail on Sept. 11, the jury ruled that lies he had told federal agents when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations had prevented federal agents from identifying and stopping some of the hijackers.