Supreme Court is asked to rule on Moussaoui case
His lawyers seek to query witnesses
WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui petitioned the Supreme Court yesterday, challenging the government's right to put the terrorism suspect on trial while the defense has no access to potentially favorable Al Qaeda witnesses.
The written brief questioned whether Moussaoui's constitutional rights would be violated if the defense is forced to rely on government-prepared summaries of interrogation statements from three Al Qaeda captives.
A federal appeals court has approved the use of the summaries after the government argued that more direct access to Al Qaeda leaders, or even to their classified interrogation statements, would jeopardize national security.
The lawyers said it was unconstitutional to force Moussaoui to rely on ''summaries of classified documents containing information from unnamed, unsworn government agents purporting to report unsworn, incomplete, nonverbatim accounts" of witness statements.
Moussaoui, a French citizen arrested on immigration charges shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks, was indicted in December 2001 and remains the only US defendant charged in an Al Qaeda conspiracy that includes those attacks. The defendant has acknowledged his loyalty to Osama bin Laden but denies he was to have any role in the hijackings.
Moussaoui's lawyers appealed a ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
The lawyers said Moussaoui was denied rights guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment, the right of the accused to confront his accusers; the Fifth Amendment, the right not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; and the Eighth Amendment, the ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
