Jury decides against execution for Moussaoui

WASHINGTON -- A federal jury yesterday spared Zacarias Moussaoui from a death sentence, deciding that the only person charged in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks should instead spend the rest of his life in a US prison without the possibility of parole.

''America, you lost," Moussaoui shouted, clapping his hands as he was led away from the courtroom after the sentence was announced. ''I won."

The verdict dealt a blow to the Justice Department, which had worked on the case for more than four years. Federal prosecutors had argued that Moussaoui should be executed because his lies to the FBI allowed the worst terrorist attack in American history to go forward, resulting in the deaths of almost 3,000 people.

But it was a victory for the defense and an outspoken group of family members of Sept. 11 victims, who had argued Moussaoui wanted to be martyred, and that life in prison would be a harsher sentence than execution.

The 12 jurors, who were not named, decided Moussaoui's fate after seven days of deliberations. They did not fully embrace either the prosecution or the defense view. According to a form returned with the verdict, the jury did not unanimously believe that Moussaoui's lies had caused thousands of deaths. And none believed that he wanted martyrdom, or that a life sentence would be worse than execution.

Instead, nine of the jurors cited Moussaoui's dysfunctional childhood as a mitigating factor in their decision to spare his life. Three also said Moussaoui had had only a ''minor role, if any" and ''limited knowledge" of the attacks on Sept. 11. The court did not release the jury vote, which would have had to be unanimous if Moussaoui were to be executed.

At the White House, President Bush released a statement acknowledging the verdict against a man who ''rejoiced" at the deaths of the Sept. 11 victims, and vowing to press on in the fight against Al Qaeda.

''The end of this trial represents the end of this case, but not an end to the fight against terror," Bush said.

After the verdict was read, several family members spoke in front of the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va., urging the country to put more pressure on the government to improve security at borders and seaports.

Among them, Carie Lemack of Boston, whose mother, Judy Larocque, died when hijackers crashed her plane into the north tower of the World Trade Center, said she was pleased with the verdict, because Moussaoui was ''an Al Qaeda wanna-be."

''This will be the last day that Mr. Moussaoui will be in the headlines," Lemack said. ''He's going to be in jail for the rest of his life, which is exactly what this man deserves."

The FBI arrested Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent, on Aug. 16, 2001, after he aroused suspicions while training to fly a jet at a Minnesota flight school. He was locked up on immigration charges weeks later when 19 accused Al Qaeda members crashed four hijacked jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field.

Investigators had initially suspected that Moussaoui was intended to be the ''20th hijacker," who would have been a fifth member of a team on the Pennsylvania flight, which had one fewer terrorist to control the passengers. The flight, United Airlines 93, crashed after passengers fought back against the hijackers before the plane could reach its target, the US Capitol building.

Investigators eventually decided that the intended 20th hijacker was instead Mohamed al-Qahtani, a Saudi who was turned away by a suspicious immigrations officer at Orlando International Airport in August 2001. The Sept. 11 plot ringleader, Mohammed Atta, was waiting in the lobby at the time. Qahtani was later captured and is held at the Guantanamo prison.

Moussaoui, 37, is an admitted member of Al Qaeda who has said he wanted to kill Americans. But the discovery of Qahtani cast uncertainty over Moussaoui's role in the Sept. 11 plot. It is a mystery that, despite his guilty plea and yesterday's verdict, his trial did not resolve.

Investigators came to believe that Moussaoui had been training to take part in a second wave of suicide hijackings.

Moussaoui seemed to corroborate this theory in April 2005. At the time, Moussaoui bragged that the Al Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, had sent him to crash a jetliner into the White House in a follow-up attack sometime after Sept. 11.

But in March, during the penalty phase of his trial, Moussaoui contradicted his own account in a new round of testimony, bragging that his assault on the White House was supposed to be part of the Sept. 11 attacks.

He also said in his second round of testimony that the convicted shoe-bomber, Richard Reid, was supposed to be a member of his passenger-control team. Reid, who attended a radical London mosque with Moussaoui, tried to blow up an American Airlines flight carrying 197 people from Paris to Miami on Dec. 23, 2001.

Reid pleaded guilty without a trial in January 2003 and is serving a life sentence at the federal ''supermax" prison in Florence, Colo. -- the same facility where the Bureau of Prisons is likely to send Moussaoui. The two are not likely to spend much time together, however.

At the maximum-security prison -- where American terrorists Theodore Kaczynski, the so-called ''Unabomber," and Terry Nichols, a conspirator in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, are also serving life sentences -- prisoners live in virtual solitary confinement, and are locked in their cells for 23 hours a day.

This report included material from wire services.