Monday, March 27, 2006 Posted: 1740 GMT (0140 HKT)
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified at his sentencing trial Monday that he knew about the terrorist group's plan to crash airplanes into the World Trade Center.
"I had knowledge that the two towers would be hit, but I did not have the details," Moussaoui told jurors after taking the stand in his own defense.
Moussaoui said he was not intended to be the 20th hijacker.
Instead, he said, he was supposed to pilot a plane into the White House, with convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid as a member of his crew.
Moussaoui said he did not know in advance the precise date of attack, which unfolded the morning of September 11, 2001.
The only person tried in the United States in connection with the 9/11 attacks, Moussaoui testified against the advice of his court-appointed lawyers.
Moussaoui, 37, a Frenchman of Moroccan heritage rarely speaks to his defense attorneys. He told them last week in court that he would take the stand "whether you want it or not."
One of his attorneys, Gerald Cerkin, objected Monday to Moussaoui testifying.
Defense objections
"I would suggest he does not recognize the authority of the court," Cerkin said. As an al Qaeda member, Moussaoui has been trained to lie, the lawyer added.
Judge Leonie Brinkema overruled the defense saying, "He has an absolute right to testify."
She then told Moussaoui, "You must promise to the court that you will tell the truth."
Moussaoui responded, "Yes, I can."
Moussaoui's previous pronouncements in open court have cursed the United States and praised terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.
Moussaoui pleaded guilty to terrorism conspiracy last year. The only question before the jury is whether he deserves the death penalty.
First, the jury must deem Moussaoui qualified for capital punishment, which means 12 jurors must unanimously find he committed an act that caused at least one of the 2,793 deaths on September 11, when 19 hijackers crashed four passenger jets.
If the jury rejects the death penalty, Moussaoui will be sentenced to life in prison.
Moussaoui has denied any direct connection to the 9/11 attacks. He claims he was tapped for a different plot and intended to fly planes into the White House.
Prosecutors contend Moussaoui's lies to federal agents who arrested him in August 2001 after he aroused suspicions at a Minnesota flight school furthered the conspiracy. They rested their case Thursday after calling 25 witnesses.
The last government witness, a former FBI agent, testified that if Moussaoui had leveled with investigators about his al Qaeda ties and allowed them to search his possessions, then FBI agents could have found links to more than half of the September 11 hijackers before the attacks.
Missed opportunities
The missed opportunities -- independent of Moussaoui -- to locate the 9/11 hijackers is the theme of the defense team. The defense began its case by calling Eric Rigler, a former FBI agent who is now a private investigator, to detail five missed chances to find hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khaled al-Mihdhar.
The CIA had known since March 2000 the two were in the country but delayed telling the FBI until a week after Moussaoui was arrested.
When the FBI got the information, it was assigned to an single agent getting his first counterterrorism lead, Rigler said.
Rigler's testimony was based on a 2004 Justice Department inspector general report. The 9/11 commission also documented the missed chances to locate al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar.
Defense attorneys will play commission testimony from Bush administration officials such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The defense also is planning to read to jurors written substitutions for live testimony of 9/11 plot creator Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and plot facilitator Ramzi Binalshibh and other top al Qaeda detainees held at undisclosed military locations overseas.
Additional testimony is expected to include statements made to interrogators by Hambali, chief of al Qaeda's Southeast Asian wing who was captured in Thailand; al Qaeda member Saif al-Adel; a 9/11 paymaster named Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi; and al Qaeda operative Mohamed al-Kahtani, a would-be 20th hijacker.
Al-Kahtani was stopped from entering the country on August 4, 2001, at the Orlando, Florida, airport as lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta waited for him in an airport parking garage.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/LAW/03/27/mous...=cnn_topstories