US judge delays Moussaoui death penalty trial

[Eugene]

US judge delays Moussaoui death penalty trial
15 Nov 2005 15:09:45 GMT
Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) - A federal judge ordered a two-stage
trial to determine whether Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui will
receive the death penalty and also delayed the start of jury selection
by one month, until Feb. 6.

In a series of rulings issued late on Monday and released by the court
on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said that the trial
would be split into two parts.

The first phase would be to determine whether Moussaoui intentionally
lied about his knowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked airline
attacks.

If the jury determines that he did lie, resulting in the deaths of
nearly 3,000 people, then another phase would be held to see whether or
not Moussaoui should be given the death penalty or life in prison.

<snip>

Full article: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N15334936.htm

[Dogmudgeon]

1. I have a dumb-ass question over here ...

Do we really know that Moussaoui was involved in the attacks?

No, seriously. This isn't a slam toward Bush or anything. I just have not yet seen any evidence against Moussaoui -- none at all. Is there anyone here with an understanding of what we know about him?

--p!

[Eugene]

2. The government asserts that if he told investigators what he knew

about his own activities, they could have cracked
the September 11 plot. As noted in this previous
LBN thread and this related AP story,
the FBI and CIA overlooked many warning signs.

Moussaoui admits to being an al-Qaeda operative
but he still denies being the 20th 9/11 hijacker.

[Minstrel Boy]

3. "overlooked" is too gentle a word

to describe what the FBI brass did re the pre-9/11 Moussaoui investigation.

Remember the Moussaoui investigation was so perversely thwarted that Colleen Rowley said her office was full of black humour of how "bin Laden had a mole in the FBI"?

Dave Frasca of the FBI’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit received a promotion for his efforts.

[pberq]

4. Dave Frasca

Thanks for posting the link, MB.

Michael Ruppert also identifies Frasca as a key player in obstructing pre-9/11 investigations.

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/02/43525.shtml

<snip>
Even the Rowley letter to Robert Mueller was a "classified letter" but someone in the Congressional Committee released an edited version. The Rowley letter is explosive. In her memo, she says the Minneapolis FBI office identified Moussaoui as "a terrorist threat" from a very early point. He was arrested on August 15, 2001. Rowley reports "within days" the French Intelligence service confirmed "Moussaoui's affiliations with radical fundamentalist Islamic groups." The Minneapolis agents "became desperate" to search the computer lap top taken (3 of 5)from Moussaoui. Enter Dave Frasca. Frasca thought there was not "probable cause" to search the computer even after being informed of the reports from French Intelligence Services. Keep in mind, that Moussaoui had informed his flight instructors that he only wanted to learn how to fly and not to land or take off. When the flight instructors first phoned the Minneapolis office, they didn't get much of a response. The second time they mentioned the "plane as a missile" idea and the local FBI made the rest.

Just hours after Moussaoui was arrested Mr. Atlas, a student who drove Mr. Moussaoui from Oklahoma to a flight school in Minnesota, reported to the Minnesota FBI that Moussaoui believed it was "acceptable to kill civilians who harm Muslims and that he approved of Muslims who died as 'martyrs' in such attacks." (New York Times, May 24, 2002, p. 1)

According to Agent Rowley's 13 page memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller, Dave Frasca threw "up roadblocks and undermined Minneapolis' by now desperate efforts to obtain a FISA search warrant, long after the French Intelligence service provided information and probable cause became clear." (Rowley's memo to FBI, May 21, 2002, page 3) (see the following web site) http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.html

Not only did Dave Frasca not share the information about Moussaoui to other appropriate intelligence/law enforcement authorities, he also, according to Rowley "never disclosed to the Minneapolis agents that the Phoenix Division had, only three weeks earlier, warned of Al Qaeda operatives in flight schools seeking flight training for terrorists purposes!" (Rowley's memo to FBI, May 21, 2002 p. 3) It is of course impossible to believe that Dave Frasca on his own, is just sitting on this information and not doing anything with it, unless ordered to do so.