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Aicha El-Ouafi, Zacarias Moussaoui’s mother, talks with the press outside the Federal Courthouse complex in Alexandria, Virginia |
WASHINGTON,
August 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The United States
Monday, August 12, opposed any delay in the trial of Zacarias
Moussaoui, the lone defendant charged in deadly September 11 attacks,
saying “the public’s interest in a speedy trial could not be more
compelling.”
Prosecutors
responded to a request Friday, August 9, from the 34-year-old French
national’s team of standby attorneys to postpone by two months the
trial on six conspiracy charges, saying that under the current
schedule, the trial and penalty phases could last through
mid-December.
A
delay would force the proceedings well into 2003 and violate a federal
law requiring speedy trials, their written motion said, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
“Here
the public’s interest in a speedy trial could not be more
compelling,” prosecutors said in the motion, unsealed by the U.S.
District Court in nearby Alexandria, Virginia.
“As
is clear from the indictment, the attacks of September 11 were more
than just acts of mass murder. They were volleys in a declared war
against the United States and were intended to terrorize the entire
nation.
“Thus,
the victims’ and the nation’s interest in a fair and speedy trial
is beyond dispute.”
Postponing
the trial by 60 days would place an “undue burden” on the victims,
prosecutors led by Paul McNulty said.
Moussaoui,
who has admitted to being a member of Al-Qaeda, the group the U.S.
accuses for the attacks, has steadfastly denied any involvement in the
hijackings, initially asked for an indefinite delay of his trial.
Approved
by U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema to represent himself, he
cited the volumes of material produced by the prosecution and the
inhospitable living conditions of an artificially lit, isolated cell
as impeding his ability to prepare an adequate defense.
In
a motion released August 3, he complained he has less than two months
before his trial and has “no access to the outside world; no phone,
no letter, no visit... and now no information.”
His
standby counsel, led by attorney Frank Dunham, said even trained
attorneys could not prepare a legitimate case "by the scheduled
trial date of September 30," according to documents filed Friday.
“It
surely cannot be prepared in that time, if ever, by a single
individual who is locked in a cell, with virtually no access to the
outside world,” they said, requesting that the trial begin “no
earlier than November 30, 2002.”
They
cited the 1,189 computer disks, 1,262 audiocassettes and 755 pages of
classified information received in connection with the case as of
mid-July as reasons for the delay, as well as the time it would take
to find and subpoena defense witnesses.
But
prosecutors said, “The government has employed numerous means to
ease the burden of trial preparation for standby counsel [and the
defendant],” and said both Moussaoui and standby counsel has
misrepresented the amount of information produced by the prosecution.
Moussaoui,
detained in Minnesota in August on immigration violations, has been
dubbed the “20th hijacker” although federal investigators have
acknowledged there is little information to support that contention.
In
a dramatic hearing last month, Moussaoui first announced his intention
to plead guilty to four of the six charges against him - all of which
could carry a death sentence. When he was told by the judge that
pleading guilty would mean having to accept responsibility for the
September 11 attacks, he changed his plea to not guilty.
Moussaoui’s
standby counsel, whom he earlier dismissed, were asked by Brinkema to
prepare a defense in case she revokes Moussaoui's status as his own
lawyer.
Jury
selection in the case is set to begin at the end of September.
