PARIS,
May 7, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) - Zacarias Moussaoui continues to
command world attention days after a US
court sentenced him to life in
prison over his minor role in the 9/11 attacks.
Many
are still seeking an answer to the perplexing question of what has
really turned this once-carefree youth into an extremist.
Born
in May 1968 in south-west France, Moussaoui used to complain to his
brother Abd-Samad of racial discrimination.
He
believed his Moroccan Muslim roots were preventing him from achieving
his ambitions.
Moussaoui
was even rejected by his French girlfriend's family as "a dirty
Arab".
A
US jury ruled that the 37-year-old Frenchman should be jailed for life
without parole -- and rejected the death penalty -- for his role in
the 9/11 attacks conspiracy.
He
is expected to go to the super-maximum-security prison in Florence,
Colorado, where a number of other Al-Qaeda followers are serving life
terms.
The
court has been told that Moussaoui had a "violent and
unstable" childhood in France and spent time in orphanages.
The
family also had a history of mental illness with two sisters suffering
schizophrenia and the boxer father heavily sedated in a psychiatric
hospital.
Racial
France
 |
|
Moussaoui repeatedly complained of racial discrimination over his faith and black complexion. (Reuters)
|
Aicha
el-Wafi, Moussaoui's mother, had opened fire on racist France.
"My
son is going to be buried alive because France didn't dare to irritate
the Americans," she told a news conference in her attorney's
office in Paris.
"I
wish France had said that this French citizen should have been judged
on what he did and not on what he said, not because he is
Arabic," she said.
el-Wafi
charged that France "preferred to give an Arab to please them,
for them to have a trial for 9/11, even though my son doesn't have
anything to do with 9/11."
When
asked what has turned Moussaoui to a self-confessed Al-Qaeda plotter,
she said the French educational system discriminated against her
forcing him into vocational education.
The
mother also recalled that her son was always called names over his
black complexion.
A
Sorbonne research released last year by the French Observatory Against
Racism found that Arab names and dark complexion represent an obstacle
to jobseekers.
The
"Discrimination at Workplace" research said that the
organization sent 325 CVs of competitive applicants, who only differ
in names and origin, to find later that the opportunity for North
African applicants to get a job is five times less than natives.
The
accidental electrocution of two youths fleeing police in
Clichy-sous-Bois outside Paris last year ignited pent up frustrations
among young men, many of North African origin, at racism,
unemployment, marginalization and mistreatment by police.
British
Connection
Another
major catalyst in the radicalization of Moussaoui was his visit to
and stay in Britain.
The
family traces the great change in Moussaoui's life to the moment the
23-year-old arrived in Britain in 1992, to attend a business studies
course at South Bank University.
"I
would say that England is responsible for many things because it
allowed this fever to spread around the country," his mother told
the Canadian television channel CBC.
"These
young people go to England, and then they scream hatred and vengeance
in front of mosques. They let the fever spread."
When
he first went to London Moussaoui's only aim was to improve his
English and further his education.
He
enrolled at South Bank University where he studied for an MA in
International Business Studies.
Moussaoui
started attending Brixton mosque and was quickly drawn into a group of
young extremists, including the "shoe bomber" and former
mugger, Richard Reid.
He
moved into a flat in Brixton which he shared with David Cortellier,
who was later convicted in France of assisting terrorism.
Increasingly
at odds with the moderate religious elders in Brixton, the group moved
to Finsbury Park mosque, where they listened to the radical
outpourings of Abu Hamza, who received in February a seven-year term
for inciting murder and race hatred.
Moussaoui
took a training course in Afghanistan in 1995 and then went to
Chechnya.
By
1998 he was back in Afghanistan and then returned to London.
He
left Britain and enrolled in an American flight school in February
2001, where he was to learn how to fly planes.
Moussaoui
himself underlined the importance of his haunting French experience
when refusing a proposal by his lawyer to seek his return to serve out
his sentence in a French prison.
"I
would agree to be transferred to any country in the world except
France."
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