Ali
03-07-2006, 04:22 AM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4781106.stm
The prosecution wants to portray Moussaoui as a key figure in the 9/11 attacks, who knowingly sent innocent people to their deaths by failing to tell all he knew to US agents when he was arrested in August 2001.
The defence by contrast is presenting Moussaoui as a fringe figure, inconsequential to the attacks.
As the jurors and Moussaoui listened intently, prosecutor Rob Spencer spoke for 45 minutes outlining the US government case. Mr Spencer vividly recalled 11 September 2001 as a day which dawned clear, crisp and blue.
He described how office workers at the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon sat down at their desks, and passengers on the United and American Airlines flights settled down to their coffee and newspapers as flight attendants made their first rounds.
A day which started with such promise ended so horribly, said Mr Spencer, describing it as a defining moment for a generation. Killers were among us that day, he said dramatically, and one of the conspirators is among us still - at which point he gestured to Moussaoui.
Describing him as a proud and unrepentant terrorist, Mr Spencer said Moussaoui's role in the 9/11 attacks was to lie, to allow his al-Qaeda brothers to go forward with their plot.
This point was made repeatedly - that the US government could have stopped at least some of the 9/11 attacks if Moussaoui had only told the truth when he was arrested in August 2001.
Moussaoui was arrested on immigration charges after the instructor at the flying school he was attending in Minnesota became suspicious of his behaviour - but Moussaoui told federal agents he was a tourist who wanted to learn to fly for personal enjoyment. and for this, he will die.
The prosecution wants to portray Moussaoui as a key figure in the 9/11 attacks, who knowingly sent innocent people to their deaths by failing to tell all he knew to US agents when he was arrested in August 2001.
The defence by contrast is presenting Moussaoui as a fringe figure, inconsequential to the attacks.
As the jurors and Moussaoui listened intently, prosecutor Rob Spencer spoke for 45 minutes outlining the US government case. Mr Spencer vividly recalled 11 September 2001 as a day which dawned clear, crisp and blue.
He described how office workers at the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon sat down at their desks, and passengers on the United and American Airlines flights settled down to their coffee and newspapers as flight attendants made their first rounds.
A day which started with such promise ended so horribly, said Mr Spencer, describing it as a defining moment for a generation. Killers were among us that day, he said dramatically, and one of the conspirators is among us still - at which point he gestured to Moussaoui.
Describing him as a proud and unrepentant terrorist, Mr Spencer said Moussaoui's role in the 9/11 attacks was to lie, to allow his al-Qaeda brothers to go forward with their plot.
This point was made repeatedly - that the US government could have stopped at least some of the 9/11 attacks if Moussaoui had only told the truth when he was arrested in August 2001.
Moussaoui was arrested on immigration charges after the instructor at the flying school he was attending in Minnesota became suspicious of his behaviour - but Moussaoui told federal agents he was a tourist who wanted to learn to fly for personal enjoyment. and for this, he will die.