NewsMine — 9-11 — suspects — moussaoui — Viewing Item

Moussaoui now says he lied and never met atta Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000082&sid=a3zFYCsPuatw&refer=canada http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000082&sid=a3zFYCsPuatw&refer=canada Moussaoui Seeks to Withdraw Guilty Plea in Sept. 11 (Update1) May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Zacarias Moussaoui, who was sentenced to life in prison last week for conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks, sought permission today to withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial in an effort to prove he wasn't part of the plot. ``I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial even with Americans as jurors,'' Moussaoui said in court papers filed in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. He said his claim during the trial that he was a member of the plot to crash planes into buildings on Sept. 11 was a ``complete fabrication.'' His defense lawyers said in a footnote to today's filing that they realize defendants are prohibited from withdrawing a plea after sentencing. They said they were filing the request ``given their problematic relationship with Moussaoui, of which the court is well aware.'' Moussaoui, 37, the only person charged in the U.S. in connection with the attacks, pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in April 2005 and was sentenced to life in prison on May 4. Prosecutors had sought a death sentence in the two-month trial. Moussaoui testified against his lawyers' advice that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid planned to hijack a jetliner and fly it into the White House. In today's court filing, Moussaoui said he never met hijacker pilot Mohamed Atta and that while he ``may have seen a few of the other hijackers'' he didn't know about their operation. He said he was ``extremely surprised'' when the jury in Virginia didn't sentence him to death. `No Chance' ``There's no chance that the judge would grant that motion,'' said Georgetown University law professor Louis Michael Seidman, a criminal-law expert. ``Judges don't look with favor'' on requests to withdraw a guilty plea after sentencing, he said. One of Moussaoui's defense lawyers, Kenneth Troccoli, said in an interview the team is responsible for representing him unless an appeal is filed, at which point ``new counsel will be appointed to represent him for purposes of that appeal.'' Troccoli said he doesn't know whether Moussaoui would try to represent himself again, as he did before the sentencing trial. At the sentencing, Judge Leonie Brinkema told Moussaoui that he ``will never again get a chance to speak,'' calling it an ``appropriate ending'' to the trial. Moussaoui's filing today said that after ``reading how the jurors set aside their emotions and disgust for me and focused on the law and the evidence that was presented during the trial, I came to understand that the jury process was more complex than I assumed.'' Last Updated: May 8, 2006 17:31 EDT

government-case-failure-2002-2003 government-case-success-2004-2006 Families of 911 victims defend moussaoui { May 4 2006 } I1068 2002Jul25 [jpg] Juries convinced mousaui lied about involvement Jurors said moussaoui role was minor if any at all Jury concludes moussoui had limited knowledge of 911 { May 3 2006 } Moussaoui confessed as 20th hijacker for fun { March 27 2006 } Moussaoui now says he lied and never met atta Moussaoui tells america you lost { April 2006 } Moussaoui [jpg] Victims families think moussaui is fake culprit { May 5 2006 } Files Listed: 10

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