|
911 evidence barred from moussaoui trial Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20031003_151.htmlhttp://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20031003_151.html
9-11 Evidence Barred From Moussaoui Trial
Judge Bars U.S. From Seeking Death Penalty for Moussaoui, or Using Evidence Linking Him to 9-11 Attacks
The Associated Press
ALEXANDRIA, Va. Oct. 3 — Prosecutors will need an appeals court or military tribunal to restore the heart of their case against Zacarias Moussaoui, now that a judge has banned from the al-Qaida loyalist's trial evidence related to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Exacting punishment for disobeying her orders, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema on Thursday barred the government from introducing any "evidence or argument that the defendant was involved in, or had knowledge of" the suicide hijackings.
She also eliminated the death penalty in the only U.S. case spawned by Sept. 11, thereby knocking out some of the government's most poignant evidence planned for the trial: photographs of victims and the cockpit voice recordings from United Flight 93, the jetliner that crashed in Shanksville, Pa.
For months, the government has argued it could win a conviction against Moussaoui by proving his role in a broad al-Qaida conspiracy, without showing he was part of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed more than 3,000 people in Pennsylvania, at New York's World Trade Center and at the Pentagon.
The judge essentially told the government Thursday to go ahead and try, because its refusal to make available three al-Qaida witnesses in U.S. custody meant prosecutors had forfeited the right to present Sept. 11 evidence. That's because Moussaoui won't have the opportunity to call witnesses who might have supported his contention that he was not part of the aircraft hijacking plot, she concluded.
Brinkema was responding to government defiance of her rulings in January and August, which granted Moussaoui the right to question the prisoners through a satellite connection. Their testimony also could have been used during his trial.
Frank Dunham Jr., one of the court-appointed lawyers representing Moussaoui's interests while he serves as his own lawyer, issued a statement that said the government was now relieved of a major burden.
"The government has said before the dispute that access to these witnesses put it to a ... choice of compromising national security or allowing an accused terrorist to go free. Today's opinion allows the government to avoid that dilemma entirely."
The government basically has three options. It could:
Ask the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., to restore the prosecution's full case.
Move the trial from a civilian court to a military tribunal, where rules might help the prosecution.
Proceed in Brinkema's court without the Sept. 11 evidence.
Robert Precht, assistant dean for public service at the University of Michigan Law School, predicted the government would lose an appeal to restore its Sept. 11 evidence.
He said if the appellate judges overturned the ruling, the district judge almost certainly would take the more draconian step she rejected Thursday, dismissal of the charges.
A dismissal likely would trigger another government appeal, "and that hot potato would be tossed back" to the appeals court.
Precht, a defense lawyer in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case, said the appellate judges probably would not want continuing pretrial appeals in a case that's already nearly two years old.
Soon after the ruling, U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty rejected the option of proceeding without the Sept. 11 evidence. "The interests of justice require that the government have the opportunity to prove the full scope of the conspiracy alleged in the indictment, which included the brutal attacks on Sept. 11, 2001," he said.
Attorney General John Ashcroft so far has turned down the tribunal, asserting the Justice Department could prosecute terrorism cases in civilian courts.
Other experts, however, said that with major constitutional roadblocks in the way, this is the time to transfer the 35-year-old French citizen to military control.
"If this is not a guy who should be tried by military commission, then who is?" said David Rivkin, a Washington lawyer and conservative commentator.
If the government does get its Sept. 11 evidence restored, "it makes it more likely more prosecutions will land in civilian court," said Andrew McBride, a former federal prosecutor in the Alexandria, Va., courthouse where Moussaoui is being prosecuted. "If they lose, I think it'll be pretty clear that they will put people like Moussaoui in military tribunals where the same rules don't apply."
Michael Greenberger, a counterterrorism expert and former senior official in the Justice Department during the Clinton administration, said, "I think they're very worried about taking this case to a military tribunal."
After hitting obstacles in a civilian court, "Do they say: 'I'm now going to go a court where I can do unconstitutional things?'" he said.
Brinkema, for her part, clearly weighed in on behalf of a civilian trial, saying "this case can be resolved in an open and public forum."
She indicated her decision not to dismiss the case was largely predicated on keeping the case in a civilian court.
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
|
|
