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Window mind moussaoui { July 25 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59718-2002Jul24.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59718-2002Jul24.html
A Window on The Mind of Moussaoui
Alleged 9/11 Conspirator's Court Papers Form A Creative, Rambling Work
By Philip Kennicott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 25, 2002; Page C01
Whether or not alleged Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui appears in federal court in Alexandria today -- a hearing at which he has vowed he will plead guilty -- he has produced a substantial paper trail. In dozens of motions filed with the court in past weeks, he has written a kind of autobiographical tract written in a rough legalese. It is a document of a mind and a man facing death and afraid of dishonor, sometimes rambling and discursive, yet with threads of logic and flashes of brilliance.
In short bursts of three, four and five pages, he was written letters to the world, decrying injustice, pleading for aid, and warning of God's wrath. They are not exclusively the megaphone for propaganda that many worried would emerge from his efforts to represent himself against an indictment charging that he was to have participated in last year's terrorist attacks.
Rather, they show an angry man focused on what he feels is American hypocrisy and determined to hold this country to its stated principles of freedom and justice. Even as observers speculate about Moussaoui's mental stability, his writings suggest that he was developing a legal strategy, if not to save himself then to call to account those who he feels are abusing him.
His pleadings, sometimes filed at a rate of five or six a day, are handwritten. They are not always grammatical and his spellings are frequently phonetic. At times he reverts to spellings -- Americain for American -- that remind the reader that he grew up in France as a French citizen of Moroccan descent. The pleadings are filled with exhortations to Allah and repetitive diatribes.
And yet, they're also playful at times, especially when tweaking or goading Judge Leonie Brinkema or his court-appointed standby lawyers. He asks rhetorical questions, makes sarcastic asides and sometimes indulges in an almost whimsical irony. Furious with Judge Brinkema, he writes, "Keep going Brinkema but don't forget it's the landing that is difficult. (Trust me, I am a pilot.)" Much of that passage, and many others, are written in all capital letters.
Although he feels cut off from the world (barred from seeing anyone but lawyers and family), he hasn't lost touch with it. He knows of his celebrity as the only person facing the death penalty for crimes committed in the alleged conspiracy. He fears for his safety: "Alexandria Jail is constantly having new Deputy, it will be easy to claim that a distraught Sept 11 family member gain employment and shoot me." He's afraid that a stun belt will be used to subdue him in court, or that an incident will be manufactured as a pretext for killing him.
One of the few consistent elements in his pleadings is the heading. He demonstrates a basic familiarity with the legal format, labeling each filing with the heading "Zacarias Moussaoui V. US." But under his own name he consistently writes "Muslim" and under the initials "US" he writes "Godless Government." That dichotomy reveals the degree to which he views his case as a religious persecution, rather than a contest within a secular court system. He suggests that a Muslim cannot expect justice from a non-Muslim court, and seems to reference passages in the Koran that discourage friendship with, and the acceptance of aid from, unbelievers. Those passages, like any scripture, are open to multiple interpretations, but Moussaoui's own relation to scripture is essentially literal: "The Coran, which is the Most beautiful book of Allah, unchanged for 1400 years."
His understanding of the trial entirely in religious terms colors his expectation of fairness at every turn, including the debate about his sanity. He is dismissive of any effort to give him legal assistance, referring to court-appointed defenders as "death lawyers." In a July 11 pleading, he turns the question of his mental competence around and diagnoses Judge Brinkema's sanity from his own point of view:
"Mental State examination . . .
"Acute symptom of Islamaphobia with complex of gender inferiority"
"Diagnostic impressions
"Legal pathological killer instinct with ego [boosting] dementia to become supreme"
"Conclusion and Recommendations
"Immediate Psychiatric hospitalization to specialist Unit. I propose UBL Treatment Center (of course UBL stand for unique best location)."
His use of the initials UBL, for Usama bin Laden, is only one example of an almost mystical relation to language. He finds patterns in language, initials that can stand for multiple words, or phonetic connections that seem, to him, to suggest philosophical similarities. UBL isn't only "unique best location" and Usama bin Laden, but also "United Behind the Lion." The FBI is also the Fascist Bureau of Information. The initials SAM, which stand for Special Administrative Measures (restrictions that prevent him from outside communication that might compromise security), also reveal "Secret Assassination of Moussaoui" and are, of course, a reference to the government, Uncle Sam.
He also enjoys politically charged neologisms. Rather like Rush Limbaugh's use of terms such as "feminazi," Moussaoui invents the word "demoncratic" to dismiss the idea of democratic justice. On July 3, he says, "I am learning the hard way that every word count in this life." It's a statement that has at least two meanings: He acknowledges that, in a legal context, he must parse his requests with care. But he also declares a view of language that was once common in literature from Homer to Freud. Epithets, allusions and etymological similarities have profound, perhaps even magical, meaning for him.
Taken out of context, Moussaoui's individual requests seem erratic, at best. In an effort to prove that the FBI had him under surveillance long before his August arrest, he asked for a forensics expert to examine an electric fan that he claimed had been bugged by federal agents. He claimed that the fan had been left "on my car" and that he had unsuspectingly taken possession of it. The FBI, in his account, could claim he had stolen the fan, willingly taking possession of the bug and thus, whatever it revealed would be admissible in court. In pleading after pleading, his demand to see the fan becomes obsessive, the request shortened, and syntactically garbled into something that sounds manic and delusional: "Where is my Bug FAN!" and, "The FBI must give me the bug fan."
As his pleadings are routinely dismissed as repetitive, frivolous or moot, his anger grows, and becomes focused on Brinkema. After declaring that "The Fascist Bureau of Inquisition with the Special Services of Furor Brinkema" are preparing him for the "GAZ CHAMBER," he traces over the initial letters of Special Services, so they appear in boldface. Thereafter Brinkema is SS Brinkema. He also precedes her name in some pleadings with DJ, for Death Judge.
His references to her allude, at times, to discomfort about her gender and power (evident from his "mental" evaluation of her as suffering from gender inferiority). He says, "She is a master of deception deceiving everybody with her Grandnany Look." He calls her the "She Clinton," and says she is "Without a doubt Pro Choice . . . The Choice for the killing of Zacarias Moussaoui." His use of "pro-choice" is one of several attempts to play with and invert political labels. He also mocks Brinkema's "compassionate conservatism, namely pretending to want to protect me."
Brinkema's power frustrates him, even as he knows that, as a judge, she "is not above the law." He speculates that her goal is to become a member of the Supreme Court, and is suspicious of her efforts to prevent him from sabotaging his own defense. "On one hand SHE will be held as a caring compassionate human and on the other she will be held as a dutiful patriotic judge. SHE HAVE IT ALL."
As he simultaneously engages and dismisses the justice of a "godless" government, and as his distrust of Brinkema grows, he feels increasingly trapped. His efforts to force foreign governments to admit their alleged collusion with the FBI come to nothing. Letters to the outside world are intercepted. He is prevented from working with his requested legal adviser, the Muslim lawyer Charles Freeman from Texas, who late yesterday made his first formal effort to assist Moussaoui; and his pleadings are sometimes held under seal or redacted. "So I am still in my cave," he writes.
He seems aware that his anger could be used against him in an effort to have him declared mentally incapable of defending himself. He refers consistently to a conspiracy to have him judged unfit, and his fear of being declared insane is striking. Being declared insane, he feels, would lead immediately to his execution. In legal terms, it might be the one thing that can save him, but it would also cost him an argument that he considers a strong defense. He asserts that he could not have been one of the hijackers because that would mean he intended to commit suicide. And, he lectures, "The right to life is a fundamental right in Islam. Everybody should know that Islam does condemn suicide."
As proof that he never intended to commit suicide, and thus was never part of the plot to fly planes into buildings, he cites his efforts to get married. He wants the FBI to reveal that he approached an imam in Norman, Okla., and asked for his assistance with finding a wife. "Of course the FBI did not want to declassified this interview because it confirm that I intended (and still intend) to have a family. A jury might find a bit difficult to believe that even a Muslim fundamentalist will marry one day and kill himself the next."
But as he tries to prove his interest in having a family, he hedges on what Islam says about defending one's own life. "Islam is very flescible on thing you can do to protect your life -- For example everybody know that alcool is forbidden in Islam but if you are dying of thirst in the desert Islam allow you to drink whiskey as long as there is no water." He doesn't address the issue of what he means by "life," whether it refers to this life on Earth, or life in the hereafter, though in several passages he refers to making his final account before Allah.
His argument about suicide is a rare attempt to construct a defense that would argue for his innocence. Often he strikes a fatalistic note about disproving the charges against him. He makes no effort to hide his admiration for Osama Bin Laden, at one point writing the cryptic question, "Who is the main tiger?" which he answers, upside down, on the bottom of the page: "USAMA." In one pleading, he speculates that the prosecution will connect him to Bin Laden. ("Because if for example the prosecution were to prove to the jury that for example you serve food in a guest house of Bin Laden, and supposedly are guilty . . . .") His fear, in this pleading, is that a jury won't distinguish between his admiration for Bin Laden and alleged participation in the hijacking plot. And in one of his most revealing statements, he suggests that he is bound by a sense of personal honor to avoid any prosecutorial attempt to catch him in a lie: "Basically a jury might spare the death penalty to their enmy but they will not to a coward liar."
His attempt to connect the FBI to a 9/11 coverup scheme is a constant, but it grew more insistent as he became aware of FBI agent Coleen Rowley's criticism of agency brass. He refers to her as the "whistle blower," as someone the FBI is afraid of, and as someone who can prove his claim that FBI knew of his activities all along. In a pleading filed July 9, he says, "I must be able to speak on: why Coleen Rowley . . . should testify to prove the FBI COVER UP."
Although often vague about the details of that coverup, Moussaoui says "the FBI facilitated the movement of the 19 hijacker in the US [and] will kill Zacarias Moussaoui to silence him." It seems paradoxical that Moussaoui, even while distancing himself from the 19 hijackers, would goad the FBI for information that could connect him to the plot. But he insists repeatedly that he was not one of the 19, that he "was not in 19 martyrs team."
Strictly speaking, he wasn't one of the 19 hijackers. He was arrested in Minnesota on immigration charges almost a month before the Sept. 11 attacks. Between intending to do something -- whether it's murder or marriage -- and actually doing it, lies an existential gulf. Sitting in prison for almost a year, Moussaoui, still a young man of 34, is aware of at least two roads not taken: that of marriage and family and life, and that of martyrdom. It's not clear to what degree he regrets the former and feels guilty about the latter. The difference between Moussaoui and the terrorists of Sept. 11 is that he has, for now, time to ponder these questions.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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