Getty ALEXANDRIA, : Attorney Charles Freeman (L) arrives at the US District courthouse 25 June 2002 in Alexandria, VA. Freeman was asked by Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the 11 September 2001 attacks, to help him question a government witness familiar with the origins of the 11 September hijackers and to participate in his second arraignment. AFP PHOTO/Manny CENETA (Photo credit should read MANNY CENETA/AFP via Getty Images)
Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man convicted in the U.S. for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said in a letter to a Virginia Federal Court that he’s renounced plot mastermind Osama Bin Laden, his militant Islamic organization, al-Qaida, and terrorism.
The 52-year-old is also trying to recruit attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Alan Dershowitz to be his new council, and he has contacted the American Civil Liberties Union. According to court records, he is looking for help “with potential counsel who he wants to represent him in an effort to vacate his guilty plea.” Giuliani was the mayor of New York City when 19 men hijacked four planes and crashed two of them into the city’s iconic twin towers.
Moussaoui’s main beef though is the Special Administrative Measures, or SAM, that were mandated as part of his 2006 conviction. In his handwritten letters to the court, he rails against the FBI insisting they “cannot be judge and executioner.” Moussaoui says that due to the stricter confines of his sentence he is unable to correspond with the attorneys or the ACLU.
Moussaoui’s Conviction as Part of the 9/11 Attacks Deem Him a Continual Danger
GettyA view through a broken out office window shows the wreckage of the World Trade Center 25 September 2001 in New York.
Special Administrative Measures severely limit inmates’ ability to have contact with the outside world. According to the United States Department of Justice, SAM is recommended by the courts to the Bureau of Prisons when “there is a substantial risk that a prisoner’s communications or contacts with persons could result in death or serious bodily injury to persons, or substantial damage to property that would entail the risk of death or serious bodily injury to persons.”
Since 1996, the Attorney General has had the authority to recommend SAM for certain inmates. However, human rights groups consider the measure a kind of torture worse than just solitary confinement.
Allard K. Lowenstein with the Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School in collaboration with the Center for Constitutional Rights wrote a research paper called The Darkest Corner on the measures saying, “SAMs are the darkest corner of the U.S. federal prison system, combining the brutality and isolation of maximum-security units with additional restrictions that deny individuals almost any connection to the human world.”
A federal judge denied Moussaoui’s appeal to lift some of the extra security measures, saying it was up to the Bureau of Prisons. Moussaoui wrote another letter that included a slew of accusations about the FBI and CIA being involved in cover-ups with the Saudi Government. He signed the letter, “Slave of Allah,” and “Enemy Combatant.”
The BOP did grant modifications to the Special Administrative Measures in letters filed on May 4, saying Moussaoui is free to contact Giuliani and Dershowitz but the FBI will read all correspondence coming and going. Under SAM, prisons “prohibit social contact with anyone except for a few immediate family members, and heavily regulate even those contacts,” according to the writers of The Darkest Corner. Inmates under SAM orders often do not get attorney/client privilege.
Moussaoui Called Bin Laden a ‘Useful Idiot’ & Warned Young Muslims Against Fake Jihadis
GettyFrench-born Moroccan Zacarias Moussaoui is pictured in this undated Sherburne County (MN) Sheriffs Office photo. Moussaoui, who investigators say was supposed to be the 20th hijacker in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S., has argued in court that he should be allowed access to senior al-Qaida operatives for his defense. The judge in the case agreed and ordered the government to make the witnesses available, but federal prosecutors have refused, saying the move would endanger national security. Prosecutors, in documents released September 25, 2003, urged the judge to dismiss the charges against Moussaoui so that they can appeal the order for access to the al-Qaida officials.
In his initial letter to the court filed on April 6, Moussaoui asks for the SAM modifications and called Bin Laden a “useful idiot.” He wrote:
I denounce, repudiate Usama Bin Laden as a useful idiot of the CIA/Saudi. I also proclaim unequivocally my opposition to any terrorist action, attack, propaganda against the U.S. and western countries and their citizens. I denounce the so-called jihadist Bin Laden, al-Qaida, Isis, etc. I denounce terrorism of this Jihad as being against the spirit and [indiscernible] of Islam. I want to warn young Muslims against the deception and the manipulation of these fake jihadis and terrorism against the US is against Allah’s Word.
According to the DOJ, Moussaoui’s role in the 9/11 attacks included training at al-Qaida affiliated Khalden Camp in Afghanistan in 1998, going to flight school in Oklahoma in May 2001, and then moving to Minnesota where he enrolled in flight classes in August of 2001. He inquired about crop-dusting chemicals, bought knives, various flight manuals, and a handheld aviation radio in the months before the attacks. He also had been in communication with the other attackers.
The 9/11 Commission Report says that the Minnesota flight instructor became suspicious of Moussaoui because he had very little training yet was wanting to learn to fly big jets while having no intention of getting a pilot’s license. The flight instructor contacted law enforcement about his suspicions.
He was interviewed by federal agents on August 17, 2001, and told them he was only in the states for flight lessons. Still, he was arrested by the INS on immigration charges and was sitting in jail on Sept. 11, 2001.
Moussaoui has been coined the “20th hijacker” in the media — the one who would’ve been on a plane that morning with the 19 other extremists who attacked America, it is believed, had he not been in jail.
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