WASHINGTON – Zacarias Moussaoui has notified the government that he intends to plead guilty to his alleged role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and could enter the plea as early as this week if a judge finds him mentally competent, sources familiar with the case told The Washington Post on Monday.
Moussaoui is charged with conspiring with al-Qaida in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Moussaoui’s plan to plead guilty comes over his attorneys’ objections and still has several obstacles. The French citizen, the only person charged in the United States in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, tried to plead guilty in 2002, claiming an intimate knowledge of the plane hijackings. But he rescinded his plea a week later.
His mental state has been an issue in the case ever since, and U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Va., is scheduled to meet with Moussaoui this week to determine if he has the mental capacity to enter a plea now, the sources said.
Report defends holding detainees
A new report appears to buttress the U.S. military’s claim that it should be allowed to run Camp Delta at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without outside intervention because the camp has become “the single best repository of al-Qaida information.” Navy Lt. Cmdr. Flex Plexico said the report was cleared for release to be used “in response to general questions from the public about the operations of the joint task force.”
Officials want to wire the Earth
Imagine the planet wired for a nearly continuous readout on its vital signs, shared by all. That’s the essence of a White House plan announced Monday. The new Strategic Plan for the U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System envisions linking nearly 60 nations within a decade to gather and share information from satellites, ocean buoys, weather stations and other surface and airborne instruments.
N. Carolina: Soldier said to laugh
Weeks before launching a deadly grenade attack on his comrades, Sgt. Hasan Akbar attended a camp showing of the movie “Apocalypse Now” and laughed at a scene of U.S. troops in a helicopter being hit by a grenade, a soldier testified Monday. The testimony came as Akbar’s lawyers opened their defense at his court-martial at Fort Bragg. Akbar is accused of allegedly ambushing fellow soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division in their tents at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait in March 2003, during the opening days of the Iraq war. An Army captain and an Air Force major were killed.
Virginia: School bus crash kills girl
A school bus carrying children to an elementary school in Arlington collided with a trash truck Monday, killing one child – Lilibeth Gomez, 9, a third-grader – and injuring 14 others. Authorities did not say who was at fault.
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