ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House.
Moussaoui’s testimony on his own behalf stunned the courtroom. His account was in stark contrast to Moussaoui’s previous statements in which he said the White House attack was to come later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik imprisoned on earlier terrorist convictions.
On Dec. 22, 2001, Reid was subdued by passengers when he attempted to detonate a bomb in his shoe aboard American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami. There were 197 people on board. The plane was diverted to Boston, where it landed safely.
Moussaoui told the court he knew the World Trade Center attack was coming and that he lied to investigators when arrested in August 2001 because he wanted it to happen.
“That’s correct,” Moussaoui said when the prosecution asked if that was why he misled them. The statement was key to the government’s case that the attacks might have been averted if Moussaoui had been more cooperative following his arrest.
He told the court he knew the attacks were coming some time after August 2001 and bought a radio so he could hear them unfold.
Specifically, he said he knew the World Trade Center was going to be attacked, but asserted he was not part of that specific plot and didn’t know the details.
Nineteen men pulled off the Sept. 11 attacks on New York in Washington in the worst act of terrorism ever on U.S. soil.
“I had knowledge that the Twin Towers would be hit,” Moussaoui said. “I didn’t know the details of this.”
Asked by his lawyer why he signed his guilty plea in April as “the 20th hijacker,” Moussaoui replied: “Because everybody used to refer to me as the 20th hijacker and it was a bit of fun.”
Before Moussaoui took the stand, his lawyers made a last attempt to stop him from testifying, but failed. Defense attorney Gerald Zerkin argued that his client would not be a competent witness because he has contempt for the court, only recognizes Islamic law and therefore “the affirmation he undertakes would be meaningless.”
Moussaoui at first denied he was to have been a fifth hijack pilot Sept. 11 but under cross examination spoke of the plan that would have him attack the White House. He said Reid was the only person he knew for sure would have been on that mission, but others were discussed.
The 19 terrorists on Sept. 11 hijacked and crashed four airliners, killing nearly 3,000 people in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on the planes.
About his guilty plea, he said: “I took a pen. I signed it.”
He said he talked with an al-Qaida official in 1999 about why a 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center failed to bring the towers down. He said “was asked in the same period for the first time if I want to be a suicide pilot and I declined.”
He told the court it was “difficult to say” whether he was involved in the planning for 9/11. At some point, he said, he received training on what to do if at the controls of a hijacked plane if a fighter aircraft approached.
Just before Moussaoui took the stand, the court heard testimony that two months before the attacks that a CIA deputy chief waited in vain for permission to tell the FBI about a “very high interest” al-Qaida operative who became one of the hijackers.
The official, a senior figure in the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit, said he sought authorization on July 13, 2001, to send information to the FBI but got no response for 10 days, then asked again.
As it turned out, the information on Khalid al-Mihdhar did not reach the FBI until late August. At the time, CIA officers needed permission from a special unit before passing certain intelligence on to the FBI.
The official was identified only as John. His written testimony was read into the record.
“John’s” testimony was part of the defense’s case that federal authorities missed multiple opportunities to catch hijackers and perhaps thwart the 9/11 plot.
His testimony included an e-mail sent by FBI supervisor Michael Maltbie discussing Moussaoui but playing down his terrorist connections. Maltbie’s e-mail said “there’s no indication that (Moussaoui) had plans for any nefarious activity.”
He sent that e-mail to the CIA even after receiving a lengthy memo from the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui and suspected him of being a terrorist with plans to hijack aircraft.
Former FBI agent Erik Rigler, the first defense witness, was questioned about a Justice Department report that he said criticized the CIA for keeping intelligence about two known al-Qaida terrorist operatives in the United States from the FBI for more than a year.
Under cross-examination from the prosecution, he acknowledged the report did not link the pair specifically to a civil aviation plot. But he said the report’s thrust was about their preparations for what turned out to be the 9/11 attacks, and their ability to elude federal agents.
“That’s why they came here,” he said. “They didn’t come for Disney.”
The two were among the 19 suicide hijackers on 9/11. The report said they had been placed on a watch list in Thailand in January 2000, but not on a U.S. list until August 2001.
Prosecutors argue that Moussaoui, a French citizen, thwarted a prime opportunity to track down the 9/11 hijackers and possibly unravel the plot when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations and lied to the FBI about his al-Qaida membership and plans to hijack a plane.
Had Moussaoui confessed, the FBI could have pursued leads that would have led them to most of the hijackers, government witnesses have testified.
To win the death penalty, prosecutors must first prove that Moussaoui’s actions specifically, his lies were directly responsible for at least one death on Sept. 11.
If they fail, Moussaoui would get life in prison.
Associated Press Writer Michael J. Sniffen contributed to this report
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