Reuters Moussaoui to Enter Plea on Sept. 11 Charges WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Zacarias Moussaoui, the first man to be
indicted on charges involving the Sept. 11 attacks, is due in court
on Wednesday to enter a plea on charges of conspiring with Osama bin
Laden and others to murder thousands of people. Moussaoui, a 33-year-old French citizen of Moroccan descent, will
be arraigned in a U.S. federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on
charges set out in a Dec. 11 indictment. U.S. District Judge Leonie
Brinkema may set a date for the trial to begin. Moussaoui's court-appointed lawyers have not said how their
client will plead, but Moussaoui has previously said he was innocent
and his mother maintained that claim after arriving in the United
States last week. A grand jury in Virginia last month returned an indictment
against Moussaoui on charges of conspiring with Saudi-born dissident
bin Laden and his al Qaeda network to kill thousands of people on
Sept. 11. The six-count indictment includes four charges that carry a
maximum punishment of the death penalty. The other two carry a
maximum sentence of life in prison. In the indictment Moussaoui is accused of conspiring with the 19
hijackers who crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the
Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, killing nearly 3,300
people. ``This is the first indictment that has been brought against the
terrorists of Sept. 11,'' said Susan Dryden, spokeswoman for the
Justice Department. ``Zacarias Moussaoui is alleged to have been an
active participant in the Sept. 11 conspiracy, alongside the 19
terrorists who carried it out.'' The indictment charged Moussaoui with conspiracy to commit acts
of terrorism, to commit aircraft piracy, to destroy aircraft, to use
weapons of mass destruction, to murder U.S. employees and to destroy
property. U.S. officials have said Moussaoui may have been preparing to be
a member of one of the hijacking teams. The plane that crashed into
the Pennsylvania field had only four hijackers on board while the
other three planes had five hijackers. Moussaoui was arrested in Minnesota on Aug. 16 on immigration
violations after he aroused suspicion by trying to buy time on a
jumbo jet flight simulator at a flight school. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Moussaoui was arrested as a material
witness and sent to New York for questioning, where he had been held
in custody before being sent to Virginia to face trial. Brinkema, the judge who will hear the case, issued an order last
week setting out a timeline for various aspects of the trial. She
said the U.S. government has until March 29 to say whether it plans
to seek the death penalty for Moussaoui and set an April 4 date for
oral arguments on the issue. She also said the parties involved should be prepared to discuss
proposed dates for pretrial hearings and the trial at the
arraignment. Moussaoui's mother, Aicha el-Wafi, arrived in Virginia last
Thursday and told reporters her son was innocent and urged the
government not to make him into a scapegoat. Copyright © 2002. Reuters. All rights reserved. saved from url: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-attack-moussaoui.html
January 1 , 2002
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