A US jury on Wednesday sentenced a conspirator of the Sept. 11 terror attacks to a life-long jail-term for his role in the deadliest terrorist incident in US history, without possibility to get released.
Zacarias Moussaoui, 37, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent, is the first person convicted in the United States for his role in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001.
Though already behind bars on the day of terror attacks, he pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy last year, in the only case brought in the United States in connection with the deadly attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Three of the six conspiracy counts made him eligible for the death penalty: committing acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, destroying aircraft and using planes as weapons of mass destruction.
The purpose of the eight-week trial in a court in Alexandria, Virginia, was to determine whether Moussaoui deserves to die. Jurors first found that Moussaoui's lies to federal investigators a month before the attacks furthered al Qaeda's plot and directly resulted in at least some 9/11 deaths, making the defendant eligible for execution.
In the trial's second phase, jurors weighed factors such as the heinousness of the crime and its impact on the victims' families against Moussaoui's background and mental health.
About 30 family members of 9/11 victims, along with attack survivors and emergency responders, described how their lives have been changed. One after the other, widows and widowers, fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and friends shared heart-wrenching stories of loss.
Perhaps the trial's most dramatic moment came when prosecutors played the cockpit voice recorder from Flight 93. It made clear passengers' efforts to retake control of the aircraft before the hijackers crashed it outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Defense attorneys focused on Moussaoui's mental health, calling experts who diagnosed him as a delusional paranoid schizophrenic. The jury heard that Moussaoui's troubled family history includes two sisters and an abusive father who suffer from mental illness.
On the witness stand, Moussaoui displayed a complete lack of remorse for the 9/11 deaths, saying he was sorry only that the attacks weren't more lethal.
His attorneys asked the jury not to give him the death penalty and make him an al Qaeda martyr.
(Xinhua News Agency May 4, 2006)
