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Terror suspect faces Wednesday arraignment

Zacarias Moussaoui faces six counts of conspiracy in connection with the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The first suspect indicted in direct connection with the September 11 attacks is expected to plead not guilty to conspiracy charges when he is arraigned Wednesday in federal court.

Zacarias Moussaoui, a 33-year-old French citizen of Moroccan descent, is scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia. He is expected to enter not guilty pleas to the charges.

Moussaoui is charged with conspiring with accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network to murder the more than 3,300 people that died when hijacked jetliners crashed in New York, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon.

He is charged with six counts of conspiracy involving murder, committing acts of terrorism, committing aircraft piracy, destroying aircraft, destroying property and using weapons of mass destruction.

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Four of those charges carry a maximum sentence of the death penalty, while the remaining two charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty in this case. They have until March to do so.

Wednesday's hearing -- scheduled to start at 9 a.m. -- is a few miles from the Pentagon, hit by one of four hijacked planes in September.

Moussaoui was not on any of the September 11 flights, but the Justice Department said in its indictment that Moussaoui engaged in the "same preparation for murder" as the 19 hijackers.

His mother, Aicha El Wafi, has flown to the Washington area and said recently that she would fight to spare her son from the death penalty. Her lawyer said Tuesday that he did not know whether she would attend the arraignment.

Moussaoui was arrested in Minnesota a month before the September 11 attacks on immigration charges after he aroused suspicion by trying to buy time on a jumbo jet flight simulator at a flight school. He was in custody when the attacks occurred.

U.S. officials are investigating whether Moussaoui trained in the same al Qaeda camp as Richard Reid, the man accused of trying to ignite a bomb in his tennis shoes on a December 22 flight from Paris to Miami.

The two men both attended the same London mosque, though officials there never saw them together.