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Moussaoui praises bin Laden in court documents

Zacarias Moussaoui

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Accused September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui admitted being in Afghanistan and called Osama bin Laden "my father in jihad," but denied any connection to last year's terrorist attacks in a court document unsealed Monday.

The bin Laden references appeared in one of the 12 handwritten motions Moussaoui filed last week after his re-arraignment in U.S. District Court in Virginia, where Moussaoui's trial is scheduled to begin in three months.

Moussaoui is charged with six conspiracy counts related to terrorism, aircraft piracy, destruction of an aircraft, using weapons of mass destruction, property destruction and the murder of U.S. employees. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Moussaoui has rejected his court-appointed public defenders and is representing himself. He filed five more motions Monday that remain sealed.

In his motion opposing the classification of his case as complex, Moussaoui labeled the government's view -- that the September 11 attacks were orchestrated by bin Laden and his al Qaeda network -- mere "hypothesis" and "speculation."

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"Namely, that September 11 is an Osama bin Laden operation," Moussaoui wrote. "Whether or not it is an operation of my brother in Islam and my brother in jihad has not been proven," he wrote.

Moussaoui noted that "nobody has been indicted for the actual attack." He is the first person publicly charged in the conspiracy to crash commercial airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which killed more than 3,000 people.

"It will be enough for the government to prove that I was in Afghanistan (which I stipulate, by the way) to convict me," Moussaoui wrote.

The indictment alleges that Moussaoui underwent weapons and explosives training in al Qaeda camps in 1998. Moussaoui's document does not disclose when he was in Afghanistan or what he was doing there.

"There is no link between me and the presumed hijackers," Moussaoui wrote, denying a connection to the 19 men and questioning their alleged connection to bin Laden. "May Allah protect him," Moussaoui wrote twice.

"So I am a mujahideen, if Allah accept me," Moussaoui continued. "I am a terrorist in your eyes (as terrorism is like beauty, it is in the eyes of the beholder). But it does not mean that I took part in September 11."

Prosecutors: 9/11 hijackers were never under surveillance

A persistent claim by Moussaoui in his motions and in court is that the U.S. government knows he is innocent, because it had him under surveillance after he arrived in the United States in February 2001. He called the FBI and the CIA his alibi.

However, prosecutors disclosed on Monday that neither Moussaoui nor the 19 hijackers were ever put under surveillance in the United States.

"The U.S. government did not conduct electronic or physical surveillance of the defendant before his arrest on August 16, 2001," prosecutors said in their documents.

Prosecutors said that as far as they knew, no other country placed Moussaoui under surveillance, including Britain, Moussaoui's primary residence since 1992.

Moussaoui, 34, a French national, has asserted that his London residence was searched by British police after the August 1998 al Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which he said offers some proof of his innocence.

"We are unaware of any information received from the British, or from any

other foreign government, before August 16, 2001, that the defendant was linked to terrorism," prosecutors said.

French intelligence sources have told CNN that after Moussaoui's arrest they informed the United States that he had associated in London with a radical Muslim cleric known to recruit for al Qaeda, and that Moussaoui had trained in Afghanistan.

"I must be able to investigate the case abroad," Moussaoui wrote. He said he needs to communicate with legislative and judicial entities in Britain, France, Germany and Malaysia and "compel their governments to disclose publicly their cooperation with the FBI" in monitoring him.

The U.S. government opposed Moussaoui's request to travel.

"While the defendant's ability to conduct an investigation may be limited by his pro se status [representing himself], that is a dilemma of his own making and a burden he knowingly and voluntarily accepted," prosecutors wrote.

Moussaoui seeks CIA information

In his latest motions regarding the required pre-trial sharing of evidence, or discovery, Moussaoui also requested any information the CIA had collected about him, including possible eavesdropping on two satellite telephone calls he claims to have made in 2000 from the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, Afghanistan to Azerbaijan.

"Contrary to the implicit assumption of the defendant, the prosecution is not required to conduct a scorched earth search throughout the files of every agency in the United States government," prosecutors wrote. "Nor is the defendant entitled to demand an answer to every interrogatory that tickles his curiosity."

Moussaoui also said he suspects that phone calls dating back to December 1999 that he made from London to Muslim military leaders in Chechnya were monitored. A close childhood friend of Moussaoui's was killed while fighting in Chechnya, and investigators believe he traveled there with that friend.

Although prosecutors said Moussaoui did not have a right to know whether he or the hijackers were on investigators' radar, they disclosed that "The U.S. government did not have any of the 19 under surveillance while they were in the U.S."

After his arrival in the United States, Moussaoui underwent flight training in Norman, Oklahoma, though he never obtained a pilot's license. Moussaoui later aroused suspicions at another flight school in Eagan, Minnesota in August 2001, when he sought training on Boeing 747 flight simulators and was reported to law enforcement.

Moussaoui was initially detained on an immigration violation and was behind bars on September 11.