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Moussaoui attorneys dispute hijacking link
From Phil Hirschkorn (CNN)
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Attorneys assisting Zacarias Moussaoui in his defense in the first U.S. criminal trial stemming from the September 11 terrorist attacks said evidence allegedly linking Moussaoui to the lead pilot-hijacker of United Flight 93 is incomplete at best and should not be accepted "at face value." Prosecutors revealed the alleged link in a motion urging U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema to allow them to play the cockpit voice recording from the doomed flight at Moussaoui's trial. The motion said a business card that belonged to alleged lead hijacker Ziad Jarrah was found in the Shanksville, Pennsylvania, field where the plane crashed. Written on the back of the card was a telephone number that prosecutors claim Moussaoui had called. Moussaoui's legal team disputed that link Wednesday. "The government does not identify the business card, how it was determined that a card found at the Pennsylvania crash site belonged to Jarrah to the exclusion of others, has not identified the phone number or when Mr. Moussaoui allegedly dialed the same number," the defense attorneys wrote. Brinkema had asked prosecutors to explain the cockpit voice recorder's relevance when she ruled two weeks ago that the tape seemed to have "marginal evidentiary value" in Moussaoui's trial and agreed with defense lawyers that the recording posed "unfair prejudice to the defendant," who is not accused of killing anyone. "This thin reed allegedly linking Mr. Moussaoui to Jarrah is so speculative and unsupported by the record that the court cannot base its ruling on the cockpit voice recorder on such an incomplete or flimsy, but certainly inflammatory proffer," the defense attorneys wrote. "If there is more to this, let's see it," they said.
Moussaoui, 34, a French national of Morrocan descent, is representing himself, but Brinkema appointed a team of five attorneys to help him navigate the U.S. legal system. Moussaoui faces six conspiracy counts for his alleged involvement with al Qaeda, the Islamic terrorist group behind the September 11 hijackings of four planes by Jarrah and 18 other men. Though Moussaoui is not accused of participating directly in the attacks -- he was jailed a month before on an immigration violation -- he is accused of preparing to commit such terrorist acts by training at U.S. flight schools and at military camps in Afghanistan. Defense attorneys argued that if, for example, the phone number was that of a flight school, there would be "no probative value" in that. Moussaoui underwent pilot training in Oklahoma and Minnesota, while Jarrah trained in Florida. On September 11, 2001, the first three hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in northern Virginia, killing nearly 3,000 people. Flight 93, commandeered by Jarrah and three other men, went down after a passenger and crew uprising prevented the terrorists from steering the San Francisco-bound flight toward Washington, D.C. The struggle between the four hijackers and passengers that caused the San Francisco, California-bound flight to crash can be heard on the recording, according to family members who were allowed to hear the tape. Prosecutors said one of Jarrah's flight school classmates would be available to testify that one of the voices on the tape is Jarrah's. No cockpit voice recorders were recovered from American Flight 11 and United Flight 175, which crashed into the Trade Center, or American Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. Jury selection in Moussaoui's trial is scheduled to begin in December, with opening statements in January.
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"This thin reed allegedly linking Mr. Moussaoui to Jarrah is so speculative and unsupported by the record that the court cannot base its ruling on the cockpit voice recorder on such an incomplete or flimsy, but certainly inflammatory proffer."
