|
||||||||
  |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mother of 9/11 defendant limited from communicating with son
From Phil Hirschkorn
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- The mother of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only alleged September 11 conspirator slated for a criminal trial in the United States, is being prevented from speaking or seeing her son as much as she would like, according to attorneys assisting Moussaoui in his defense. Aisha el Wafi has been told that she may no longer receive calls from the Alexandria Detention Center on her cellular telephone in France, where she lives, the attorneys said in the motion filed with U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema. That is how she spoke to her son last month, they said. The defense attorneys said the FBI now requires her to receive the scheduled, biweekly calls from her son on a secure hard line and in the presence of U.S. officials. The FBI has suggested she receive the calls at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, which is 500 miles from her home in the French town of Narbonne. Moussaoui's attorneys said requiring Mrs. el Wafi to make such an expensive and time-consuming journey is unreasonable. When she declined to make the trip last week, her scheduled call with her son was canceled. "It appears the FBI is unable to reach an acceptable resolution such that Mrs. el Wafi can have regular contact with her son under reasonable conditions," the attorneys wrote. The FBI would not comment on the matter. Under federal prison regulations applied to terrorism suspects, Moussaoui is restricted from speaking to anyone outside of jail except attorneys and immediate family members. All of his calls are monitored. Mrs. el Wafi is planning to visit her son in the Alexandria jail during the week of October 28. But federal authorities have said they want to limit her to two or three one-hour visits while she is here. "This is a total of three hours of visit time between Mr. Moussaoui and his mother when she will have traveled a distance of 3,000 miles at great cost to see her son," the defense attorneys wrote. "Counsel request the court's intervention with the FBI to set more generous visit times and occasions." Mrs. el Wafi has visited her son in jail only once before, in July, when she was here to attend a court hearing. Moussaoui, 34, a French citizen of Moroccan heritage, faces a potential death penalty for six terror conspiracy charges, stemming from his alleged connections to the Sept. 11 hijackers and his admitted membership in al Qaeda, the Islamic militant group behind the attacks that killed 3,000 people. Since June, Moussaoui has acted as his attorney, but a team of five court-appointed lawyers, referred to as "standby counsel," are assisting him in trial preparation.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
