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Unheeded warnings before Sept. 11 could turn case in Moussaoui's
favour
By Associated Press
11/11/05 -- -- WASHINGTON (AP) - The fact that the U.S. government
overlooked numerous warning signs in the run-up to the Sept. 11
attacks is an old story that is being used in a new way in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. It could save his life.
With the admitted al-Qaida conspirator facing a death penalty trial
early next year, the judge framed a key question in a recent
closed-door hearing: Even if Moussaoui had told the FBI everything
that he knew, would that have enabled the government to avert the
2001 terrorist strikes? The question by U.S. District Judge Leonie
Brinkema was released this week in a transcript from a hearing that
occurred Oct. 12.
Federal prosecutors say Moussaoui's failure to tell the FBI what he
knew resulted in 3,000 deaths.
When he was in custody before the attacks, Moussaoui denied being a
member of a terrorist organization and denied that he was taking
pilot training to kill Americans. Moussaoui told the FBI he was
training as a pilot purely for his personal enjoyment and that after
completing his training, he intended to visit New York City and
Washington, D.C., as a tourist.
In April, Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiring with the Sept. 11
hijackers to kill Americans and declared that Osama bin Laden had
personally chosen him to fly a plane into the White House in a later
attack.
The upcoming penalty phase has Moussaoui's lawyers poring through
material from past investigations for evidence of what the
government knew before Sept. 11.
For example, the month before the terrorist strikes, CIA Director
George Tenet was briefed about Moussaoui's arrest in Minnesota.
"Your honour ... he was given a slide show," lawyer Edward MacMahon
said of Tenet. "In August of 2001, Tenet was given a presentation
called Islamic Extremist or Islamic Fundamentalist Learns to Fly."
According to the newly released transcript of the Oct. 12 hearing,
MacMahon also told the judge that inside the U.S. government before
Sept. 11, "we know that there were other requests for information .
. . to people outside of the normal chain . . . about Moussaoui" and
two suspected terrorist operatives who later were among the 19 Sept.
11 hijackers: Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.
The CIA failed to put al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi on government watch
lists or to let the FBI know that the future Sept. 11 hijackers had
entered the United States in early 2000.
"We need to know almost frozen in time what was known by the
government before the planes hit the World Trade Center," MacMahon
told the judge.
Copyright © 2005 Canadian Press
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