source
Moussaoui gets life in jail
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) - Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in a U.S. court in connection with September 11, should spend his life in prison instead of being executed for his role in the hijacked airliner attacks, a jury decided on Wednesday.
"America you lost!" Moussaoui shouted as he left the courtroom after hearing the verdict. He clapped his hands and yelled, "I won!"
The 37-year-old French citizen of Moroccan descent will be formally sentenced on Thursday.
The verdict was read by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema at the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, not far from the Pentagon, the site of one of the 2001 attacks. It was read simultaneously before television cameras outside the courthouse by spokesman Edward Adams.
At the White House, President George W. Bush hailed the sentencing of the man he said "openly rejoiced" at the deaths on September 11 and said "evil" had been vanquished.
"The end of this trial represents the end of this case, but not an end to the fight against terror," Bush said. "...And we can be confident. Our cause is right, and the outcome is certain: Justice will be served. Evil will not have the final say."
In the courtroom, Moussaoui sat praying silently as Brinkema read the verdict. He appeared to relax after she read that the jurors did not unanimously agree that a sentence of death should be imposed.
The jury did not find that Moussaoui's actions resulted in the deaths of about 3,000 people on that September day -- a central part of the government's demand for the death penalty.
"No jurors found that the execution of Zacarias Moussaoui will create a martyr for radical Muslim fundamentalists and to al Qaeda in particular," Adams said.
"Three jurors found that Zacarias Moussaoui's role in the 9/11 operation, if any, was minor," he said.
Nine jurors also gave weight to Moussaoui's unstable early childhood and dysfunctional family life, part of a defense presented by lawyers on their client's behalf.
The government, which had demanded the death penalty, has seen other high-profile cases in its war on terrorism deflate.
Anti-death penalty activists said the case showed U.S. juries were less willing to impose capital punishment than in the past, even in a case of such wrenching emotion. They said the number of death penalties imposed by juries had fallen dramatically since the late 1990s and continued to drop year by year.
Federal prosecutors had asked the jury to sentence Moussaoui to death, arguing his failure to tell law enforcement officers who detained him about the upcoming September 11 plot was tantamount to carrying out the attacks himself.
But jurors, who spent about 41 hours deliberating before reaching the verdict, were divided on whether he should be executed.
Earlier this month the same jury of nine men and three women found Moussaoui eligible for the death penalty. The jury verdict followed a second, two-week phase of the sentencing trial.
Moussaoui was arrested three weeks before the September 11 attacks and said he was meant to pilot a fifth airplane into the White House as part of the plot.
He pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy, three of which carried a maximum death sentence.
During his trial, Moussaoui said he had no remorse for the September 11 attacks in which about 3,000 people died.
