A US federal jury on Monday found al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui eligible to be executed, deciding that his lies to FBI agents led directly to at least one death in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"You'll never get my blood, God curse you all," Moussaoui said after the verdict was read.
He had sat in his chair and prayed silently as the verdict was read.
Moussaoui now faces a second phase of his sentencing trial to determine if he actually will be put to death. That phase is to begin tomorrow morning.
The nine men and three women of the jury will hear testimony on whether the 37-year-old Frenchman, who was in jail at the time of the attack, deserves to be executed for his role.
The testimony will include families of Sept. 11 victims who will describe the human impact of the al-Qaeda mission that flew four jetliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
Court-appointed defense lawyers, whom Moussaoui has tried to reject, will summon experts to suggest he is schizophrenic after an impoverished childhood during which he faced racism in France over his Moroccan ancestry.
"By this verdict, the jury has found that death is a possible sentence in this case," court spokesman Ed Adams said.
On the key question before the jurors, they answered yes on whether at least one victim died on Sept. 11 as a direct result of Moussaoui's actions.
Had the jury voted against his eligibility for the death penalty, Moussaoui would have been sentenced to life in prison.
Rosemary Dillard, whose husband Eddie died in the attacks, said she felt a sense of vindication from the verdict.
"This man has no soul, has no conscience," she said. "What else could we ask for but this?"
Abraham Scott, who lost his wife Janice Marie on Sept. 11, said: "I describe him like a dog with rabies, one that cannot be cured. The only cure is to put him or her to death."
But Scott said he blamed the government "for not acting on certain indicators that could have prevented the [Sept. 11 attacks] from happening."
The jury began weighing Moussaoui's fate last Wednesday. During deliberations, jurors asked only one question, seeking a definition of "weapon of mass destruction." One of the three convictions for which Moussaoui could be executed is conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.
The jurors were told that a plane used as a missile qualifies as a weapon of mass destruction.
Moussaoui pleaded guilty in April last year to conspiring with al-Qaeda to hijack aircraft and other crimes. At the time, he denied being part of the Sept. 11 plot, saying he was being trained for a separate attack, but he changed his story when he took the stand and claimed he was to have flown a hijacked airliner into the White House that day.
Moussaoui was in jail at the time of the attacks, but prosecutors argue federal agents would have been able to thwart or at least minimize the attacks if he had revealed his al-Qaeda membership and his terrorist plans when he was arrested and interrogated by federal agents.
The court proceeding took just nine minutes. US District Judge Leonie Brinkema said the jury was unanimous on all four aspects of each of the three counts against Moussaoui.
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