A US federal judge is trying to turn the courtroom misbehavior of confessed al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui into a useful tool for picking the jury that will decide whether he is put to death or imprisoned for life.
Five hundred potential jurors got a taste on Monday of what a sentencing trial involving Moussaoui might involve: He was kicked out of court four times in a single day as the court began a month of jury selection.
Last April, he pleaded guilty to conspiring with al-Qaeda to fly planes into US buildings, but he claimed to know nothing of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and was training for a later attack on the White House.
The potential jurors came to court in four separate groups. The short, bearded Frenchman in the prison jump suit interrupted the first session just as it began -- to announce "I'm al-Qaeda" and disavow the lawyers appointed by the court to represent him.
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema warned Moussaoui it wasn't his time to speak and, when he kept going, had marshals escort him from the room.
He left without resistance, but declared, "This trial is a circus."
Court observers wondered whether Brinkema was going to allow Moussaoui, who disrupted many pretrial proceedings, back in the courtroom. She decided to bring him back for all three sessions, each of which played out in nearly identical fashion. In later sessions, he also vowed to "take the stand to tell the whole truth about my involvement."
Brinkema told the first panel of jurors: "If any of you feel that that outburst or the way he conducted himself might affect the way in which you would go about judging this case, you need to clearly put that statement on the jury questionnaire." She repeated that admonition to the other three panels.
"She turned that to some constructive use," said Carl Tobias, law professor at the University of Richmond. "Once it happened, it probably made sense to make sure every group saw the same behavior -- and he cooperated."
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the
RSS