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."
MONEY GRAB: People were rushing to collect bills scattered on the ground after the plane transporting money crashed, which an official said hindered rescue efforts A cargo plane carrying money on Friday crashed near Bolivia’s capital, damaging about a dozen vehicles on highway, scattering bills on the ground and leaving at least 15 people dead and others injured, an official said. Bolivian Minister of Defense Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 plane was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency when it “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, before ending up in a nearby field. Firefighters managed to put out the flames that engulfed the aircraft. Fire chief Pavel Tovar said at least 15 people died, but
LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER: By showing Ju-ae’s ability to handle a weapon, the photos ‘suggest she is indeed receiving training as a successor,’ an academic said North Korea on Saturday released a rare image of leader Kim Jong-un’s teenage daughter firing a rifle at a shooting range, adding to speculation that she is being groomed as his successor. Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, has long been seen as the next in line to rule the secretive, nuclear-armed state, and took part in a string of recent high-profile outings, including last week’s military parade marking the closing stages of North Korea’s key party congress. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a photo of Ju-ae shooting a rifle at an outdoor shooting range, peering through a rifle scope
South Korea would soon no longer be one of the few countries where Google Maps does not work properly, after its security-conscious government reversed a two-decade stance to approve the export of high-precision map data to overseas servers. The approval was made “on the condition that strict security requirements are met,” the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. Those conditions include blurring military and other sensitive security-related facilities, as well as restricting longitude and latitude coordinates for South Korean territory on products such as Google Maps and Google Earth, it said. The decision is expected to hurt Naver and Kakao
India and Canada yesterday reached a string of agreements, including on critical mineral cooperation and a “landmark” uranium supply deal for nuclear power, the countries’ leaders said in New Delhi. The pacts, which also covered technology and promoting the use of renewable energy, were announced after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed a fresh start in the relationship between their nations. “Our ties have seen a new energy, mutual trust and positivity,” Modi said. Carney’s visit is a key step forward in ties that effectively collapsed in 2023 after Ottawa accused New Delhi
RSS