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Judge grants Moussaoui access to key detainee
From Phil Hirschkorn
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- A federal judge has decided that Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person publicly charged in the U.S. in connection with the September 11 terrorist attacks, is allowed access to one of the alleged facilitators of that attack. U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema made the decision, an important legal victory for the defense, at a closed-door hearing on Thursday, a government source familiar with the ruling said. The defendant, who is representing himself and has repeatedly motioned for access to Ramzi bin al-Shibh, was not present for the hearing, but two of the attorneys appointed to assist him were, as were two federal prosecutors handling the case. The judge's order is sealed and won't take effect immediately. The government plans to appeal the ruling to the U.S Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit, in Richmond, the source said. Moussaoui's trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection at the end of May. Brinkema has twice consented to postponements of the trial, originally slated for last September. The first postponement, for two months, came after Moussaoui and his attorneys pleaded for more time to study the voluminous evidence in the case. The second postponement, for six months, came after bin al-Shibh's capture in Karachi last September, and the government consented to it. As his own lawyer, Moussaoui would normally be entitled to examine any evidence or depose witnesses that may assist with his defense. But in this case, like terrorism trials before it, much evidence has been gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies, and no one without proper security clearance, such as defense attorneys but not defendants, can look at it. Bin al-Shibh is one of the potential witnesses in military custody at undisclosed locations and undergoing interrogation. Moussaoui, 34, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, faces the death penalty for allegedly conspiring with the hijackers who commandeered four planes that crashed into the World Trade Center's towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing about 3,000 people. Moussaoui has admitted belonging to al Qaeda, the Islamic terrorist group behind Sept. 11, and swearing allegiance to its leader, Osama bin Laden. Bin al-Shibh is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Moussaoui case, who allegedly spent time in London with Moussaoui in December 2000 and wired him approximately $14,000 in August 2001, days before Moussaoui enrolled in a Minnesota flight school. Authorities have said bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni national who belonged to the al Qaeda cell in Hamburg, Germany, was a roommate of lead hijacker Mohammed Atta and two other hijackers, and allegedly played a major role in planning the attacks. Moussaoui has suggested in motions that bin al-Shibh may have information that could exonerate him. Moussaoui's relations with a quartet of Virginia-based defense attorneys are estranged. He sought their removal from the case last year, but Brinkema ordered them to prepare for trial as "standby counsel" should Moussaoui need their advice or should they need to relieve him. Moussaoui is detained in solitary confinement at the Alexandria federal jail, where he has special room to prepare for trial and store the voluminous documents in the case. Only one week ago, federal marshals hooked up Moussaoui's jailhouse computer to the private Web site created by standby counsel to analyze trial evidence. Moussaoui has no access to the jail's law library and is prohibited from using the telephone, except to talk with family members, and then, an FBI agent monitors the conversation.
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