Defense OKs Moussaoui trial delay
Prosecutors appealing his access to al Qaeda detainee
From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN New York Bureau
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Zacarias Moussaoui is the only person publicly charged in the United States in connection with the attacks.
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ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Defense attorneys assisting September 11 conspiracy suspect Zacarias Moussaoui said Monday that they will go along with prosecutors' efforts to suspend pretrial proceedings and postpone the trial to September while another court considers a government appeal.
If the government loses that appeal, the case could be moved out of the criminal justice system and into a military tribunal.
Moussaoui, 34, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, faces the death penalty if convicted of conspiring with the 19 hijackers who commandeered the four planes that crashed into the World Trade Center's twin towers, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing about 3,000 people. He is representing himself, but the judge has ordered four defense attorneys to act as standby counsel.
The defense attorneys filed their reply Monday to the government's motion, filed Friday, requesting that U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema "stay the trial and all pretrial proceedings" to permit the government to appeal her order granting Moussaoui access to Ramzi Binalshibh, a member of the Hamburg, Germany, al Qaeda cell who says he engineered the attacks of September 11, 2001.
"We have no objection to a stay in any of the trial proceedings until the government's appeal is concluded," the defense attorneys wrote. "Hopefully, the court will reschedule so as to begin jury selection on a date that will not have us selecting a jury or trying the case in proximity to a 9/11 anniversary."
The twice-delayed trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection at the end of May in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.
If the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the ruling allowing Moussaoui access to Binalshibh, the Bush administration is likely to block that access by declaring Moussaoui an "enemy combatant" and possibly moving his case to a more restrictive military tribunal.
Moussaoui is the only person publicly charged in the United States in connection with the attacks.
Moussaoui has suggested that Binalshibh's testimony could help exonerate him. Moussaoui denies any role in the plot, but he has acknowledged belonging to al Qaeda and has sworn allegiance to its leader, Osama bin Laden.
Binalshibh, a 30-year-old Yemeni, reportedly spent time in London, England, with Moussaoui in December 2000 and wired him about $14,000 in August 2001, days before Moussaoui enrolled in a flight school in Minnesota.
Binalshibh, named in the Moussaoui indictment as an unindicted co-conspirator, was a roommate of the suspected lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta. He was captured last year in Pakistan and is being detained at an undisclosed location.
