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Moussaoui requests access to al Qaeda captivesDenies role in 9/11 plot, but admits belonging to al Qaeda
From Kelli Arena/CNN Washington Bureau
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- In a move that casts further uncertainty on his pending criminal trial, Zacarias Moussaoui has told the judge presiding over his case that he would like to call two top al Qaeda captives as defense witnesses. Moussaoui, the only person publicly charged by the United States in connection to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has asked for access to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged planner of the plot, and Mohamed al-Hawsawi, an alleged paymaster of the 19 hijackers who crashed passenger jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon in northern Virginia, and a field in rural Pennsylvania, killing more than 3,000 people. Meanwhile, CNN has confirmed that during his interrogations, Mohammed told investigators that Moussaoui was not selected to carry out the September 11 plot, but a separate attack. Moussaoui, 34, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, denies a role in the September 11 plot, but he admits belonging to al Qaeda -- the Islamic terrorist group behind the plot -- and swears allegiance to its leader, Saudi exile Osama bin Laden. The government is pursuing the death penalty for Moussaoui. Mohammed, 39, a Pakistani national born in Kuwait, and al-Hawsawi, 34, a Saudi, were captured together on February 28 in Pakistan and are being detained at an undisclosed location outside the United States. Citing national security, the government has strictly denied any terrorism suspects or attorneys any access to such top al Qaeda captives; nor does the government want them to testify in open court. In recent handwritten motions unsealed Friday, Moussaoui argued that Mohammed and al-Hawsawi must be made to appear at his "top circus trial." If not, Moussaoui said, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema should book him a first class ticket on a 747 "to go out of your filthy United Sodom and Gomorrah States of America." "I will be delighted to come back one day to blow myself into your new WTC, if ever you rebuild it," he continued in his heavily redacted motion. Moussaoui is representing himself, but a team of court-appointed attorneys are assigned as "standby counsel" to assist him. Brinkema postponed the trial for a third time in the last month to allow prosecutors time to challenge her ruling that would grant Moussaoui access to another organizer of the September 11 attacks, Ramzi Binalshibh. Prosecutors appealed the ruling last week to 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. Last choice?Government sources tell CNN that bin al-Shibh has told his interrogators that Moussaoui would have been tapped to play a role in September 11 attacks only if it were absolutely necessary, and probably not until the last minute. Binalshibh, a member of the al Qaeda hijackers' cell based in Hamburg, Germany, was captured in Pakistan last September. "I must be allow (sic) to speak to Ramzi, so I can defeat the conspiracy to murder Zacarias Moussaoui," the defendant wrote in another motion unsealed Friday, though it was filed days after Binalshibh was caught. "The U.S. government is hiding Ramzi Binalshibh to torture him and to prevent him to speak the truth," he said. Moussaoui called both Binalshibh and Abu Zubaydah, 30, a Palestinian, a key bin Laden lieutenant captured in March 2002, his "prime witness," in separate motions. "Abu Zubaydah must talk to the world about September 11," Moussaoui wrote. Binalshibh and al-Hawsawi are named throughout the Moussaoui indictment. Binalshibh, from Germany, allegedly wired Moussaoui $14,000 in August 2001, days before Moussaoui enrolled in a Minnesota flight school. Al-Hawsawi, from the United Arab Emirates, allegedly shipped to Florida credit cards that were used by the hijackers, who wired him back thousands of unspent dollars days before the attacks. Neither Mohamed or Zubaydah are mentioned in the Moussaoui indictment. The Bush administration is also weighing whether to declare Moussaoui an "enemy combatant" to make him eligible for a military tribunal. The newly unsealed motions, if granted by Brinkema, could push the Justice Department to move the case out of criminal court. Brinkema twice delayed the Moussaoui trial to accommodate defense requests for more time to review the voluminous evidence in the case.
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