Moussaoui trial date sought
Defendant is only person in U.S. facing 9/11-related charges
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Federal prosecutors are asking the judge in the long-delayed case against admitted al Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui to begin the trial in six months.
Moussaoui is the only person publicly charged in the United States in connection with the September 11, 2001, attacks. He admits belonging to al Qaeda and swearing allegiance to its leader, Osama bin Laden. But he contends that he played neither a planning nor participatory role in the terrorist plot.
In a motion filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, prosecutors asked Judge Leonie Brinkema to schedule four weeks of jury selection starting April 25. Under that motion, opening statements would begin May 31, the day after Memorial Day.
"There is no reason to delay setting a date for trial," the motion said.
Two weeks ago, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond denied Moussaoui's motion for a rehearing on issues that have stalled the case for nearly two years.
The full court refused to reconsider a three-judge panel's earlier decision allowing the government to pursue the death penalty against Moussaoui and to introduce physical evidence of the September 11 attacks. (Full story)
Defense attorneys said they plan an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"We are hopeful the court will not set a trial date until all the appellate issues are resolved," said Moussaoui attorney Ed MacMahon.
A 36-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent, Moussaoui has been in custody for more than three years. He was arrested in August 2001 after arousing suspicion at a Minnesota flight school and was initially held for overstaying his visa.
He is not charged with murder in any of the 2,873 deaths of the September 11 attacks in which al Qaeda hijackers crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
Prosecutors say he trained at a paramilitary camp in Afghanistan in 1998.
Moussaoui contends that statements by high-level operatives of al Qaeda would exonerate him of the most serious allegations in six terrorism conspiracy counts against him.
The appellate judges and Brinkema have concluded in their published opinions that statements by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the reported mastermind of the plot; Ramzi Binalshibh, one of its suspected coordinators; and accused plot financier Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi could help Moussaoui's defense that he had no advanced knowledge of the plot.
Access to those detainees has created a legal logjam, pitting the government's power to wage war against the rights normally afforded to criminal defendants, such as the Sixth Amendment right to call available, exculpatory witnesses.
After three rounds of arguments over the last year and a half, the appeals court determined that Moussaoui's attorneys could not directly question the detainees but could submit written questions for them to answer to their military interrogators.
The Bush administration considers the detainees "enemy combatants" and argued that allowing the long-distance secure satellite depositions originally ordered by Brinkema would undermine the ability to gather intelligence to prevent future attacks.
Prosecutors disclosed Wednesday that court-ordered summaries need to be written based on 11 detainee statements as a substitution for testimony.
Brinkema has agreed to arrange for closed-circuit television transmission of the trial for families of September 11 victims at federal courthouses in Manhattan and Long Island, New York, and in Newark, New Jersey, and Washington.
Prosecutors want her to add viewing sites in Boston, Massachusetts; Los Angeles, California; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
CNN's Phil Hirschkorn and Kelli Arena contributed to this report.
