'You lost, I won,' Moussaoui tells America as jury spares 9/11 plotter death penalty
There will no doubt be great consternation on the right that a jury has decided not to put Zacarias Moussaoui to death for his role in the 9-11 massacres in New York.
It is certainly an unexpected outcome.
The jury's decision came as a surprise to legal commentators, who had expected that the magnitude of the toll from the September 11 attacks would sway the jury towards a death sentence.
It was thought that the highly emotional content of the trial, which included painful testimony from dozens of relatives of those killed on that day and the dramatic cockpit recording of Flight 93, which crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, made execution a near certainty.
The decision is also bound to disappoint the Bush administration, which had manoeuvred for the trial to be held in Virginia because the state allows the death penalty and because the court house is only a few miles away from the Pentagon, which was also attacked on that day.
But, in the detailed verdict read out yesterday, it appeared that the jury did not accept the prosecution's main argument - that Moussaoui, who was already in jail at the time of the September 11 attacks, had caused the deaths of 3,000 Americans because he misled FBI investigators, and so prevented them from thwarting the al-Qaida plot to strike a blow to the heart of the United States.
Instead, the jury concluded that Moussaoui, a French citizen who came to the US to learn to fly jet airliners, played a minor role, if any at all, in the attacks.
The decision was praised by Rosemary Dillard, who lost her husband in the attacks, and who said she was proud that the jury had risen above raw emotion provoked by Moussaoui's courtroom outbursts. "He's a bad man, but this is a fair society and I think all the families agree that the judgment of the jury shows that we treat terrorists with respect no matter how disrespectful they are, and that means a lot," she said.
I must say that I am in total agreement with Rosemary Dillard. In this instance, the US jury got it completely right.
An eye for an eye is no way for a modern society to function. Speaking as a European, I find the death penalty repugnant and am delighted that, on this occasion, it was rejected.
If killing people is wrong, and I've yet to find anyone who argues the opposite, then it is wrong whether done by an individual or the state.
As he left the courtroom, Moussaoui shouted: "America, you lost. I won."
He's wrong. On this occasion America won, by proving her nobility.
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