April 5
NEW MEXICO:
Richardson Urges Prosecutors To Seek Death Penalty In Astorga Case
In Albuquerque, Gov. Bill Richardson has urged a prosecutor to seek the
death penalty in the case of a man accused of fatally shooting a
Bernalillo County sheriff's deputy.
Michael Paul Astorga is accused of fatally shooting Deputy James McGrane
on March 22 during a routine traffic stop. Before McGrane's death, a
warrant had been issued for Astorga in the Nov. 5 killing of Candido
Martinez, of Albuquerque.
Police in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, handed over Astorga to the FBI and
Bernalillo County authorities in El Paso, Texas, early Tuesday morning. On
Tuesday evening, Astorga -- wearing shackles and handcuffs -- was escorted
into the Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque.
Richardson said Wednesday that in rare situations, the death penalty is
the appropriate penalty.
(source: TheNewMexicoChannel.com)
CALIFORNIA:
Suspect in Elk Grove shooting rampage faces death penalty
A 28-year-old man who allegedly went on a shooting rampage through the
streets of Elk Grove was charged Monday in the murders of 2 men and
attempted murders of several others.
Aaron Norman Dunn was arraigned in a closed hearing at his bedside in UC
Davis Medical Center as he recovered from surgery on gunshot wounds
suffered during a police confrontation that ended the March 25 rampage.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Dunn, who was charged
with 2 counts of murder, 7 counts of attempted murder and special
circumstances of multiple murders and shooting from a vehicle.
Killed in the shooting spree were John Johnson, 46, and Michael John Daly,
45. Listed as victims on the attempted murder charges are Adam Wheeler,
Stephanie Cartwright, Vincent Marconi and Elk Grove police officers Tisha
Smith and Genelle Bestpitch.
The charges may change as the investigation continues, said Deputy
District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert.
Authorities said Dunn, of the Yuba City area, showed up on Laguna
Boulevard shortly before 8 p.m. high on methamphetamine and armed with a
12-gauge shotgun.
Dunn allegedly began by shooting Daly in the head while he was sitting in
a car with his wife and 2 children in front of a restaurant. Dunn then
sped away in his car but crashed down the road, continued on foot and shot
Johnson in the face outside another restaurant, authorities said. He
continued shooting, shattering the back windshield of a parked police car
and shooting a 3rd man in the back, they said.
A police officer shot Dunn when the suspect did not give up his weapon.
Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene, and Daly died Friday.
Authorities have said Dunn knew none of the victims. He reportedly was
distraught over a recent split with his wife.
Dunn's next court hearing was scheduled for April 12.
(source: Associated Press)
******************
Judge: Lethal injection hearing still on as scheduled, for now
In San Jose, a federal judge on Tuesday set aside a request by attorneys
for condemned killer Michael Morales to postpone 2 days of hearings
scheduled for next month on the constitutionality of California's lethal
injection method.
But Judge Jeremy Fogel said he would be willing to grant such an extension
if a federal magistrate determined before the hearing dates that state
prison officials need to give the defense more background information on
how executions have been conducted.
"It appears that significant disputes have arisen between the parties with
respect to the scope and duration of discovery," Fogel said. "An
appropriate resolution of plaintiff's motion is difficult without a better
understanding of the merits of these disputes."
Fogel agreed to hold the May 2-3 hearings on whether the state's 3-drug
cocktail constitutes cruel and unusual punishment after officials at San
Quentin State Prison could not comply with his order either to change the
procedure or to call off Morales' execution, which was originally
scheduled for Feb. 21.
Both state prosecutors and Morales' lawyers originally said they would be
ready to present their cases to Fogel within 3 months at the most.
Defense attorneys have since asked to have the hearings pushed back,
arguing that the state has not fully cooperated with their request for
detailed information on the training and experience of the prison
personnel who administered lethal injections in the past.
Attorney's for the state, meanwhile, reject that claim, calling the
defense requests for "overbroad and excessive."
Morales is on death row for killing 17-year-old Terri Winchell in San
Joaquin County 25 years ago. As his scheduled execution date approached,
his attorneys filed a lawsuit with Fogel arguing that Morales might feel
too much pain if the sedative he was given did not make him unconscious
before 2 other drugs - 1 to paralyze him and another to stop his heart -
were administered.
A week before the scheduled execution, Fogel recommended that California
employ 2 anesthesiologists to make sure Morales was unconscious. But the
anesthesiologists, citing ethical concerns, bowed out at the 11th hour.
Fogel then ordered a licensed medical professional, instead of a prison
staffer, to administer the injection. No specialist stepped forward and
Morales' 24-hour death warrant expired.
The state since has proposed altering the amount of the three drugs to be
used and, most significantly, said it would continually drip a sedative
into the prisoner to make sure he doesn't become conscious once the
paralyzing and heart-stopping drugs are injected.
The adequacy of the proposed lethal injection protocol is one of the
issues that will be explored at the hearings before Fogel.
The case is Morales v. Woodford, 06-219.
(source: Associated Press)
NORTH CAROLINA:
N.C. man sentenced to life, then death for killing police officer
A man convicted of murder in the death of a Boiling Spring Lakes police
officer was sentenced to death by a jury that initially recommended a life
sentence.
The Brunswick County Superior Court jury recommended the death sentence
for Darrell W. Maness, 20, in the death of Mitch Prince, 36, who was shot
to death Jan. 18, 2005, during a traffic stop on N.C. 87.
Before recommending the death sentence, however, the jury returned to the
courtroom about noon Tuesday, when a clerk announced a jury recommendation
of life without parole.
Maness's mother, Annette Tidwell, held her hands together, as if in
prayer, and embraced her daughter. The Prince family appeared stunned.
But when Judge D. Jack Hooks Jr. polled jurors, 8 appeared to favor the
death penalty and only 4 life in prison.
Hooks directed the jury to continue deliberations. He denied motions for a
mistrial sought by defense attorneys, who said the jury was tainted by
witnessing reactions in the courtroom to the life sentence recommendation.
Tidwell broke into loud sobs as the jury's recommendation of a death
sentence was announced, then quickly left the courtroom. The jury had
convicted Maness of 1st-degree murder Friday.
"What Darrell Maness is going to be receiving is light compared to what
Mitch received. Darrell's going to see his family. Darrell Maness is going
to get off light," said Pam Prince, wife of the slain officer, after the
defendant was escorted from the courtroom.
The sentencing phase of the trial lasted 2 days and included testimony
from Tidwell and other relatives, along with pleas by defense lawyers to
spare Maness.
A psychiatrist's testimony focused on Maness's attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder, marijuana addiction and details of being brought
up in Alamance County by a cocaine-addicted mother and alcoholic
grandparents.
Jurors also considered that Maness's father was serving a life term in
prison for killing a retired police officer in 1986.
Maness also was convicted of 7 felonies in connection with his actions
after Prince was shot, including firing Prince's gun at 3 other police
officers. In addition to the death penalty, he was sentenced to up to 55
additional years in prison, prosecutors said.
(source: Associated Press)
***********************************************
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
06 April 2006
UA 77/06 Death Penalty
USA (North Carolina) Willie Brown (m)
Willie Brown, aged 61, black, is scheduled to be
executed on 21 April. He was sentenced to death in
1983 for the fatal shooting of a woman, Vallerie Ann
Roberson Dixon, during the robbery of a shop where she
was working. Brown reportedly has a documented history
of mental illness, which the jurors who sentenced him
to death did not know about.
Brown's current attorneys have described how he
received poor legal representation at trial from
attorneys who had never worked on a death penalty case
before, who failed to present important mitigating
evidence to the jury which sentenced him to death, or
to contact family members and friends who were willing
to testify on his behalf. This included Brown's
documented history of serious mental illness, and the
fact that he had been beaten by his father as a child.
State records reportedly reveal that before the crime
Brown had been diagnosed several times with mental
illness including paranoid and delusional disorders,
for which he never received any treatment.
The jury at Brown's trial were instructed that they
had to agree unanimously on any mitigating
circumstances they were to find. Presented with
several mitigating circumstances, though not the
information concerning his record of mental illness or
that he had been beaten as a child by his father, they
found none. In 1988, the US Supreme Court reversed a
death sentence in Maryland on the grounds that the
sentencing jury had been bound by a similar
instruction; in 1990 it ruled, in another death
penalty case, that North Carolina's jury unanimity
requirement was unconstitutional. Following these
rulings, Brown tried to raise the issue in appeals in
his case, but was unsuccessful. Since then, other
prisoners on death row in North Carolina have
reportedly had their death sentences reversed after
appeals based on these Supreme Court rulings.
According to his present attorneys, Brown is the only
prisoner under sentence of death in North Carolina to
face execution despite the fact that his jury received
instructions that were later found unconstitutional,
and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded
that the state's refusal to hear Brown's claim was
unjust compared to these other cases.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
There is strong support for a moratorium on executions
in North Carolina because of concerns about the
fairness and reliability of the death penalty. Almost
1,100 resolutions calling for a moratorium have been
passed by town councils, private businesses, church
congregations and religious organizations, political
parties and student and community groups. Many North
Carolina newspapers have carried editorials in favour
of a moratorium on executions.
Attempts are underway by the North Carolina Coalition
for a Moratorium (which includes Amnesty
International) to encourage legislators to pass a
moratorium bill during the legislative session
beginning in May. The House of Representatives Select
Committee on Capital Punishment, which is currently
undertaking a legislative study of the death penalty,
has met three times since the last legislative session
ended in October 2005, and are preparing their report
and recommendations. The Committee's report will be
used by the Coalition in the months ahead to propose
further death penalty reforms that will narrow the
application of the death penalty and move legislators
towards a moratorium.
Since 1977, when the USA resumed judicial killing, the
US Supreme Court has provided some constitutional
protections for mentally impaired people facing the
death penalty. In 1986, in Ford v. Wainwright, the
court ruled that the execution of people who are
insane violates the US Constitution's prohibition on
"cruel and unusual punishments". A decision by the
Supreme Court in 2002 (Atkins v. Virginia) prohibited
the death penalty for people with mental retardation,
reasoning that mental retardation diminishes personal
culpability, and renders the death penalty difficult
to justify on deterrence and retribution grounds.
On March 1 2005, citing the "overwhelming weight of
international opinpinion" and "evolving standards of
decency" the Supreme Court, in Roper v. Simmons,
finally outlawed the death penalty for offenders who
were under the age of 18 at the time of their crime.
The Roper majority quoted the Atkins decision:
"Capital punishment must be limited to those offenders
who commit a narrow category of the most serious
crimes and whose extreme culpability makes them the
most deserving of execution".
Today, 122 countries are abolitionist in law or
practice, and there are strict international
safeguards applying to those countries which have not
yet abolished the death penalty. For example, the
United Nations Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of
the Rights of Those Facing the Death Penalty prohibit
the execution of "persons who have become insane". The
UN Commission on Human Rights has repeatedly called on
those countries which still retain the death penalty
not to use it against anyone suffering from a mental
disorder.
Amnesty International does not seek to excuse the
perpetrators of violent crime. However, it opposes the
death penalty in all cases. Amnesty International
believes that there is a profound inconsistency in
exempting people with mental retardation from the
death penalty while those with serious mental illness
remain exposed to it. Similarly, exempting juvenile
offenders from the death penalty because of their
diminished culpability is incongruous with executing
those suffering from serious mental illness or
impairment other than retardation.
For further information on mentally ill offenders
under sentence of death in the USA see AI's recent
report: USA: The execution of mentally ill offenders
(AMR 51/003/2006, January 2006).
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as
quickly as possible:
- expressing sympathy for the family and friends of
Vallerie Anne Roberson Dixon, explaining that you are
not seeking to condone the manner of her death or to
minimize the suffering caused;
- expressing concern at reports that Willie Brown
received poor legal representation at trial and that
his trial attorneys failed to present mitigating
evidence to the jury that sentenced him to death,
including his well-documented record of serious mental
illness and abuse at the hands of his father;
- calling on the governor to commute Willie Brown's
death sentence.
APPEALS TO:
Governor Michael F. Easley
Office of the Governor
20301 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-0301
Fax: 1 919 715 3175
1 919 733 2120
Salutation: Dear Governor
PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.
Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots
movement that promotes and defends human rights.
This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact,
including contact information and stop action date (if
applicable). Thank you for your help with this appeal.
Urgent Action Network
Amnesty International USA
PO Box 1270
Nederland CO 80466-1270
Email: uan at aiusa.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/
Phone: 303 258 1170
Fax: 303 258 7881
----------------------------------
END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL
----------------------------------
USA:
Jurors Will Relive 9/11 in Life-or-Death Case----Family members and
victims will testify about their loss. Lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui plan
to paint a picture of a mentally ill man.
When the Zacarias Moussaoui trial resumes Thursday, gone will be the
images of a shadowy world of Muslim extremists, of an FBI and CIA unable
to track their movements, of a conspiracy in which Moussaoui's role on
Sept. 11 is still unclear.
Now that a jury has found Moussaoui eligible for the death penalty, the
trial comes down to a single question: Does he live or die?
Federal prosecutors, wanting Moussaoui dead, intend next to turn Courtroom
700 over to the horror of that day 4 1/2 years ago. They hope to show
pictures of all 2,972 who perished, videos of the World Trade Center
towers afire and bodies falling, and audiotapes of desperate phone calls
to loved ones and emergency crews.
The government has designated up to 45 victims and family members to
testify about their collective loss. And they hope to contrast their
anguish with Moussaoui's boasts that America remains his enemy.
Separately, defense lawyers believe the jury might spare their client's
life if they can show he is insane. They have several mental health
professionals standing by, at least one ready to testify that Moussaoui
appears to be schizophrenic.
The defense team will also say its 37-year-old client emerged from a
tragic childhood only to fall under the spell of terrorist leaders
preaching jihad against the West.
Jurors also are likely to hear one more time from Moussaoui. He is
insistent on taking the witness stand, despite his devastating testimony
last week that all but convicted him.
Moussaoui's behavior is difficult to predict, and his final performance
before the jury - as an unrepentant terrorist or simply deranged - could
well be the tipping point on whether he is sentenced to death by lethal
injection or a life in prison without parole.
Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor in New York who has
successfully tried terrorists, expects the government to prevail. But he
warned that flashing thousands of photos and videos of cascading bodies
could inure the jury against the human suffering they are watching.
McCarthy noted that in the first trial against four Los Angeles police
officers for assaulting Rodney G. King, the beating video was shown over
and over and all the officers were acquitted.
"After a while it's like watching a Road Runner cartoon, where the coyote
keeps falling off the cliff and you don't wince anymore," McCarthy said.
"If you overdo it, you'll lose all sensitivity."
In contrast, Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in
Virginia, believes the insanity claim has merit, especially since the
Supreme Court has exempted the mentally ill from capital punishment.
He said that with overwhelming government evidence that Moussaoui is an
avowed terrorist, not to mention his self-incriminating testimony,
insanity is probably the only option left for defense lawyers hamstrung by
a client they cannot control.
"Who better than his counsel would be able to present a judgment about his
mental fitness?" Tobias asked.
Evan Kohlmann, an international expert on terrorism who has worked as a
trial consultant for the government in Virginia, agreed that prosecutors
might find it difficult to knock down the insanity defense.
"The guy has been to some pretty crazy places and is definitely
shellshocked," Kohlmann said, referring to Moussaoui's exploits in the war
in Chechnya and at Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
"He also has been brainwashed in the ideology he holds. He's to the point
of no return. But I don't know if that amounts to insanity."
Nevertheless, the government could counter the insanity argument by simply
using Moussaoui's words. When he testified last week, he did not blather
or snarl. Rather, he was well-spoken, polite at times, even as his
statements chilled the courtroom.
He was "delighted" at the sight of the trade center collapsing. The
smoking ruins, he said, were "gorgeous." He praised the 19 hijackers he
was unable to join because he was arrested just weeks before the attacks.
"They are now in the highest level of paradise," he said.
Moussaoui also had this to say about the judge, the prosecutors, his
defense team and the jury: "I consider every American to be my enemy. So
for me, any American is meant to want my death because I want their
death."
His defense team, to whom he no longer talks, plans to present several
mental health experts and sociologists to try to convince the jury that
this kind of bombastic talk has deep roots in Moussaoui's troubled psyche.
On the stand, they are prepared to say Moussaoui, born in France to
Moroccan parents, was largely raised an orphan, the son of a violent and
alcoholic father and a mother who left him with others for child care. As
a teenager, Moussaoui and his siblings struggled to eat and to stay in
school in France.
He eventually drifted to England and into the arms of a fiery Muslim
mosque that preached hate against Americans.
According to a defense brief filed in the case, psychiatrist Dr. Nancy C.
Andreasen, "will testify that Mr. Moussaoui suffers from a major thought
disorder, most likely schizophrenia."
To reach that diagnosis, "she will rely on her analysis of Mr. Moussaoui's
writing and his appearances in court."
********************
Chief 9/11 Architect Critical of Bin Laden----Mohammed told U.S.
interrogators his boss' actions nearly derailed the terrorist mission.
To hear Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed tell it, Osama bin
Laden was a meddling boss whose indiscretion and poor judgment threatened
to derail the terrorist attacks.
He also saddled Mohammed with at least 4 would-be hijackers who the
ringleader thought were ill-equipped for the job. And he carelessly
dropped hints about the imminent attacks, violating Mohammed's cardinal
rule against discussing the suicide hijacking plot.
The repeated conflicts between the two Al Qaeda leaders emerged last week
during the penalty phase of the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only
person charged in the United States in connection with the Sept. 11
attacks. Jurors heard new details of the plot from the interrogation
summaries of several captured Al Qaeda officials, including an
extraordinary account of a series of interrogations of Mohammed.
Mohammed described Al Qaeda in a written statement for his U.S.
interrogators as an almost mystically efficient corporation that operates
in ways Americans would never understand.
The portly Kuwaiti, who had studied engineering in the U.S. and was
captured in Pakistan in 2003, told his interrogators that they could learn
a lot from Al Qaeda, the organization.
"You must study these matters to know the huge difference between the
Western mentality in administration and the Eastern mentality,
specifically at Al Qaeda."
The hallmark of the system, he said, was unquestioned control: Everyone up
the chain of command did as they were told, didn't ask questions and never
bucked authority - all for the common cause of the enterprise, which in
this case was killing as many Americans as possible.
"I know that the materialistic Western mind cannot grasp the idea, and
that it is difficult for them to believe," Mohammed wrote. "But in the
end," he gloated, "the operation was a success."
Yet Mohammed describes a terrorist outfit fraught with the same conflicts
and petty animosities that plague many American corporations. Mohammed
describes himself in particular as having to fend off a chairman of the
board who insists on micromanaging despite not knowing what he was doing.
"[Shaikh] Mohammed stated that he was usually compelled to do whatever Bin
Laden wanted with respect to operatives for the September 11 operation,"
the interrogation summary states. "That said, [Shaikh] Mohammed noted that
he disobeyed Bin Laden on several occasions by taking operatives assigned
to him by Bin Laden and using them how he best saw fit."
His independence from Bin Laden had its limits, however, because it was Al
Qaeda's money and operatives that enabled the plot to go forward.
Mohammed succeeded in rejecting three attempts by Bin Laden to accelerate
the plot. But he said his boss canceled an entire overseas element of the
hijacking scheme that he was orchestrating.
Bin Laden presumably would have his own version of events. But a former
FBI agent who closely tracked Al Qaeda said the testy relationship
described by Mohammed was consistent with the accounts of other terrorism
suspects in custody.
"They couldn't stand each other," the former official said. "They both had
huge egos."
The seeds of conflict were planted at the beginning, when Mohammed first
presented his idea in 1996 to hijack U.S. planes and fly them into
buildings. He specifically suggested "that they send [mujahedin] to study
in the flight institutes and use large planes" rather than the smaller
military ones that Al Qaeda operatives were trained in flying.
He was turned away, Mohammed said, because Bin Laden told him the plan was
unworkable.
3 years later, Bin Laden summoned Mohammed to Afghanistan and gave him the
green light. Soon he moved his family from Pakistan to an Al Qaeda base in
Kandahar, Afghanistan, to proceed with the operation.
By October 2000, Mohammed had risen in the ranks and was in firm control
of the Sept. 11 plot, showing an array of management skills.
It was Mohammed who decided to send two hijackers to San Diego after
coming across San Diego phone books in a local market in Karachi,
Pakistan, and determining that it had numerous flight schools and other
important amenities.
Mohammed told the 2 to visit the zoo and other tourist sites so they would
blend in while they were taking flight lessons and otherwise preparing for
the suicide hijackings.
He told his interrogators he provided "personalized training" to an
estimated 39 Al Qaeda operatives for deployment on missions.
And Mohammed revealed some of his management stratagems to his
interrogators.
"Simplicity was the key to success," was one of them.
For instance, he told the plot's co-conspirators not to use codes,
especially in routine messages or e-mails.
"He asked the operatives to be normal to the maximum extent possible in
their dealings, to keep the tone of their letters educational, social or
commercial, and to keep the calls short."
Mohammed also delegated tasks. He entrusted much of the communications and
finance details to two underlings so he would not have to be in contact
with the hijackers while they were in America. And he gave lead hijacker
Mohamed Atta the authority over many operational details.
Mohammed said he was a stickler for security. He insisted on
compartmentalizing the details of the plot, to such a degree that even
some of Al Qaeda's top officials did not know them.
"When four people know the details of an operation, it is dangerous; when
two people know, it is good; when just one person knows, it is better,"
Mohammed said, according to his interrogators.
Had Mohammed not insisted on such security measures, he suggested, Bin
Laden might have endangered the whole mission. That's because Bin Laden,
an exiled Saudi multimillionaire with a huge trust fund, apparently had a
knack for forcing Mohammed to take operatives who couldn't follow
directions or keep their mouths shut.
In the earliest stages, Bin Laden told Mohammed to use two of his favored
young operatives as lead members of the hijacking team.
Mohammed had concerns from the outset about Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid
Almihdhar, believing the two men would stick out like sore thumbs while
living in the United States. Other team members would ultimately be
handpicked, he said, for their worldliness, street savvy and other
applicable skills.
Alhazmi and Almihdhar had U.S. visas, which helped. But one hardly spoke
English and the other spoke none.
"They barely knew how to function in U.S. society," Mohammed told his
interrogators. "The only reason they were involved in the 9/11 plot was
because they had visas and because Bin Laden . wanted the two to go on the
operation."
By mid-2000, Mohammed moved to kick Almihdhar out of the group because he
defied his orders and left the United States for Yemen, leaving Alhazmi
alone in San Diego.
But Bin Laden interceded and instructed Mohammed to allow Almihdhar to
return to the United States and the hijacking team, he said.
Mohammed also resented a purported 20th hijacker, Mohammed al-Qahtani,
imposed on him by Bin Laden, describing him as "too much of an
unsophisticated Bedouin to function in a modern society." Al-Qahtani was
turned away by a suspicious customs agent in Orlando, Fla., and never
joined the mission.
They had repeated disagreements over Moussaoui, whose run-ins with Al
Qaeda operatives in Malaysia convinced Mohammed that he was not a
"suitable operative," even with his valuable European credentials, which
made him less suspicious to U.S. authorities.
Mohammed recalled Moussaoui to Pakistan and asked Bin Laden and top aide
Mohammed Atef for permission to expel him from the organization. At the
time, Mohammed says, Moussaoui was to be a participant in a 2nd wave of
planned attacks to follow Sept. 11.
"Despite [Shaikh] Mohammed's suggestion, Atef and Bin Laden insisted that
Moussaoui remain in the program and instructed that the program should
continue as planned," the interrogation report said.
Moussaoui was punished by being sent to a school in Kandahar, after which
Al Qaeda leaders pronounced him "reformed," the interrogation summary
states.
Mohammed, however, "was not convinced." He grudgingly complied with his
orders and sent Moussaoui to the United States for flight training. But he
purposely kept Moussaoui in the dark about plot details, and told him
never to mention aircraft in any communications.
Soon after he reached the United States, Moussaoui violated the order,
sending Mohammed an e-mail detailing his attempts to get flight training
on various aircraft.
An "exasperated" Mohammed ordered aides to break off contact with
Moussaoui for fear that his indiscretion would tip off authorities about
Al Qaeda's presence in the U.S.
By then, it was too late. When arrested in mid-August in Minnesota,
Moussaoui possessed enough incriminating information to alert authorities
to the carefully orchestrated plot, law enforcement officials would later
assert.
He also was found with the home address of a top Al Qaeda chemical and
biological weapons expert in South Asia, which triggered a manhunt for the
operative and raised scrutiny of travelers from Pakistan to Malaysia, a
favorite Al Qaeda pipeline.
Meanwhile, to Mohammed's chagrin, Bin Laden was repeatedly dropping hints
about what was soon to come.
In one case, Mohammed said, Bin Laden told visitors to his Afghanistan
headquarters to expect a major near-term attack against U.S. interests. In
another, he said, the boss asked trainees at the Al Farooq camp near
Kandahar "to pray for the success of a major operation involving 20
martyrs."
Both Mohammed and Atef "were concerned about this lack of discretion and
urged Bin Laden not to make additional comments about the plot," Mohammed
told his interrogators.
The interrogation summary also said he had resisted taking a sworn oath of
allegiance, or bayat, to Bin Laden for as long as possible, "to ensure
that he remained free to plan operations however he chose."
After Sept. 11, Mohammed finally relented, he said. Even then, he did so
grudgingly, after he was told "that the refusal of such a senior and
accomplished Al Qaeda leader to swear bayat set a bad example for the
group's rank and file."
(source for both: Los Angeles Times)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----N. MEX., CALIF., N.C., USA
Rick Halperin Wed, 5 Apr 2006 10:23:39 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
