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Inside the Moussaoui Courtroom
April 04, 2006 12:39 PM
Producer Jason Ryan blogs about being inside the courtroom as the jury announced its verdict.
As we waited for the 4:00 hearing to begin we could hear Zacarias Moussaoui screaming from his holding chamber, which is connected to the courtroom and behind a thick wooden door. Moussaoui usually yells a few words before he is brought into the courtroom, but as 4:00 drew closer he was more vocal than normal screaming "Allah Akbar" at one point.
Moussaoui kept screaming for several minutes as members of the audience looked surprised by the steady stream. As the prosecutors and defense lawyers sat at their tables, some of them laughed an appeared at ease – a far cry from the tense moments of the trial when TSA Lawyer Carla Martin had been accused of coaching witnesses, or when Moussaoui himself took the stand.
Right after Judge Leonie Brinkema was brought in the Marshals sat Moussaoui in a chair against the side wall of the courtroom. He quickly sat down and began chanting and muttering to himself looking straight ahead without much expression on his face. As the jury was brought in, Moussaoui continued to mumble to himself. A clerk for judge Brinkema asked Moussaoui to stand for the reading of the verdict, but the self confessed Al Qaeda member showed his contempt for the court and refused to rise.
After the judge read the verdict, members of the prosecution and 9/11 victim family members appeared to be relieved. Some smiled.
Moussaoui looked around. Most people in the courtroom expected the convicted Al Qaeda member to have a characteristic outburst. As Brinkema set the schedule and instructed the jurors to avoid media reports, Moussaoui looked disinterested and bored. He checked a clock on the wall behind him, and casually sipped water from a Styrofoam cup.
Once Judge Brinkema left the room, Moussaoui sat quietly as the Marshals prepared to escort him out. As he stood up he yelled forcefully, "You'll never get my blood, God curse you all!"
9/11 family members, some with tears in their eyes, came up to the prosecution team and thanked them for their work on the case. "You guys were wonderful." Rosemary Dillard, whose husband died on American Airlines flight 77, told prosecutor David Novak. Dillard embraced Novak as they left the courtroom.
April 4, 2006 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (0)
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