FIGHTIN’ WORDS
‘Don’t forget it’s the landing that is difficult. (Trust me, I am a pilot).’ – ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI, ADDRESSING A FEDERAL JUDGE IN A MOTION UNSEALED YESTERDAY
———
WASHINGTON – Zacarias Moussaoui taunted the federal judge in his case yesterday, sarcastically saying she had done a good job, but “don’t forget it’s the landing that is difficult. (Trust me, I am a pilot).”
The alleged “20th hijacker” made the shocking reference to his flight training – which the feds say was preparation for the 9/11 attacks – in a handwritten motion unsealed yesterday by U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema, the target of the gibe. Moussaoui’s latest antics came as prosecutors filed their third indictment against him to ensure they can pursue the death penalty.
The feds charge in the new court papers that he behaved in “an especially heinous, cruel and depraved manner” with premeditation to cause death and commit terrorism.
Moussaoui’s own motion was a bizarre play off his arrest last August, when flight-school instructors told the FBI they were puzzled that the abrasive French-Moroccan student wanted to learn to pilot jets but not to take off or land.
Moussaoui was jailed on immigration charges, and the feds claim that’s the only reason he didn’t participate directly in the terror attacks.
His reference to his flight training came at the tail of another diatribe against Judge Brinkema, a frequent target of his insults. “Of course I forgot to remember that now the B or FBI stands for Brinkema,” he wrote in a handwritten motion from a Virginia jail.
Brinkema denied a request by Moussaoui, who’s defending himself, to address various parliamentary houses in Europe about his theory that the United States knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance but let them happen to destroy Afghanistan.
Prosecutors’ latest indictment against Moussaoui included no new charges or allegations, but made it clear the government is seeking the death penalty.
Lawyers say the feds needed to put death-penalty language in the indictment itself because of a recent Supreme Court ruling that juries – not judges – could impose the death penalty.
The feds believe putting specific death-penalty language in the indictment – the essence of the case that the jury will consider – will ensure the feds are complying with the court.
The new language says Moussaoui should die for his alleged crimes because he committed them “in an especially heinous, cruel and depraved manner.”
Moussaoui will be arraigned for a third time tomorrow. In his first arraignment in December, Brinkema entered an innocent plea after Moussaoui said he would make no plea.
She entered another innocent plea at his second arraignment in June, explaining Moussaoui’s attempted plea of “no contest” was the equivalent of a conviction.