Moussaoui Appeals Judgment and Sentence

[Neil D]

[:"blue"] Aaah, the irony..... NOW, Moussaoui believes he can get a fair trial....NOW, he believes he wants to get a fair trial....Um, what sort of trial did we just give him??? [/]

By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN

Associated Press Writer

AP Photo

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui appealed the life sentence he got this month and the denial of his request for a new trial.

In a one-paragraph notice of appeal, his court-appointed lawyers said Friday he wanted the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the final judgment and sentence he received May 4 and Judge Leonie Brinkema's May 8 denial of his request to withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial on the original charges.

The notice was required to be filed by May 18 if the 37-year-old Frenchman wanted to appeal his case. It contained no legal arguments about the case; those will be filed later with the appeals court.

Since his sentencing, Moussaoui has said he lied when testifying at his sentencing trial that he was to hijack a fifth jetliner on Sept. 11, 2001. He has returned to claiming - as he had for four years before the trial testimony - that he had nothing to do with the suicide hijackings that took nearly 3,000 lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

Moussaoui was in jail in Minnesota on immigration charges on 9/11, but he has admitted he was training to hijack a 747 jetliner and fly it into the White House as part of a later plot to gain release of a radical Egyptian sheik who is serving a life term for terrorist acts.

Legal experts give Moussaoui little chance for success at the appellate level.

Moussaoui pleaded guilty in April 2005 to six counts of conspiring with al-Qaida to fly planes into U.S. buildings. A jury considering the three counts that carry the death penalty decided he was eligible for execution but could not unanimously agree that he deserved it, so he was automatically sentenced to the lesser and only other penalty permitted: life in prison.

Brinkema sentenced him to six life terms, to run as two consecutive life sentences. Court Documents

Jury Verdict: Completed Sentencing Phase Form (PDF)

Transcript: Flight 93 Cockpit Voice Recorder Tape (PDF)

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She advised Moussaoui in court that in pleading guilty he had waived his right to ever appeal his convictions. She said he could appeal his sentence but described that as futile, given that he received the lesser of the two penalties available.

On May 5, Moussaoui tried to withdraw his guilty plea and get a trial on the original charges. He argued that he hadn't understood the American criminal justice system when he pleaded and only after receiving a life sentence did he realize an American jury could give him a fair trial and not automatically sentence him to death.

Brinkema denied that motion the same day, citing a federal rule that bars withdrawing guilty pleas after sentencing.

Moussaoui's lawyers, with whom he has never cooperated, agreed with Brinkema's reading of the federal rules but said they filed the motion he wanted because of their past difficulties with him and because no had no other lawyers.

Brinkema has told them they can leave the case once they file any appeal notices Moussaoui wants.

Meanwhile, the jury's forewoman told The Washington Post that a single holdout kept the jury from having Moussaoui executed, but that juror never explained his vote.

The forewoman, a math teacher in Northern Virginia, contacted the paper and said jurors voted three times - 11-1, 10-2 and 10-2 - for the death penalty on the three terrorism charges that each qualified Moussaoui for execution, the Post reported Friday.

The forewoman, whom the Post did not identify, said she voted for the death penalty because she believed the government proved its case. She was the second juror interviewed by the Post since the trial. The first juror said he voted for life in prison because he thought Moussaoui had only a marginal role in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.