WASHINGTON, April 4: A jury in the US is to decide whether Zacarias Moussaoui will be executed after ruling on Monday the convicted 9/11 conspirator is eligible for the death penalty. The panel will return on Thursday to begin a second phase of his sentencing trial.
They could opt for life imprisonment for the French national.
After about 17 hours of deliberation, the jury found that Moussaoui lied to the FBI following his arrest three weeks before 9/11.
Those lies, they decided, led to deaths in the hijacked plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Moussaoui is the only person to be charged in the US in connection with the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Last year the 37-year-old convict pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy in connection with the hijackings.
Three of the counts carried a possible death sentence.
The jury’s decision keeps alive US prosecutors’ only hope so far of executing someone for the 9/11 attacks.
After hearing four weeks of testimony, jurors issued their verdict on Monday in the first stage of Moussaoui’s death-penalty trial.
A second phase is to decide whether he deserves to die.
He had already pleaded guilty to all charges against him, leaving nothing for the jury to decide but the penalty.
The jury’s key findings were that he lied to US investigators.
Prosecutors argued that the attacks might have been prevented had he revealed what he knew.
Moussaoui, a French-born son of Moroccan immigrants, followed an erratic course in court.
He attempted to handle his own defence, ignoring his court-appointed lawyers.
He also described his glee at hearing from his jail cell that New York’s World Trade Center was under attack.
After trying to minimize his knowledge of Al Qaeda’s September 11 plans, he surprised the court by saying that he and another man were to have hijacked a fifth airliner that day to fly into the White House.
