ALEXANDRIA, April 20: Defence lawyers called more relatives of Sept 11 victims on Thursday to testify for Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, hoping to influence the jury who will be asked within days whether he should be put to death.

Under court rules covering their testimony the family members are not permitted to comment on the sentence to be handed Moussaoui, the only man tried over the 2001 attacks.

But their testimony at the climax of the defence case is a sign that they oppose the government’s drive to execute him.

Some of them have stated outside the court that they do not believe Mr Moussaoui is responsible for Sept 11 and so should not be executed.

Jennifer Glick of New Jersey, whose brother Jeremy Glick was on flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania, was asked by defence lawyers how she would like her brother remembered.

“I would like us to celebrate his life. I would like us to remember that the goodness he showed, we all have inside us,” she said.

Adele Welty watched on television as the twin towers were toppled, with her son Timothy, a New York fireman, inside one of them.

“I want him to be remembered as a very lovely man, not just as a statistic, as someone who loved his life.” —AFP