US Features
Preview: Life or death in the balance for jury in Moussaoui case
By Chris Cermak
Apr 4, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Alexandria, Virginia - The same jurors who already found that confessed September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was culpable enough in the notorious attacks to be eligible for capital punishment will now decide if he deserves to die by lethal injection.

The jury of 12 returned a unanimous finding Monday that Moussaoui could have prevented the suicide hijackings, which killed 3,000 people in 2001.

Jurors must now decide between execution and life in prison for the Frenchman of Moroccan descent - the only person to face trial in the United States on charges related to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Moussaoui, 37, has proven eccentric and unpredictable throughout the four-year case, in which he pleaded guilty a year ago. The sentencing trial began March 6.

He has frequently made outbursts in court but mostly when the citizen jurors were not present. Monday was no different.

\'You will never get my blood,\' Moussaoui shouted, but only after the 12 people who will decide his fate had left the courtroom.

If Monday\'s first-phase verdict was any indication, they may well seek Moussaoui\'s blood. By finding him eligible for execution on all three counts carrying a possible death penalty, jurors signalled that their final decision might well be for the death sentence sought by prosecutors.

\'By this verdict, the jury has found that death is a possible penalty in this case,\' Edward Adams, a spokesman for the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, told reporters.

Moussaoui admitted lying to federal investigators after his arrest on immigration violations in August 2001, three weeks before the September 11 attacks.

\'Zacarias Moussaoui came to this country to kill Americans,\' prosecutor David Raskin told jurors last week. \'That was exactly what he did - he killed by lying.\'

Starting Thursday, the case will turn on testimony that is sure to be more personal and emotional than the legalistic arguments about culpability that dominated the first phase.

Relatives of September 11 victims were to testify, but family members have spoken out on both sides of the question of death or life in prison without parole, the only options for Moussaoui\'s sentencing.