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Frenchman First Person Charged in September 11 Attacks
WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (News Agencies) - A 33-year-old French citizen of Moroccan descent became the first person formally indicted in connection with the deadly September 11 attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon outside Washington - exactly three months ago.
Zaccarias Moussaoui faces six counts for conspiracy to commit murder in the attacks
allegedly masterminded by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the charges against Moussaoui are the first resulting from a wide-ranging federal probe of the attacks, which killed more than 3,000 people.
"Today 7,000 miles from the battlefield in Afghanistan, another victory is taking shape in the war on terrorism," said Attorney General John Ashcroft. "We will be relentless and resolute. We will not forget, and we will prevail.
"The United States of America has brought the awesome weight of justice against the terrorists who brutally murdered innocent Americans...al-Qaeda will now meet the justice it abhors and the judgment it fears."
The Attorney General said that four of the six counts lodged against Moussaoui carry the death penalty.
Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's Egyptian-born lieutenant, were named as unindicted co-conspirators in the 30-page indictment by a federal grand jury in the eastern district of Virginia.
Also included are 19 people who allegedly commandeered the four commercial jets that were used as aerial targets on September 11, as well as two men who sent funds to the alleged terrorists.
"Moussaoui followed many of the same patterns and took many of the same steps as the [other] 19 hijackers," said Robert Mueller, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Meuller said Moussaoui attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. He also is alleged to have received flight training in the United States, inquired about crop dusters, and received funding from sources in Germany and the Middle East.
Moussaoui was arrested August 16, after tutors at the Minnesota flight school he was attending tipped off federal agents that he had been acting suspiciously. He has been detained without charge, along at least 1,000 other people, as a material witness.
Moussaoui has been the subject of intense scrutiny since the attacks, which occurred while he was in custody.
The FBI had wanted to examine the hard drive of his computer, but the Justice Department refused to grant a search warrant because there did not seem enough evidence to suggest he was a terrorist threat.
U.S. officials had earlier mentioned Moussaoui as a possible 20th member of the hijacking team.
The FBI director Robert Mueller said the computer showed that Moussaoui had gathered information about the "dispersal of chemicals" as well as about crop-duster planes. The discovery prompted the administration of George W. Bush to temporarily ground crop-dusters as a precaution against a possible biochemical attack.
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