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A 9/11 terrorist has asked a judge to send him back home to France to avoid the prospect of having Donald Trump order his execution if he is re-elected as president.
Zacarias Moussaoui, who is being held at the Supermax prison ADX Florence in Colorado, wrote to Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia that “your honor might concur that there is a possibility of, not a probability, that if the ex-U.S. President Donald Trump was to be reelected, he will sentence me to death by presidential executive order.”
A copy of Moussaoui’s letter, dated May 13 and filed in court two weeks later, was first published on the site Legal Insurrection.
Moussaoui is the only person to be convicted in a US court for his role in the 9/11 conspiracy. In his handwritten letter, Moussaoui argued that he previously agreed to collaborate with US authorities against Al Qaeda operatives such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
During his trial in 2006, he spouted insults, including saying: “You’ll never get my blood: God curse you all,” after he avoided the death penalty, the New York Post reported. He claimed in court that he was supposed to hijack a fifth plane and crash it into the White House before backtracking on that statement.
Following news of Moussaoui’s letter to the judge, a dozen senators have written to President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland, arguing that the terrorist’s request should be ignored.
Florida senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott were joined by fellow Republicans, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, Idaho’s Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Mike Braun of Indiana, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Ted Cruz of Texas, John Hoeven of North Dakota, and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska.
“No consideration whatsoever should be given to this convicted terrorist’s preferences for where to serve his sentence for his heinous crimes, and we demand that you swiftly deny his transfer request and force him to spend the remainder of his pathetic life imprisoned in the country he and his fellow terrorists attacked 23 years ago,” the joint letter, dated July 26, stated.
“Nothing can bring back the innocent lives lost on that terrible day, but the tens of thousands of surviving family members of the victims should be able to expect that our government will keep Moussaoui confined in an American prison for the entirety of his life sentence without the possibility of release or transfer. This should not be a difficult decision to make.”
Moussaoui was arrested in August 2001 before the 9/11 attacks when his attempts to take flight training classes drew suspicion. In December 2001, he was charged with being a member of Al-Qaeda and part of the conspiracy leading to the attacks that killed 2,977 Americans.
He pled guilty to the charges against him. His 2006 trial was conducted to determine if he would receive the death penalty or life in prison.
During the jury trial, prosecutors had to determine if his role in the conspiracy led to the deaths of victims of the attacks, which would have made him eligible for the death penalty.
Moussaoui was deemed eligible but one juror voted for life in prison, keeping him off death row.
The terrorist wrote in his letter that he was warned by an attorney and a professor “that US law permit the US President to sentence to death any federal prisonneer [sic] deem to be a threat to National security.”
Moussaoui explained that he was referred to as a national security threat during court proceedings, meaning that Trump could use that to order his execution.
“There is the real prospect that the Ex President is reelected and therefore…I want to apply to this Court and the US government to be transfer to France to finish my sentence,” he wrote.
“I could be transfer to France to serve the rest of my life sentence and before the potential inauguration of Ex President Trump…May your Honor and your Court enter an order as soon as your Court find it appropriate and grant me my…request.”
A Department of Justice spokesperson told The Independent that it doesn’t comment on prisoner transfer requests, but added that Moussaoui “is serving a life sentence following conviction for terrorism offenses” and that the department “plans to enforce this life sentence in US custody.”
