SCHOLARS CALL MOUSSAOUI TRIAL A "CHARADE"

The trial holding Zacarias Moussaoui responsible for the horrors of 9/11 has all the marks of a political charade, according to Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a society of experts devoted to exposing falsehoods and establishing truths about the events of that day. "Even the most basic elements of due process have been violated," according to James H. Fetzer, its founder and co-chair, "by failing to prove that the accused had anything to do with 9/11. What we are seeing here tends to substantiate Charlie Sheen's allegations."

Fetzer insists there has been a clever ruse to confuse the jury by using a confession to one plot as though it were evidence of complicity in another. As The New York Times (April 27, 2005) reported, Moussaoui "confessed" to having been involved in a plot to fly a plane into the White House to free Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for terrorist acts. He denied that he was part of the 9/11 attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.

The mentally unstable Moussaoui has now "confessed" that he and shoe-bomber Richard Reid were going to hijack a fifth aircraft and fly it into the White House, which was not the plot of which he was convicted. The Scholars believe government prosecutors have been playing a deceptive "shell game" by tying him to 9/11. Even the FBI has expressed doubts about Moussaoui's new version of events, since Reid left a will naming Moussaoui as his beneficiary, which was very odd if they were going to participate in a suicide mission together.

The government claims Moussaoui should be put to death for failing to report everything he knew about 9/11, which it claims would have saved lives. "This is blatantly unconstitutional," says 9/11 Truth Scholar Webster Tarpley. "Under the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution, nobody can be prosecuted for a failure to incriminate themselves.'"

The most stunning example of government mendacity in the Moussaoui trial, Fetzer explains, came with the inflammatory recordings, allegedly the last moments of Flight 93, which went down in Pennsylvania. "Not only should they not have been admitted into evidence," he said, "but Allen Green has noted that much of the conversation is from the passenger cabin — which would not have been picked up by the cockpit voice recorder, even through an open door. Yet the cockpit door was supposed to be closed before it was finally broken open using a drink cart."

Another blunder was noted by a Muslim member of S9/11T. The last words of the "hijackers" on the tape are "Allah is great! (Allahu akbar!"). Muhammad Columbo says, "The last words of a Muslim cannot be these! They are used in the call to prayer, or in an attack at war. On the moment of death, a Muslim must confirm that "There is but one God, Allah, and that Mohammed is his prophet!" The government's own evidence proves either the tapes or the Muslims are fake.

On March 21, 2006, CBS reported the prosecutors' allegation that Moussaoui's lies to FBI agent Harry Samit had prevented the FBI from thwarting or at least minimizing the 9/11 attacks. Samit himself, however, in one of the most embarrassing twists of the trial with regard to the government's case, testified that he had already "warned higher-ups and others in the government at least 70 times that Moussaoui was a terrorist."

This nullifies the entire prosecution, Fetzer observes. "Ignoring five or six reports of this kind might reflect incompetence. Twenty or thirty, criminal neglect. But ignoring 70 reports has to be a matter of deliberate policy." Samit's testimony proves that, even if Moussaoui had come forward to incriminate himself in a plot in which he was not involved, it would not have helped. "Which means," Fetzer adds, "that this trial is simply an exercise in propaganda."