US: Zacarias Moussaoui, described by US media as "the 20th 9/11 hijacker", was removed from court yesterday after shouting "I am al-Qaeda" as jurors were selected to determine if he should be put to death. "This trial is a circus," Moussaoui shouted as he was led from court. Earlier, the defendant said he did not want to be represented by his lawyers.
The 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent has pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy and admits he came to the US to take part in an al-Qaeda plot to use aircraft in terrorist attacks.
But he says he was not part of the September 11th, 2001, attacks, pointing out that he was in jail at the time, after being arrested on suspicion of immigration violations as a student pilot in Minnesota.
"I came to the United States of America to be part, okay, of a conspiracy to use an airplane as a weapon of mass destruction. But this conspiracy was a different conspiracy than 9/11," he told a court last April.
Defence lawyers say Moussaoui is mentally unstable. The judge withdrew permission for the defendant to represent himself after he made a number of apparently irrational outbursts during the trial.
The prosecution claims that Moussaoui knew of the 9/11 plans in advance and concealed that information from investigators when he was arrested in Minnesota. Defence lawyers dispute the claim that Moussaoui's silence contributed to the 9/11 deaths, arguing that the government knew more than he did at the time about al-Qaeda's plans.
Prosecutors plan to show jurors photographs of all the victims of the 9/11 attacks and to present testimony from more than 40 relatives of victims.
Moussaoui claimed that another al-Qaeda operative, Ramzi Binalshibh, could clear him of involvement. The judge gave permission for Binalshibh to be interviewed but the US government refused to produce him.