Prosecutors seeking Zacarias Moussaoui’s execution introduced gruesome evidence of the horrors of terrorism Tuesday showing pictures of burned and blackened bodies from the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon. Over the objections of defense attorneys and despite warnings by a federal judge that such a strategy could backfire, government lawyers displayed for jurors the most gut-wrenching evidence yet in a sentencing trial studded with one horrific image after another. Among the pictures shown of bodies burned beyond recognition and covered in ash, tapes of emergency calls to 911 were played for the jurors, chronicling a woman’s ordeal as she was trapped in the south building of the World Trade Center. It was also known that she was among the thousands on non-survivors on that tragic day. However, a defiant Moussaoui shouted “Burn all Pentagon next time!,” as he was led out of the courtroom for a lunch break. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema has urged prosecutors to show restraint, but it has proved difficult to blunt the emotional impact as families of 9/11 victims tell their stories to jurors in Moussaoui death-penalty trial.
Jurors struggle:
Some jurors have struggled to maintain composure. One asked for a drink of water toward the end of Monday’s testimony after a day in which his face frequently showed the strain of hearing families’ accounts.
Even though he was in jail in Minnesota at the time of the attacks, the jury in the first phase of Moussaoui’s trial ruled that lies he told to federal agents a month before the attacks kept the authorities from identifying and stopping some of the hijackers.
Now they must decide whether Moussaoui deserves execution or life in prison. Defense lawyers say the jury should spare Moussaoui’s life because of his limited role in the attacks, evidence that he is mentally ill and because his execution would only play into his dream of martyrdom.