Giuliani Recalls Sept. 11 in Moussaoui Trial

The government Thursday opened the final stage of its quest to execute Zacarias Moussaoui by presenting testimony from the man who came to symbolize America’s resilience after Sept. 11, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

And Giuliani, in recounting his experience as he rushed to the scene before the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed, became the first of almost four dozen witnesses the government planned to call to re-create for jurors the agonies of that day -- agonies that prosecutors say Moussaoui could have prevented and thus deserves to die for.

“Every day I think about it,” Giuliani said. “It can be a person jumping, or seeing body parts, seeing a little boy or girl at a funeral. And then I also try to remember all the wonderful heroism the firemen and the police showed that day.”

Soon after he arrived at the twin towers, Giuliani testified, he ran into three city officials before they were killed. He also conferred with a fourth official, his personal assistant, whose decorated firefighter husband had just died trying to save others.

Twice the mayor was reported missing and feared dead, he said, describing how he became lost in a basement near ground zero while trying to phone the White House.

Moussaoui, a self-described Sept. 11 plotter, was arrested less than a month before the attacks. After a protracted and sometimes turbulent trial in federal court here, he was found guilty on terrorism charges. On Monday, a federal jury concluded he was eligible for the death penalty.

Now, prosecutors hope to persuade the same jury to put him to death, contending that the attacks could have been prevented if Moussaoui had told investigators what he knew about the Al Qaeda plot.

To demonstrate the tragedy they want Moussaoui held accountable for, government lawyers displayed photographs of dead police and firefighters mounted on large poster boards. They set up a model of the twin towers. They played an audio recording of a desperate flight attendant on the telephone trying to get help. They aired video clips of the two planes hitting the towers, of people jumping, of the towers falling.

And they presented the first group of witnesses -- ordinary citizens as well as members of the police and fire units that responded to the attack.

“Al Qaeda turned those buildings into slaughterhouses,” lead prosecutor Robert A. Spencer told the jury in his opening statement.

Defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin, in his opening remarks, urged the jury to consider Moussaoui’s tortured mind. He said the defense would present expert testimony about Moussaoui’s troubled childhood, his recruitment by Muslim extremists in England and his struggle with schizophrenia, which is said to run in his family.

Zerkin said that when this final phase of the case ends in several weeks, a sentence of life in prison with no parole would be appropriate.

“We will show you who Zacarias Moussaoui was before he became an Al Qaeda wannabe,” Zerkin said. “We are going to tell you also about his whole life so you can understand his transformation.”

To obtain a death sentence for Moussaoui, prosecutors must prove at least one of three aggravating factors: that he knowingly created a grave risk of death, that the deaths were especially heinous and cruel, and that he was involved in substantial planning for Sept. 11.

Moussaoui testified last week that he had been slated to fly a plane into the White House the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

Throughout the testimony Thursday, Moussaoui showed little emotion. While victims cried, he smiled or yawned.

He barely acknowledged eye-witness Tamar Rosbrook’s tears as she described watching victims leap from the burning top floors, trying to land on a small white canopy in the trade center courtyard.

He appeared unmoved when former firefighter Anthony Sanseviro, nervously twisting in the witness chair, methodically told of finding body parts spewed on the ground then realizing his friend, veteran firefighter Danny Suhr, had been killed by a falling body.

But the 37-year-old Moussaoui, the only man convicted in this country for the Sept. 11 attacks, screamed out his emotions during trial recesses, once the jury had left and the judge cleared the bench. “America, you can go to hell!” he yelled during the noon break.

Unlike most witnesses, who were given specific questions, Giuliani was afforded wide latitude to describe how he left a Midtown Manhattan breakfast and rushed to what came to be known as ground zero.

Rarely did prosecutor David J. Novak try to ask a question while Giuliani was speaking, and once when that happened Judge Leonie M. Brinkema encouraged them to slow down. “I guess it’s being a New Yorker,” Giuliani said of his rapid-fire account.

Giuliani said that when he reached the streets below the burning towers, he was horrified at the falling bodies.

“It froze me,” he said.

He saw two people jump holding hands. “Of the memories, that one comes to me every day.”

He found Fire Chief Peter J. Ganci and asked whether they should get helicopters to make rescue runs on the top floors. The chief told him the fire was too hot, that helicopters would “explode.” Ganci died when the towers fell.

Giuliani said he then found Ray Downey, the city’s head of search and rescue operations. Downey was directing people to flee north of the burning and falling debris. Giuliani said that he too immediately headed north but that Downey stayed, dying at his post.

The mayor next saw the Rev. Mychal Judge, the Fire Department’s chaplain, heading for the scene.

“You’ve got to pray for us,” Giuliani said he called out.

“Don’t worry, I always do,” the Franciscan priest called back. He died.

Giuliani said he searched for a spot to set up a command post. He and aides first settled on a nearby Merrill Lynch building. They got through to the White House. But while Giuliani waited for Vice President Dick Cheney to come on the line, the phone went dead, the desks shook, and they realized the first tower was falling.

Giuliani said they ran into a basement but could not find an exit. Three doors were locked. Giuliani said he learned later that others, including Gov. George E. Pataki, thought he had died.

Two maintenance workers led them through a basement tunnel and out to safety. They rushed to a Greenwich Village fire station, where Giuliani met with another aide, Elizabeth Petrone Hatton. By that time, her husband, fire Capt. Terence Hatton, was dead.

The last witness was Chandra Shekhar Kalahasthi of India. He told how his sister, Prasanna, had married and moved to Los Angeles with her husband, Vamsi. The husband died on one of the planes bound for Los Angeles. A month later, she hanged herself at her home. Kalahasthi flew to L.A. and found a note she left.

“To my dear brother,” it began. “I am extremely sorry for what I’ve done. I tried my best to be the other way but it was too hard.

“I know I am being selfish,” the letter continued, “but try to understand. I can’t live without him.”

Kalahasthi left the courtroom in tears. The judge and jurors soon followed him out.

Then Moussaoui had the last word. He screamed, “No pain, no gain, America!”