Moussaoui Indicted a 3rd Time in Attacks
Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the Sept. 11 attacks, was indicted for a third time Tuesday so prosecutors could specify the alleged conduct that would warrant his execution.
The indictment said Moussaoui acted in “an especially heinous, cruel and depraved manner,” with premeditation, to cause death and commit terrorism.
The charges were an attempt to undermine a challenge by Moussaoui’s court-appointed lawyers to the federal death penalty law. The defense lawyers filed the challenge last week in anticipation of the new indictment.
Prosecutors have told a judge they would seek to execute Moussaoui if he were convicted of conspiracy to commit terrorism and other charges related to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
They returned to the grand jury because the Supreme Court ruled last month that juries, not judges, must make the decisions on life or death.
The prosecutors acted even though the justices focused on trial juries, not grand juries.
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