Verdict Doesn’t End the Anger

Lee Ielpi didn’t hide his disappointment Wednesday after the federal jury verdict that put Zacarias Moussaoui in prison for life for his role in the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I felt all along he should get the death penalty, but if it’s life in prison with no possibility of parole, then he’ll rot in prison where he belongs,” said Ielpi, whose firefighter son, Jonathan Ielpi, 29, died in the south tower of the World Trade Center.

“Because he’s not getting the death penalty, he may not be as big a martyr as he wanted to be,” said Ielpi, a retired firefighter who is vice president of the September 11th Families’ Assn. “But there are people who will use him as a martyr anyway.”

Jonathan Ielpi’s mother, Anne, said she wanted prison authorities to make Moussaoui’s days miserable. When “he’s allowed out of his cell, I want them to put him in the regular cellblock with all the other prisoners and let them take care of him,” she said.

Not every survivor of those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks thought the jury was wrong to reject the death penalty.

“Life in prison is the verdict I would have preferred. I don’t believe in capital punishment. I’m not a vengeful person,” said Karen Tartaro of Bridgewater, N.J., whose husband, Ronald, 39, died on the 93rd floor of the north tower. “I don’t think we should make him into a martyr. Doing that would not make the world a better place. Probably, under the circumstances, this is the best.”

Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles “Chick” Burlingame III, 51, of Virginia was the pilot on the flight that hit the Pentagon, said she was disappointed. “But I accept the verdict as a fair one reasonably arrived at,” she said.

She was concerned, however, when she learned that at least three of the jurors thought that Moussaoui should not be executed because he knew little about the attacks. She said most of the hijackers had limited advance knowledge, adding that the little Moussaoui knew would have been enough, had he told authorities, to prevent the attacks.

Lee Ielpi said he was satisfied that the justice system worked, despite the verdict.

“We’ve sent the message that we’re going to find these people and put them through the process, and we’re going to eliminate terrorism,” he said. “We’re a very tough nation. We will persevere and we will prevail.”

During the trial, Abraham Scott, whose wife, Janice, died in the Pentagon, thought Moussaoui deserved to die. But when the verdict came, he told the Associated Press that the jury “made the right decision.”

“I didn’t change my mind,” he said. “I still support the death penalty, but on the other hand I wholeheartedly support the decision of the jury.”

Alexander Santora’s position shifted the other way. His son Christopher was a firefighter who died in the New York attacks. Santora said he had wanted Moussaoui sentenced to life imprisonment, but changed his mind when the Al Qaeda conspirator showed no remorse in court.

Santora said Moussaoui was guilty. “A bullet in his brain would have been a just reward.”

Patricia Reilly lost her sister, Lorraine Lee, when the planes were flown into the World Trade Center. She was angered by the jury’s decision to spare Moussaoui.

“I feel very much let down by this country,” Reilly said. “I guess in this country you can kill 3,000 people and not pay with your life. I believe he’s going to go to jail and start converting other people to his distorted view of Islam.”

Christie Coombs of Abington, Mass., said she did not think a death sentence would have changed anything. Her husband, Jeff, died on American Airlines Flight 11 in New York.

“It wasn’t going to bring my husband back,” Coombs said. “It wasn’t going to make any of these people that died walk through their doors and make their families happy.”

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The Associated Press was used in compiling this report.