What then was Moussaoui?

These were the causes of outrage, the focal points of media reports that day. But to me the real outrage is why a man should be standing trial for a crime someone else had been convicted of six years ago. Is 2006 really that long ago for all those international journalists not to remember that […]

These were the causes of outrage, the focal points of media reports that day. But to me the real outrage is why a man should be standing trial for a crime someone else had been convicted of six years ago. Is 2006 really that long ago for all those international journalists not to remember that Zacarias Moussaoui had been sentenced to ‘life in prison without the possibility of parole’ for being the 20th hijacker? As someone who had followed the 9/11 phenomenon from Day One, I have often written about the unique case of Zacarias Moussaoui.

I know that with our own home-grown ‘terror situation’ you may wonder why I still bother myself with the events of 9/11 which happened ten years ago in far away America. But my belief is that unravelling the lie that was September 11th will greatly help in solving any instance of so-called Islamic terrorism anywhere it occurs in the world. At the risk of boring those who have read this before, I want to repeat that when Moussaoui was first announced to the world as hijacker No 20, who only missed the suicide-hijack mission due to his usual tardiness, he had denied any involvement in the incident.

According to Associated Press’ investigative story on him, Zacarias Moussaoui had been in FBI custody since early August 2001, more than a month to September 11th attacks. The charge against him was immigration-related because he had been caught moving around with a visa that expired back in May of the same year. After 9/11 was successfully staged, an attempt was made to involve him. He wrote a letter to his mother Aisha Moussaoui, then based in Egypt, and told her that he had nothing to do with what happened and though the Americans will try to ‘fabricate proofs and witnesses.’

While still in FBI custody Zacarias heard about the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzy Bin Alshibl in Pakistan and their subsequent transfer to the US. Moussaoui begged the judge presiding over his case to allow him to meet them, probably hoping that such a meeting could show that he had never known the new-comers. He was never allowed that chance. After several court appearances in which he repeatedly denied having anything to do with the events of 9/11, we woke up on April 3rd 2006 to the news that he had been convicted to life in prison, after earlier pleading to guilty to six count charges of conspiracy relating to 9/11.

Meanwhile before 2006, two other people had been labelled with the same tag. One of them is Ramzy bin Alshibl currently standing trial for the charge and the other was Saudi-born Muhammad Ahmad al-Qahtani. A Time magazine cover in 2005 was dedicated to al-Qahtani also known as Detainee 063 in Guantanamo, because he was subjected to the most inhuman interrogation methods available at the prison camp. In an interview with the Washington Post’s reporter Bob Woodward, Susan Crawford, a Pentagon official said that the US government had so systematically abused al-Qahtani through isolation, sleep deprivation, forced nudity and exposure to cold that he was in a ‘life-threatening situation’.  Gitanjal Gutierrez who works for the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York said she believed Qahtani’s torture constituted a war crime.

All this was because at Guantanamo Muhammad al-Qahtani was subjected to a regime of interrogation techniques known as the ‘First Special Interrogation Plan’ which was authorised by then US secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. In November 2006, senior investigators with the Defence Department’s Criminal Investigation Task Force told reporters that Qahtani will be ‘unprosecutable’ because he was tortured during interrogation. Corroborating this in January 2009, Susan Crawford of the Pentagon added ‘his treatment met the legal definition of torture.’ Yet, he went through all these for a crime over which two others were being charged.

According to American authorities al-Qahtani was captured in Afghanistan during the battle at the Tora- Bora mountains. But what is known about him is that he was born in 1979 in Dalam, Saudi Arabia to a large Bedouin family. His father served in the police force for 28 years while his mother stayed at home to raise her twelve children. He has seven brothers and four sisters. Al-Qahtani’s favourite subject in school was Art and he had no criminal record nor any record of violence. Still the Americans believe he is one of three 20th hijackers.

If the alleged Big Five of 9/11 were disrespectful in court on May 5th this year it is probably out of the knowledge that the court proceedings were a sham and that their fate has already been decided. If convicted they will be executed for a crime they didn’t commit. After ten years of alternative researches into 9/11 few people believe the official suicide-hijack theory that says 19 al-Qaida men had flown planes into four targets. Inconsistencies like having three different men answering to the same crime of being 20th hijacker, serve only to expose the 9/11 hoax the more.

There may be more drama on June 8th when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-accused will be in court again for continuation  of the trial, hopefully  the court theatrics might prove to even the die-hard believers that 9/11 was indeed an inside job.