Concerned about the case, not the case's outcome
It's pretty critical that Moussaoui get access to the testimony of the captured folks. I'm not concerned for him, though. I don't want to see another crack in our legal protections.
Federal Appeals Court Restores Sept. 11 Prosecution
By PHILIP SHENON
Published: April 23, 2004
WASHINGTON, April 22 — A federal appeals court on Thursday restored the government's full case against Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in an American court with conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks, and allowed prosecutors once again to seek the death penalty.
At the same time, the three-judge appeals panel, in Richmond, Va., backed defense lawyers in their argument that Mr. Moussaoui is entitled to introduce testimony from captured members of Al Qaeda who have told interrogators overseas that he had nothing to do with the plot.
The panel, drawn from members of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, ordered the trial judge to work out a compromise on the issue that has long threatened to derail the case: how to grant Mr. Moussaoui access to information from the captured Qaeda members while preserving the government's rights to interrogate enemy combatants without interruption during wartime.
"We reject the government's claim that the district court exceeded its authority in granting Moussaoui access to the witnesses," the panel wrote, referring to the trial judge, Leonie M. Brinkema of Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va. "However, we reverse the district court insofar as it held that it is not possible to craft adequate substitutions."
