Moussaoui Sentenced to Life at Supermax
By ROBERT WELLER, Associated Press Writer
Fri May 5, 4:30 AM ET
A defiant Zacarias Moussaoui spent weeks at trial telling anyone who would listen that he will never feel any remorse for his role in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Now, he has been ordered to spend the rest of his life in a cell with no one to talk to at a prison known as the "Alcatraz of the Rockies."
Moussaoui was sentenced Thursday to life in prison after scolding Americans for missing a chance to learn from him why they are hated by al-Qaida terrorists. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema sentenced the unrepentant 37-year-old Frenchman to six life sentences and told him he would "die with a whimper," isolated from the world and not in the glory of martyrdom.
His next stop is expected to be the federal maximum-security prison in Florence, a small town 90 miles southwest of Denver.
At Supermax, he would spend 23 hours a day in a cell with a tiny window and have little to no contact with other notorious criminals, including Ramzi Yousef, Eric Rudolph, Ted Kaczynski and Terry Nichols on "bombers' row." Richard Reid, the would-be shoe bomber Moussaoui said was to help him fly a fifth plane into the White House, is also serving a life sentence there.
At the sentencing hearing in Alexandria, Va., the judge told Moussaoui that everyone else in the room would be "free to go any place they want. They can go outside and they can feel the sun, ... smell the fresh air, ... hear the birds. They can eat what they want tonight. They can associate with whom they want."
She went on: "You will never again get a chance to speak and that's an appropriate and fair ending."
Robert Hood, a former warden at Supermax, said the judge's description was accurate. Even when Moussaoui is allowed outside he would "see the sky but not the mountains or other terrain," he said.
Moussaoui would be afforded religious rights as a Muslim and probably a special diet if he behaves. Inmates at Supermax also are allowed telephone calls and visitors if they don't act up. Hood said phone privileges could be as little as 15 minutes a month.
Prison officials declined comment Thursday after Moussaoui was formally sentenced. Carla Wilson, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons in Washington, would not confirm that Moussaoui will be a Supermax inmate.
Still, she noted the prison is designed for people like him.
"It operates under a special mission and that mission is to handle the most violent and disruptive inmates," she said.
The $60 million Supermax, formally called Administrative Maximum, was built in 1995 in Florence, a town of 3,600 people. It was designed for inmates once held at the U.S. Penitentiary in Marion, Ill., which had replaced Alcatraz when it closed in 1963.
The soundproofed cells were designed so inmates cannot make eye contact with each other. Each 7-by-12-feet cell has a long, narrow window looking out at other prison walls or the small concrete recreation yard.
Concrete platforms topped with mattresses function as beds. Each cell also contains a concrete stool, shower and toilet.
Hood said inmates see no current news on the small black-and-white television, and some of the programming is official prison material. "If a newspaper is allowed it will be time-delayed," the former warden said.
Inmates get one hour out of their cells each day to eat or play basketball or handball. They can take academic courses via closed-circuit TV in each cell.
On Thursday, Moussaoui directed what may be his last public words to three relatives of victims killed on Sept. 11, 2001. Moments before, the relatives described loved ones lost the day four hijacked jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
He said Americans feel only their own pain and wondered if they would ever consider "how many people the CIA has destroyed." He called the trial "a wasted opportunity for this country to understand ... why people like me, like (hijacker) Mohamed Atta and the rest have so much hatred for you."
"As long as you don't want to hear, you will feel, America," he said. "If you don't want to hear, you will feel" pain.
"God curse America and save Osama bin Laden. You will never get him."
Brinkema told Moussaoui he cannot appeal his guilty plea but could appeal the sentence. She predicted "it would be an act of futility" but asked his attorneys to file the required appeal notice as a precaution and as their last act before relinquishing their court-appointed duty to represent him.
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Associated Press Writers Michael J. Sniffen and Matthew Barakat in Alexandria, Va., and Catherine Tsai and Don Mitc in Denver contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
Court do ents: http://notablecases.vaed.uscourts.gov
Bureau of Prisons site: http://www.bop.gov/locations/ins utions/flm/index.jsp
Prison designer's site: http://www.dlrgroupjustice.com
^^I just wonder how long it will be before ACLU and "others" will be demanding he
be placed in a better setting? You know he had that terrible childhood and was
abused so much. I think he should have been treated really well and given what he
wanted: Death. And believe me in a few years you will be hearing about what a
wonderful person he is and how he has been a model prisoner and should released into
society to teach, what else: about Muslims and how peaceful and caring they really are.
This judge is delusional or, worse, doesn't understand her own profession. , the ACLU and various other terrorist-sympathizing organizations will be trapsing Mr. Worthless in and out of courtrooms, on appeals, for the forseeable future.
The ACLU is not going to get involved in a non-death penalty case. Especially, one in which the defendant was adequately defended by his attorney, and spared the death penalty.
Last edited by Oh, Gee!!; 05-05-2006 at 10:05 AM.
Supermax sounds like a place where the utter lack of stimulation atrophies the mind and tortures the soul.
GOOD.
OG, you really have to kiddin, right?
Want to make a bet? He is one of the biggest in their pea picking minds.
Be Patient, be very patient. It will happen!
Damn straight. Solitary for life is far worse than death in my opinion. The er deserves to rot slowly and die a little bit at a time.
What would be the ACLU's legal basis for entering the fray?
This sort of case isn't really the kind of case that the ACLU gets involved with. Other groups that devote themselves to criminal liability and sentencing issues might find some basis to appeal, but it seems ridiculously unlikely that any judge on any court in the United States would overturn the conviction or the sentence.
Of course, everyone decries the ACLU until it decides to take up a pet cause like, say, the privacy rights of right-wing talk show hosts or something like that.
Guess Whatttt
Seriously though when he finally does die, those double D breasted, dark haired dark skinned, belly dancing virgins will all be waiting for him and ing his brains out for eternity....so while the cartoons are accurate, its all just delaying the inevitable.
Damn...I should become muslim..
Attention Homeland Security...
lol that would be a funny cartoon...
great punishment
shoulda put him in GenPop at Rikers.
He'll go crazy after a year or two
The bad part about him not being in general population is it will be harder to shank him. He would be protected by the muslim brothers but just about everyone else would want a piece.
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