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Moussaoui jury still cloistered
26/04/2006 22:53 - (SA)
Alexandria - Jurors in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial returned to court on Wednesday morning for a second day of deliberations.
They are to decide whether the September 11 conspirator should be sentenced to death.
The nine-man, three-woman jury weighed the Frenchman's fate for nine hours and forty-five minutes on Tuesday.
Judge Leonie Brinkema sent the jury out for deliberation on Monday.
The same jury took 18 hours to determine, on April 3, that Moussaoui was eligible for execution.
They agreed with prosecution claims that his "lies" while in jail in August 2001 provided cover for the September 11 attacks.
If the jury, working off a 42-page verdict form, cannot unanimously agree on a death sentence, Moussaoui will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release.
In the only courtroom action in Virginia on Tuesday, jurors asked Brinkema whether they could have a dictionary - but she refused.
"If there are terms you are having trouble with, you can ask a specific question," said Brinkema. "The jury cannot conduct a specific investigation on its own."
Moussaoui, who claims he would have flown a hijacked jet into the White House on September 11 2001 had it not been for his arrest, was brought into court for the five-minute proceeding.
On Monday, prosecutors told jurors that the only just sentence for such a "cold-blooded killer" was execution.
Defence lawyers begged them not to reward Moussaoui with martyrdom and asked them to hand him the "long, slow death of a common criminal" in a maximum-security jail.
- AFP
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