Until Mr. Moussaoui took the stand, the momentum seemed to be with the defense, which had contended that he was a fringe figure in Al Qaeda whose leaders held him in low regard.
Moreover, the government's case had been plagued by problems. After the disclosure that a government transportation lawyer had improperly coached some aviation security witnesses, the testimony of two other witnesses about how the F.B.I. handled investigative leads before Sept. 11 raised as many questions over the government's performance as it did about Mr. Moussaoui's culpability.
From the same NYT article from today however, it seems as though ol’ Zacarias may be suffering delusions of grandeur:
Before the day was over, the jury also had the extraordinary experience of hearing a reading of testimony taken in a deposition from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is said to have organized the Sept. 11 attacks and is being held somewhere in the secret overseas detention system of the Central Intelligence Agency.
That deposition, in which Mr. Mohammed answered questions agreed to by prosecutors and defense lawyers, seemed to contradict Mr. Moussaoui's assertion that he was meant to be a pilot on Sept. 11.
Mr. Mohammed portrayed Mr. Moussaoui as a fringe figure who might have been used in a second wave of attacks if needed.
For more than an hour, Michael Nachmanoff, a public defender, recited Mr. Mohammed's answers in what resembled an oddly disembodied literary reading. Mr. Nachmanoff read out testimony that any planning for a second wave of attacks "was only in the most preliminary stages" and that targets had not even been selected.
But no matter. What’s really important is that Moussaoui can now be executed and give us all the catharsis we so desperately desire! There is a God.
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