Zacarias Moussaoui made his final outburst this morning when Judge Brinkema sentenced him to life in prison:
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) – A defiant Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday, one day after a jury spared his life and rejected U.S. government arguments that the September 11 conspirator should be executed.
“God curse America,” Moussaoui shouted right before U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema imposed the sentence. “God save Osama bin Laden. You’ll never get him.”
Brinkema sentenced Moussaoui, 37, to life in prison with no possibility of release. An admitted al Qaeda operative, Moussaoui will almost certainly be sent to the super maximum security federal prison in Florence, Colorado, and his words at sentencing were probably his last public comments.
Judge Leonie Brinkema followed the sentencing with this statement:
“Mr. Moussaoui, you came here to be a martyr and to die in a great bang of glory. But to quote T.S. Eliot, ‘you will die with a whimper’,” she added, referring to the famous poet.
I just don’t think Moussaoui was impressed or frightened by the words of T.S. Eliot.
Allahpundit at Hot Air has more.
Update: France may try to get Moussaoui transferred so he can live out the rest of his life in his home country.
He will be formally sentenced on Thursday. Moussaoui’s mother, Aisha el Wafi, said her son would be living like a “rat in a hole” and accused France of siding with the United States during the trial.
He should live the rest of his life like a rat in a hole. The US needs to tell the French government and Moussaoui’s mother to stick it.
Update II: Peggy Noonan today says the jury should have killed him:
I happen, as most adults do, to feel a general ambivalence toward the death penalty. But I know why it exists. It is the expression of a certitude, of a shared national conviction, about the value of a human life. It says the deliberate and planned taking of a human life is so serious, such a wound to justice, such a tearing at the human fabric, that there is only one price that is justly paid for it, and that is the forfeiting of the life of the perpetrator. It is society’s way of saying that murder is serious, dreadfully serious, the most serious of all human transgressions.
It is not a matter of vengeance. Murder can never be avenged, it can only be answered.
If Moussaoui didn’t deserve the death penalty, who does? Who ever did?
And if he didn’t receive it, do we still have it?
Update III: Jay Tea makes a great point in the post just below this one when he says this about the “at least he’s not a martyr” argument:
Finally, to those who worried that an executed Moussaoui would become a martyr, congratulations. Now he’s a LIVING martyr, one who can talk about his “repentance,” one whose freedom can become a rallying cry, one who can continually remind the families of the nearly 3,000 who died on 9/11 that their loved ones are gone, but one of the plotters (and, nearly, one of the hijackers) continues to live — at their expense.
Dead martyrs tend to fade quickly from public memory. Living ones, though, are the gift that keeps on giving. Tookie Williams is largely forgotten, but Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier, on the other hand, are still battle cries to some people.
Update IV: More on France’s transfer request from Ed Morrissey:
If the French get their hands on Moussaoui, we will only wake up a few years later to French pronouncements of miracle cures and rehabilitation, and watch the video of the AQ terrorist gleefully leaving the French prison over the protests of the American government. We do not wish to rely on French tenacity in the war on terror; we learned that lesson a long time ago. Let the French try to invoke whatever treaties they want to request Moussaoui’s extradition, and let them stomp their feet when we tell them to pound sand.
Life in prison is perfect for him. It’ll sap away his “martyrdom” and leave him just a broken, bitter old man.
Who is it that keeps giving this bastard a camera and soap box to preach from? execute the piece of shit!
Podhoretz : “There is only one justifiable reason for a juror to make this choice. That juror has to believe the death penalty is wrong under any and all circumstances. “
Then why were those people allowed to be on the jury? I thought it was forbidden for people who oppose the death penalty to sit on a death penalty case??
Now he’s a LIVING martyr, one who can talk about his “repentance,” one whose freedom can become a rallying cry, one who can continually remind the families of the nearly 3,000 who died on 9/11 that their loved ones are gone, but one of the plotters (and, nearly, one of the hijackers) continues to live — at their expense.
What protected him from execution are the laws of our country. If we ignore our principles and act out in anger and vengence, and execute this slimeball, the terorists will have won another victory — by pulling us down to their dog-like levels.
We should not give in to this impulse and compromise our laws and principals. We’re better than they are, remember?
The terrorists have won a victory by not executing this scum. it is not comprimising our laws and principals to execute Him, well apparently it would be for You but not Me. We just have a different way of viewing things and a different set of pricipals.
The terrorists have won a victory by not executing this scum. it is not comprimising our laws and principals to execute Him, well apparently it would be for You but not Me. We just have a different way of viewing things and a different set of principals.
“We just have a different way of viewing things and a different set of principals.
and then there’s are the laws of this country — not to confuse the issue, but if you think we should be able to execute anyone we want without regard to thoise laws feel free to continue to argue your point.
Finally, I can sleep at night. The War on Terror has it’s first prosecution!
Well, you certainly seem to be sleeping through quite a few events, jp2.
Ever hear of Sami al-Arian? John Walker Lindh? Lackawanna Six? Portland Seven?
Of course, you may think these were all innocent folks, railroaded by our racist judicial system.
But they were convictions.
On second thought, perhaps it’s better that you sleep more, and spare us your sonorous thinking.
I say lock Moussaoui and Klingenschmitt in the same dark hole and throw away the key.