The US announced the first indictment from the wide-ranging federal probe of the September 11th terrorist attacks this evening, charging Zacarias Moussaoui with conspiracy.
The indictment also names as unindicted co-conspirators Osama bin Laden and other members of his al-Qaeda organization, along with the head of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
|
|
Zacarias Moussaoui,
the French national of Moroccan origin who was charged today. |
"This morning a grand jury in the eastern district of Virginia charged Zacarias Moussaoui ... with conspiring with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to murder thousands of innocent people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania on September 11," Attorney General Mr John Ashcroft said.
Moussaoui, a French national of Moroccan origin, was indicted on six counts, ranging from conspiracy to commit terrorist acts, destroy aircraft and murder US employees, to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.
Four of the counts carry the death penalty.
The 33-year-old, who has been in custody since August 16th, "engaged in the same preparation and training for murder as the 19 co-conspirators who carried out the September 11 hijackings," the complaint alleges.
|
The document says he attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan;, received flight training in the United States; inquired about crop dusters, and received funding from sources in Germany and the Middle East.
However, unlike his alleged co-conspirators, the 19 men who hijacked four commercial airliners, Moussaoui was arrested before the attacks.
He was picked up August 16th by US authorities after instructors at the Minnesota flight school he was attending tipped them off that he had been acting suspiciously.
The apprentice pilot was interested in learning to fly a jet but not to land or take off, according to authorities.
The indictment also cites a list of unindicted co-conspirators headed by bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, head of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
The 19 hijackers who commandeered the four jets that were used as aerial targets on September 11th, as well as two men who sent funds to the alleged terrorists, were also named on the list.
"Today 7,000 miles from the battlefield in Afghanistan, another victory is taking shape in the war on terrorism," Mr Ashcroft said.
More than 3,000 people died in the attacks on New York, and Washington and in the plane crash in Pennsylvania September 11th; US President George W. Bush led one of several services of remembrance earlier today on the three month anniversary of the event.
AFP