A 10:25 AM (EDT) update from Mike Nizza on the New York Times’ blog tells of self-admitted 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s arraignment:
In his first public appearance since his 2003 capture, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told an American military judge that he wanted to fire his legal team. “I will represent myself,” he said. He cited religion, saying the he “cannot accept any attorney who is governed” by law “rather than the Lord of the law,” Bloomberg News reported.
When the judge informed him that he faced the death penalty, the Al Qaeda operative welcomed the possible sentence with open arms. “Yes, this is what I wish, to be a martyr for a long time,” he said.
The anti-death penalty activists will be pouring out into the streets with shouts of “Save KSM: Don’t turn him into a martyr.”
In Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s jihad-driven mind, he wins — life or death — either way. Yet the only way he really wins is if we let his propaganda drive the decision either way. We win if we follow our law and impose the appropriate sentence of death upon this self-admitted war criminal whose actions led to the murder of 2,973 men, women, and children on September 11, 2001.
After pleading guilty and during the two days of his testimony during the death penalty phase of his trial, Zacarias Moussaoui mocked the family members of 9/11 victims who had testified, seeming to goad the jury into sentencing him to death. Yet, when the sentence was handed down, this was the scene:
Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty to six terrorism conspiracy charges related to the attacks, gave a slight smirk as the verdict was read aloud by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in a packed courtroom here.
“America, you lost!” the husky terrorist called out later as he was led from the courtroom. “I won.”
Zacarias Moussaoui was sent by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to train and become a hijacker pilot, well in advance of September 11. Moussaoui was not told the details of the “planes operation” so that he could not reveal the plot if captured; that is the same reason why none of the other pilots knew, except for Mohamed Atta who needed to know to execute the plan. While it is important to note that Moussaoui may have been sent as the pilot of an additional plane (earlier planning included targeting buildings on the West Coast and Chicago) or to pilot a plane during a second-wave attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed briefly considered him as a replacement muscle hijacker after the designated 20th hijacker was denied entry into the United States in June 2001.
The point is the jury knew all that when they deliberated Moussaoui’s sentence.
Yet Moussaoui “won” when he was sentenced to life imprisonment because several members of the jury bought his propaganda (as echoed by a few 9/11 family members and anti-death penalty activists) that a death sentence would make him a martyr; he won because the jury let the propaganda affect their decision.
It remains to be seen whether another jury repeats that mistake with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and company.
