2 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, April 4, 2006
NATION/WORLD
Moussaoui eligible
for death penalty
NEWS IN BRIEF
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NEWBERN, Tenn.
Moussaoui to federal
jury: "You'll never get my
blood, God curse you all"
ALEXANDRIA, Virg. -A federal jury
found al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias
Moussaoui eligible to be executed yes-
terday, linking him directly to the hor-
rific Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and
concluding that his lies to FBI agents
led to at least one death on that day.
A defiant Moussaoui said, "You'll
never get my blood, God curse you all."
After months of hearings and trial
testimony - punctuated by Mouss-
aoui's occasional outbursts - he now
faces a second phase of the sentencing
trial to determine if he actually will be
put to death.
That phase begins Thursday morning
for the only person to face charges in this
country in connection with the nation's
worst terrorist assault, the attacks that
killed nearly 3,000 people as jetliners
crashed into the World Trade Center,
the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
Moussaoui sat in his chair and prayed
silently as the verdict was read, refusing
to join his defense team in standing. His
comment came after the hearing.
The jury now will hear testimony on
whether the 37-year-old Frenchman,
who was in jail at the time of the attacks,
should be executed for his role.
Those testifying will include fami-
lies of 9/11 victims who will describe
the human impact of the al-Qaida mis-
sion. Court-appointed defense lawyers,
whom Moussaoui has tried to reject,
will summon experts to suggest he is
schizophrenic after an impoverished
childhood during which he faced racism
in France over his Moroccan ancestry.
The trial's first phase, which focused
strictly on legal arguments, had seemed
Moussaoui's best chance to avoid execu-
tion. The jury deciding his fate will now
be weighing the emotional impact of
nearly 3,000 deaths against Moussaoui's
rough childhood and possible evidence
of mental illness.
On the key question before the jurors
in phase one, they answered yes that at
least one victim died Sept. II as a direct
result of Moussaoui's actions.
Had the jury voted against his eligi-
bility for the death penalty, Moussaoui
would have been sentenced to life in
prison.
Rosemary Dillard, whose husband
Eddie died in the attacks, said she felt a
sense of vindication from the verdict.
"This man has no soul, has no con-
science," she said of Moussaoui. "What
else could we ask for but this?"
Abraham Scott, who lost his wife Jan-
ice Marie on 9/11, said he actually felt
sorry for Moussaoui "But not enough to
drop the possibility of him getting the
death penalty.
"I describe him like a dog with rabies,
one that cannot be cured. The only cure
is to put him or her to death, Scott said.
But Scott said he also blamed the
government "for not acting on certain
AP PHOTO
Edward Adams, a U.S. District Court spokesman, reads the verdict in the sentencing
trial of Zacarias Moussaoui in front of a U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. yesterday.
indicators that could have prevented
9/11 happening."
The jury began weighing Mouss-
aoui's fate last Wednesday. During its
deliberations, jurors asked only one
question publicly, seeking a definition of
"weapon of mass destruction." One of
the three convictions for which Mouss-
aoui could be executed is conspiracy to
use weapons of mass destruction.
The jurors were told that a plane used
as a missile - the tactic employed on
mass destruction.
Moussaoui pleaded guilty last April
to conspiring with al-Qaida to hijack
aircraft and other crimes. At the time, he
denied being part of the 9/11 plot, say-
ing he was being trained for a separate
attack, but he changed his story when
he took the stand and claimed he was
to have flown a hijacked airliner into the
White House that day. The defense sug-
gested Moussaoui would say anything
to derail his own defense so he could
27 killed in violent storms across Midwest
Tornadoes shredded homes to their foundations, hail tore holes in the rooftops
and high winds toppled even freight cars as a line of violent storms cut zigzagging
paths of destruction that killed at least 27 people across the nation's midsection.
The worst damage from Sunday night's storms occurred along a 25-mile swath of
rural western Tennessee, where 23 of the deaths occurred and state troopers using dogs
searched for more victims amid the rubble of brick buildings and toppled trailers.
"Most of the houses, you can't count. They're just gone," said Roy Chil-
dress, who was part of a church relief crew that was delivering food and
water to survivors Monday.
The dead included an infant and the grandparents who had been babysitting him.
A young couple and their two sons, ages five and three, were also killed, their bod-
ies found 800 yards from their house.
"It basically took my life away. I don't really care if I see daylight tomor-
row," said Larry Taylor, the boys' grandfather and the only funeral director in
rural Bradford. He was planning to bury the family in two separate caskets,
with each child alongside one of his parents.
"I'd give everything I had for that not to have happened,' he said through tears.
WASH INGTON
Supreme Court rejects appeal from Padilla
A divided Supreme Court turned back a challenge to the Bush adminis-
tration's wartime detention powers, rejecting an appeal from U.S. citizen
Jose Padilla who until recently had been held as an enemy combatant with-
out traditional legal rights.
Chief Justice John Roberts and two others signaled concerns about the
government's handling of Padilla and said they would be watching to ensure
he receives the protections "guaranteed to all federal criminal defendants."
Three other justices wanted the court to consider immediately whether
President Bush overstepped his authority by ordering Padilla's detention.
Padilla (pronounced puh-DILL-uh) had become a symbol of the admin-
istration's aggressive pursuit of terror suspects after Sept. 11, 2001.
The former Chicago gang member and convert to Islam was held in a
military prison as an alleged enemy combatant for three and a half years,
part of that time without access to lawyers.
His supporters wanted the Supreme Court to use his case to declare that Ameri-
cans cannot be arrested on U.S. soil and held incommunicado.
DOVER, Del
No one killed in giant C-5 cargo plane crash
A huge military cargo plane faltered after takeoff and belly-landed short of the
Dover Air Force Base runway yesterday, breaking apart and drenching some of the
17 people aboard with fuel but causing no fire or life-threatening injuries.
"It is a miracle. Absolutely a miracle," said Lt. Col. Mark Ruse, commander of
the base's 436th Air Wing Civil Engineering squadron. "If you look at the condition
of that plane and 17 people are still alive right now - it is absolutely amazing."
Military officials said the C-5 Galaxy, the military's largest plane at more than
six stories high and 247 feet long, developed some kind of problem soon after tak-
ing off for Spain about 6:30 a.m. and attempted to return to the base.
It crashed in an open, grassy area about a half-mile short of the runway, breaking
in two behind the cockpit. The tail assembly landed several hundred yards away
and an engine was thrown forward by the impact.
BOSTON
Scientists recreate organ with lab-grown tissue
For the first time, scientists have rebuilt a complex human organ, the
bladder, in seven young patients using live tissue grown in the lab - a
breakthrough that could hold exciting promise for someday regenerating
ailing hearts and other organs.
Only simpler tissues - skin, bone, and cartilage - have been lab-grown
in the past. This is the first time that a more intricate organ has been mostly
replaced with tissue grown from the patient's own cells.
- Compiled from Daily wire reports
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M
Sept. II - qualifies as a weapon of achieve martyrdom through execution.
Gun safety problems plague Iraqi military
Battling inexperience, U.S.
trainers struggle to stamp out
Iraqi army misfires
BIDIMNAH, Iraq (AP) - The two bloodied, winc-
ing Iraqi soldiers - bandages wrapped around their legs
- hobbled onto the waiting ambulance, wounded during
a house-to-house search near this farming town.
The culprit was a common one: Not insurgents, but
gunfire from fellow soldiers. U.S. trainers who mentor
Iraqi troops say a lack of gun safety, or what they call
"muzzle discipline," has led to many injuries and deaths
across the country.
And while the Americans say it is slowly getting bet-
ter, it remains a major problem
for a U.S. military trying to "It's kind of
train more than 200,000 Iraqis
to defeat the insurgency. a PKC Pmn1
"When we first got here, itn
was a little scary," said Army a 360 (degr
Capt. Steven Fischer, a trainer
from Washington, Penn. "We a turret and
have to correct it. It's some-
thing that's got to be better." his name in
In the Bidimnah case in late
January, insurgents first fired - Arr
on Iraqi and U.S. troops patrol-
ling the rural area about 50
miles west of Baghdad. That
prompted more than a minute of
wild, continuous gunfire from the Iraqi troops. The two
Iraqi soldiers were wounded while the militants escaped
unharmed.
Other examples are rife and often startling:
In December in the town of Adhaim north of Bagh-
dad, an Iraqi soldier stepped out of a vehicle with his safety
lever turned off and accidentally shot himself point-blank
in the chest. Minutes later, as a U.S. helicopter carried
S
.n
Iy
the dying man away, an Associated Press reporter saw a
frustrated American soldier storm up and lecture another
Iraqi soldier, who also did not have his safety on.
During a large-scale operation last summer in
Baghdad, an antsy Iraqi soldier took aim at what he
thought was an insurgent, prompting several other Iraqi
soldiers to drill hundreds of rounds into an empty home.
No one was injured.
Iraq had a million-man army under Saddam Hussein,
but soldiers who served in the old army said they were
given only a few bullets a year - apparently a way to
prevent coups. That practice left Iraqi troops untrained in
the most basic of soldiering skills.
Iraq now has tens of thousands of rookie soldiers who
only recently learned how to use a weapon. And misfires
have led to dozens of military
>ca to see deaths.
Gen. George Casey, the
ler doing top U.S. commander in Iraq,
distributed a letter in October
2e turn) in saying more than 75 coalition
troops had been killed by mis-
painting fires. He did not specify if the
he air victims were Iraqis, Ameri-
the air . cans or others, and he also did
not say who the shooters were.
Sgt. Joseph Neary "The failure to properly clear
weapons and maintain muzzle
Altoona, Pa. awareness led to these unnec-
essary losses," Casey wrote in
the letter, which was posted at
bases across Iraq and viewed by an AP reporter.
Warning signs also are posted at U.S. bases across
Iraq, such as one at Camp Ar Ramadi that instructs U.S.
soldiers to be alert to the threat.
"Recently there have been several negligent discharges
that have resulted in non-battle injuries to our personnel,"
read the sign. "Hold our partnered Iraqi forces to these
same standards," it warns, after listing safety rules.
The problem is hardly unique to Iraq: armies across
Africa and the Third World are notorious for their lack of
safety procedures. But the problem is particularly acute
in Iraq, where thousands with automatic weapons are on
alert for insurgents.
Roadside bomb blasts that target Iraqi patrols are often
followed by aimless gunfire from the Iraqis, usually
useless since most attackers hide before they detonate
bombs. And Iraqi soldiers sometimes clear traffic from
roads by firing into the air.
In comparison, U.S. soldiers pride themselves on gun
discipline, stressing the preservation of ammunition until
a target is identified. U.S. misfires can lead to demotions
or serious reprimands.
U.S. trainers say Iraqi safety procedures have
improved, but only after constant reminders.
"They've gotten better. It's gotten so they know
they need PID (positive identification) to shoot,"
said Army Sgt. Joseph Neary of Altoona, Pa.
Trainers drill Iraqi soldiers to keep their weap-
ons on safe and pointed downward. "We've pound-
ed it into their heads," Neary said.
But many American trainers have stories to
tell.
"It's kind of scary to see a PKC gunner doing a
360 (degree turn) in a turret and painting his name
in the air," Neary said.
Cultural issues also exacerbate the problem.
Many Iraqi soldiers swagger with their guns and
neglect to use safety levers as a sign of manliness.
In western Iraq, Col. Daniel Newell, who heads
a team of Marine trainers there, estimates his Iraqi
trainees suffer about one accidental shooting a
week, but stresses they have improved.
Safety problems are also rampant among thou-
sands of armed Iraqi civilians who increasingly
carry personal weapons as civil strife has spread.
Iraqi laws allow civilians one AK-47 rifle and a
full magazine per household.
a0
0
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