Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted for playing a role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said he is renouncing al Qaeda and its former leader Osama bin Laden.
Moussaoui, 51, is serving a life sentence at the Federal ADX supermax prison in Colorado after barely escaping a death sentence during his 2006 trial. The convicted terrorist filed a handwritten note in an Alexandria federal court, asking for the special administrative measures he is serving under be eased, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
“I denounce, repudiate Usama bin Laden as a useful idiot of the CIA/Saudi. I also proclaim unequivocally my opposition to any terrorist action, attack, propaganda against the U.S.,” he wrote in the letter, adding that he hopes “to warn young Muslim against the deception and the manipulation of these fake Jihadis.”
Moussaoui said he wants President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor of New York City during the Sept. 11 attacks, or Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz to represent him in a civil trial that was filed by victims of the terrorist attacks.
Dershowitz told the Washington Examiner over email that Moussaoui has not reached out to him directly about representation.
“If he truly wants to help victims of terrorism, I would be willing to speak to him,” Dershowitz said.
The Washington Examiner also reached out to Giuliani for comment.
During his 2006 trial, prosecutors said Moussaoui could have prevented the attacks if he had not lied to the FBI when he was arrested in August 2001. Moussaoui, who is French, is sometimes referred to as the “20th hijacker.”
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema denied Moussaoui’s request and wrote that “raising these issues with this Court is an act of futility” on his part. He has appealed Brinkema’s denial.
