Supreme Court declines Moussaoui appeal

Case centered on access to al-Qaida captives

The Associated Press

Updated: 12:02 p.m. ET March 21, 2005

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear the appeal of terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, the only defendant charged in the United States in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Justices let stand a lower court ruling that allowed the government to pursue the death penalty while restricting Moussaoui's direct access to three al-Qaida terror captives. The lower court, citing national security concerns, said Moussaoui could use government-prepared summaries from the captives but not interview them.

His lawyers had questioned whether Moussaoui’s constitutional rights would be violated if the defense was forced to rely on government-prepared summaries of interrogation statements from three al-Qaida captives.

A federal appeals court had approved use of the summaries after the government argued that more direct access to al-Qaida leaders — or even their classified interrogation statements — would jeopardize national security.

The lawyers said it was unconstitutional to force Moussaoui to rely on “summaries of classified documents containing information from unnamed, unsworn government agents purporting to report unsworn, incomplete, non-verbatim accounts” of witness statements.

Moussaoui, a French citizen, was indicted in December 2001, and remains the only U.S. defendant charged in an al-Qaida conspiracy that includes the Sept. 11 attacks. The defendant has acknowledged his loyalty to Osama bin Laden but denies he was to have any role in the 2001 airplane hijackings.