The last time Zacarias Moussaoui was a free man, mere weeks before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he tried to get training at a flight school in Eagan. Since his arrest on an immigration violation on Aug. 17, 2001 and brief incarceration in Elk River, Moussaoui was convicted as the suspected "20th hijacker" and sentenced in 2006 to life in prison.
Moussaoui's recent decision to speak to lawyers in a civil case against the nation of Saudi Arabia has renewed calls to unseal 28 pages of a 2002 investigation of the 9/11 attacks, the New York Times reports. Moussaoui told the attorneys that high-ranking Saudis financed the terror, an accusation that a bipartisan group of current and former members of Congress say could be illuminated or refuted by the release of the documents.
The Saudi government, meanwhile, says in a statement these are the bogus claims of a "deranged criminal" who was found "mentally incompetent." "His goal in making these statements only serves to get attention for himself and try to do what he could not do through acts of terrorism - to undermine Saudi-U.S. relations," the Saudi Embassy said. Nonetheless, the Saudis also favor releasing the secret documents, which are titled "Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain National Security Matters" and make up Part 4 of the congressional intelligence committee report.
Moussaoui is currently a resident of the super-secure U.S. Penitentiary Florence Admax in Florence, Colorado. Read his statements here, here, here and here.
