Roommate Says Moussaoui Focused on Jihad

Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui tried to enlist an Oklahoma roommate in holy war even as he pressed ahead with his own terrorist training, according to court testimony in his death-penalty trial Tuesday.

Prosecutors showed the jury a videotaped deposition by Hussein al-Attas to try to build their case that Moussaoui was a serious terrorist threat.

Al-Attas said in his deposition that Moussaoui talked about holy war every day when they roomed together, taught him martial arts and proposed sending him to Pakistan to learn the Islamic militant justification for jihad.

"Your obligation, like any other Muslim, is to be ready for jihad," he quoted Moussaoui as telling him. Al-Attas also said Moussaoui told him: "This is the only way for me to get to paradise."

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When federal agents arrested Moussaoui in Minnesota in August 2001, where he wanted to advance his training by learning to fly a commercial airliner, al-Attas was with him. Al-Attas spent more than a year in jail for making false statements to 9/11 investigators.

He was given immunity for his testimony against Moussaoui.

Al-Attas described Moussaoui as a rude man whose presence at the mosque in Norman irritated other Muslims. Moussaoui would question the mosque's imam about the proper way to pray and lectured others at the mosque, telling them they should leave the United States.

While a witness who, like Al-Attas, has been given immunity in exchange for his evidence may be suspect what he's got to say it still quite interesting. Apparently Moussaoui made hardly any effort to hide his extremist inclinations. A talk to congregants of that local mosque would've likely yielded that much. Did federal investigators talk with them?

Be that as it may it is quite clear that suspicions should have been raised immidiately.

tags: trial  extremism  moussaoui  law