FRANCE. FAMILY HOPE MOUSSAOUI CAN AVOID DEATH PENALTY

Francois Roux, a French lawyer advising the family of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the United States over the September 11 attacks, said his family still hoped he would avoid the death penalty. Roux said that although Moussaoui had pleaded guilty in the first phase of his trial, his lawyers would fight to the end to prevent him being sentenced to death.
Clarifying comments he made earlier on Sunday, Roux said the family did not support Moussaoui's decision to plead guilty but realised he could not now go back on it.
"The legal battle is just beginning," he told Reuters by telephone. "It is clear that if he won't go back on his choice it will be a handicap for us in presenting his defence. But nothing is hopeless.
"The fact that he pleaded guilty in this first judicial phase had obviously speeded things up since it lasted two hours instead of several weeks. In the second phase, the so-called 'sentencing phase', we will fight to the end to avoid him getting the death penalty." Moussaoui, 36, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, told a US court in Alexandria, Virginia, on April 22 that he had been handpicked by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to fly a plane into the White House.