A Difficult Case

On May 13th Zacarias Mous­saoui was sent to the “Alca­traz of the Rock­ies” prison, where the most dan­ger­ous fed­eral crim­i­nals are kept. He nar­rowly escaped the death sen­tence for plot­ting to kill Amer­i­cans in the Sep­tem­ber 11th ter­ror­ist attacks. In this les­son, we will look at the details of his court case and the con­tro­ver­sies among the Amer­i­can peo­ple sur­round­ing his trial, in the light of the prin­ci­ples of our Catholic faith.

The Rea­son for Suspicion

When the Fed­eral Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion (FBI) took Mous­saoui into cus­tody on April 16, 2001, they sus­pected that a ter­ror­ist group was plan­ning an attack using air­planes. The flight school in Eagan, Min­nesota, tipped them off that one of their stu­dents was act­ing strangely in his attempt to get more infor­ma­tion about the 747-​​400 model plane. Later, it was sug­gested that Mous­saoui would have been a pos­si­ble “20th hijacker” in the Sep­tem­ber 11th attacks. His path over the past years had been sim­i­lar to the other hijack­ers, but there was dif­fi­culty prov­ing that he actu­ally knew about the 9/​11 plot.

Less than responsible?

Some peo­ple tried to say that Mous­saoui could not be blamed for the crimes he was accused of, because he had such a dif­fi­cult life, espe­cially in his child­hood. His mother was mar­ried in Morocco at age 14, and endured vio­lent abuse from her hus­band for many years. They moved to France, where Zacarias and three other chil­dren were born. After a time, the mother left the father and raised the chil­dren with the tiny income she received as a clean­ing woman.

Due to the ras­cism against immi­grants, the fam­ily suf­fered vio­lence and theft, and were forced to move to dif­fer­ent cities often. Zacarias loved sports, but could not be involved in any teams as he moved around so much. He expe­ri­enced many dis­ap­point­ments in life, and had no reli­gious edu­ca­tion to sup­port him.

This dif­fi­cult back­ground may seem to explain Moussaoui’s vio­lent atti­tude, yet every per­son expe­ri­ences suf­fer­ings in life, some very dif­fi­cult, and still has a choice how he will react to this. Each human being has a respon­si­bil­ity for the choices that he makes. This is part of our dig­nity as men and women made in God’s image.

Intro­duc­tion to Extrem­ist Groups

Mous­saoui received a master’s degree in Inter­na­tional Busi­ness from South Bank Uni­ver­sity in Lon­don. It was here that he became more active in the Islamic faith, attend­ing the Brix­ton Mosque. How­ever, he became involved with extrem­ists who favored a rad­i­cal indoc­tri­na­tion, and he was expelled from the mosque when he showed up wear­ing com­bat fatigues and a back­pack to pres­sure the cleric for infor­ma­tion about join­ing the jihad. The word “Islam” means “sub­mis­sion”, and so the goal of the Mus­lim (a fol­lower of Islam) is to sub­mit one’s life to Allah, the God of Mus­lims, upon which he will give them a reward of sal­va­tion. Mus­lims believe that the jihad, or strug­gle, for total sub­mis­sion (islam) is nec­es­sary for total peace.

Vio­lence and the Koran

Part of this strug­gle is to bring the whole world into con­for­mity with Allah’s will, to rec­og­nize that Allah is God. Mus­lim extrem­ists say that this must be done through Holy War, a jihad that involves bomb­ing and acts of ter­ror­ism against any­one who is seen as a threat against Islam. They say the Koran, the holy book of Mus­lims, jus­ti­fies their actions.

Most Chris­tians find the Koran’s expla­na­tion of vio­lence to be con­fus­ing and ambigu­ous. Unlike the New Tes­ta­ment, it does allow vio­lence in defend­ing or spread­ing of its faith. By con­trast, Christ never allowed vio­lence in defense of the faith, and taught us to love our enemies.

Yet at the same time the Islamic prophet Muham­mad empha­sizes that the most impor­tant jihad is the inter­nal strug­gle each per­son must face in order to com­bat temp­ta­tion and be faith­ful to Allah’s law.1 Thus it is not entirely true to say that the Islamic faith caused these ter­ror­ists to behave as they did, although it may have been a rad­i­cal inter­pre­ta­tion of these beliefs that led them to act as they did.

A Clash of Value Systems

In the United States, we are taught to be tol­er­ant of peo­ple with other belief sys­tems and dif­fer­ent val­ues than ours. We value the free­dom to express our­selves in what­ever way we want. How­ever, this can also lead to a rel­a­tivis­tic and false view that there is no objec­tive good by which to judge some val­ues as good and oth­ers as bad.

Yet free­dom is not the right to kill, even if some­one says that they believe in mas­sacres. So the Mous­saoui case reminds us that there is an objec­tive right and wrong, and that sooner or later we have to make a choice about what is good and what is evil.

If Mous­saoui were insane, it may have been eas­ier to under­stand his case, but this pos­si­bil­ity was ruled out after his psy­cho­log­i­cal assess­ment dur­ing the trial. The fact is that he made his choices freely, accord­ing to the val­ues of the group he wanted to con­nect him­self with.

Mak­ing a Pru­den­tial Judgment

Mous­saoui pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him on April 22, 2005, but the court did not accept his plea at first because they were sus­pi­cious of his motives. The com­plex­ity of the case was not only in the clash of value sys­tems, but also in the sub­ject mat­ter. Mous­saoui is the first per­son con­nected with the 9/​11 attacks who has been tried in the United States, there was a con­cern that the emo­tional desire for revenge would cause the jury to forgo a just and rea­son­able judgment. 

The height­ened sense of injury, and the intense emo­tions that sur­rounded the case made it a par­tic­u­lar chal­lenge to make an objec­tive sen­tence. “Man is some­times con­fronted by sit­u­a­tions that make moral judg­ments less assured and deci­sion dif­fi­cult. But he must always seri­ously seek what is right and good … (CCC 1787).”

The jury took care to make sure that Mous­saoui was not act­ing out of real insan­ity, that he had pro­fes­sional con­sul­ta­tion to help him under­stand the court pro­ceed­ings, and that he would not plead guilty in a hasty and uncon­sid­ered way. The care that they took in order to give Mous­saoui a just trial shows a cer­tain degree of for­give­ness. The virtue of for­give­ness does not mean let­ting a dan­ger­ous crim­i­nal go free, but it does mean to let go of the anger and hatred in order to make a ratio­nal deci­sion about the best thing to do for the per­son and the gen­eral public. 

Con­sid­er­ing the Death Penalty

France and Ger­many, assum­ing that Amer­ica would give the death sen­tence, expressed their protest against this. Yet the case was not as clear-​​cut as many may have thought. Cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment requires that the jury come to a unan­i­mous deci­sion that the per­son “inten­tion­ally par­tic­i­pated in an act…and the vic­tim died as a direct result of the act.” Link­ing Mous­saoui in a defin­i­tive way to the 9/​11 attacks was difficult.

Some of the Amer­i­can pub­lic asked that he be absolved from the death sen­tence, because of a per­sonal belief that this should not be an option. Oth­ers thought that it would give Mous­saoui a glo­ri­ous martyr’s death, when a life impris­on­ment would be a worse punishment. 

The Catholic Church does not pro­hibit the death penalty, espe­cially if it is “the only pos­si­ble way of effec­tively defend­ing human lives against the unjust aggres­sor (CCC 2267). How­ever, it clar­i­fies that the pun­ish­ment should be non-​​lethal if the author­ity has the means to pro­tect the peo­ple in another way, such as impris­on­ment. John Paul II said that in mod­ern times, with all of the means avail­able, the cases in which the death sen­tence is a neces­sity “are very rare, if not prac­ti­cally non-​​existent.” (The Gospel of Life, 56).

No mat­ter what the per­son has done, there is still an inher­ent dig­nity in that per­son due to the fact that he is a made in God’s image. God never stops lov­ing him. If he has done seri­ous evil he should be restrained, but to empha­size this dig­nity, and also to give the per­son a chance to con­vert his heart before he dies and faces eter­nal judg­ment, the Church seeks all other pos­si­bil­i­ties before execution.

Final Sen­tence

 

One of the 12 jurors reported that the panel voted 11-​​1, 10-​​2 and 10-​​2 in favor of the death penalty for each of the three charges that could have mer­ited exe­cu­tion. Since the death penalty requires a unan­i­mous vote, Mous­saoui instead received a life sen­tence with­out the pos­si­bil­ity of parole.

As he left the court, he said “Amer­ica, you lost and I won.” Even at this point he tried to go back on his tes­ti­mony, and say that he really had not been involved with the attacks, but the sen­tence had already been exe­cuted. On May 13th, 2006, Mous­saoui was flown to Col­orado to begin his imprisonment.

Con­clu­sion

 

Zacarias Mousaoui chose a path of hatred and vio­lence. He will now have the rest of his life to think over his deci­sions. We do not know if he will even­tu­ally change his atti­tude, but his case illus­trates the fact that our choices make us into a cer­tain type of person. 

Both a saint and a ter­ror­ist make choices about the type of per­son they want to be. This is part of the drama of being human. This is why Christ came to show us the way to be truly human. The world needs more per­sons who show that real free­dom lies in fol­low­ing the way of Christ, not the way of hatred and vio­lence. The con­se­quences can be tremen­dous for our­selves and for the world around us. Let us ask our Lord to help us make the right choices.

Cat­e­chism Clips

1740 The exer­cise of free­dom does not imply a right to say or do every­thing. … By devi­at­ing from the moral law man vio­lates his own free­dom, becomes impris­oned within him­self, dis­rupts neigh­borly fel­low­ship, and rebels against divine truth.

2306 Those who renounce vio­lence and blood­shed  … bear wit­ness to evan­gel­i­cal char­ity, pro­vided they do so with­out harm­ing the rights and oblig­a­tions of other men and societies. 

Bible blurbs

 

I saw the dead, the great and the lowly, stand­ing before the throne, and scrolls were opened. Then another scroll was opened, the book of life. The dead were judged accord­ing to their deeds, by what was writ­ten in the scrolls. (Rev­e­la­tion 20:12) 

Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will per­ish by the sword. (Matthew 26:52) 

Every­one is to obey the gov­ern­ing author­i­ties, … Mag­is­trates bring fear not to those who do good, but to those who do evil. … You must be obe­di­ent, there­fore, not only because of this ret­ri­bu­tion, but also for conscience’s sake. (Romans 13:1,3,5)

Pope quotes

Under the guid­ance of Christ the Mes­siah, we must work together for this project of har­mony and peace, stop­ping war’s destruc­tive action of hatred and vio­lence. It is nec­es­sary, how­ever, to make a choice, choos­ing to be on the side of the God of love and jus­tice. (Gen­eral Audi­ence Jan­u­ary 25, 2006)

Its fol­low­ers (Islam) wor­ship the same God and will­ingly refer to the Patri­arch Abra­ham. That is why I wanted to meet the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of some Mus­lim Com­mu­ni­ties, … in the hope that fanati­cism and vio­lence will be uprooted and that we will always be able to work together to defend human dig­nity and pro­tect the fun­da­men­tal rights of men and women. (Gen­eral Audi­ence August 24, 2005)

Saints and Heroes

Patron of Police Officers

St. Michael the Archangel  St. Michael the Archangel appears in both the Old and New Tes­ta­ment. He shows God’s power and jus­tice. In the Old Tes­ta­ment he helps Israel do spir­i­tual bat­tle against the evil tyrant Anti­ochus. (Daniel 12:1) In the New Tes­ta­ment he appears fight­ing for the rights of God and as helper in God’s judg­ment. (Rev­e­la­tion 12:7)   Because St. Michael fights against evil Pope Pius XII named him patron of police offi­cers in 1950. We can invoke him in our bat­tles against temp­ta­tion and in our efforts to bring jus­tice to the world.

Doing Good in the Midst of Evil

St. Clotilda (475-​​545) A woman who suf­fered much, but who did great good. Clotilda’s par­ents were mur­dered by her uncle, King Gun­dobad, when she was a child. She was raised at the court of her parent’s mur­derer. Later, she was given in mar­riage to the pagan King Clo­vis, king of the Franks. She con­tin­u­ally invited him to become a Chris­t­ian. At first he mocked her faith, but even­tu­ally he became a Chris­t­ian and with him many of his sub­jects. Clo­vis died eleven years later. The rest of her life was sad­dened by the deadly fight­ing between her three sons over their inher­i­tance, but she ded­i­cated her life to help­ing the sick and the poor.  

 

Vocab­u­lary

Absolved – to pro­nounce free from guilt or blame; acquit

Ambigu­ous – hav­ing two or more pos­si­ble mean­ings; not clear; uncertain

Con­vert – to change basic atti­tude or orientation

For­give­ness – giv­ing up resent­ment against or the desire to pun­ish; pardon

Inher­ent – exist­ing in some­one or some­thing as a nat­ural and insep­a­ra­ble qual­ity, char­ac­ter­is­tic, or right; basic; inborn

Objec­tive – unchange­able; not depend­ing on how one feels

Rel­a­tivis­tic – hav­ing no objec­tive right and wrong; moral confusion

Respon­si­bil­ity – to be answer­able for some­thing; accountability

Tol­er­ant – hav­ing under­stand­ing and accep­tance of other people’s beliefs.

Dis­cus­sion Questions:

1. What were the main issues sur­round­ing the case of Moussaoui?
2. Why was it dif­fi­cult to reach a ver­dict in his trial?
3. Do you think Mous­saoui was given a fair trial for the crimes he had com­mit­ted? Why or why not?
4. How can this idea of free­dom for all, and tol­er­ance of every­one in Amer­ica, be mis­used or mis­un­der­stood? What are the dan­gers of believ­ing that “every­thing goes”?
5. What kind of under­stand­ing of free­dom do we have as Catholics that is dif­fer­ent than just the gov­ern­men­tal understanding?
6. Why should the death sen­tence be avoided if at all possible?

Jour­nal Writing:

Are there any hard deci­sions you are debat­ing in your life? Or, can you remem­ber a time when you had to make a moral deci­sion and you did not know the right thing to do? What helped you to fig­ure it out? What are some things that we have in the Catholic Church to help us decide what is the pru­dent judgment?

What does it mean to you to for­give your ene­mies? Do you have any ene­mies, or any­one who it is hard for you to for­give? What should your for­give­ness look like?

Activ­i­ties:

Hold a class debate for or against the death penalty. Encour­age stu­dents to think through the argu­ments, which may be dif­fer­ent from a worldly per­spec­tive ver­sus the per­spec­tive of the Catholic faith. 

Stu­dents choose a book about a famous per­son who had to over­come a dif­fi­cult child­hood or another trau­matic expe­ri­ence. They write essays on how the per­son over­came that dif­fi­culty and brought some­thing good out of a bad situation.

Alter­na­tively, watch a movie in class that illus­trates the vir­tu­ous choices a per­son makes faced to the dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions around them (i.e. for older stu­dents, “The Hid­ing Place”).

Hold a prayer ser­vice in which the stu­dents can pray for their own ene­mies, for the ene­mies of the nation, and the ene­mies of the Catholic Church. Pray for them, as the first act of kind­ness that Christ asks of us in the Gospel. This can be done in a spon­ta­neous man­ner, or can be pre­pared by hav­ing stu­dents think of one person/​group in each of the three cat­e­gories to pray specif­i­cally for.

Resources:

Mous­saoui for­mally sen­tenced still defi­ant http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12615601/.

Mous­saoui lies ‘let 9/​11 hap­pen’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4850988.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacarias_Moussaoui