Posted on 05/13/2006 7:47:09 AM PDT by LouAvul
DENVER - Convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui on Saturday began serving his life sentence at the nation's most secure prison after U.S. marshals flew him overnight from Virginia to Colorado.
Marshals brought Moussaoui, prisoner 51427-054, before dawn Saturday to the Supermax federal prison in southern Colorado, where he will spend 23 hours a day in his cell and have little to no contact with other notorious criminals.
"He has now begun serving his sentence of life without the possibility of release," the U.S. Marshals Service said in a statement.
A special team of deputy marshals took Moussaoui from a detention center in Alexandria, Va., late Friday night, put him on a small jet operated by the agency and delivered him to the prison in Florence, Colo., about 90 miles southwest of Denver.
Moussaoui was the only prisoner aboard, said Ken Deal, chief deputy U.S. marshal in Denver. Deal said he did not know if the 37-year-old Frenchman made any statements during the transfer.
"He is secure in the administrative max (prison) in Florence, Colorado," Deal said. "All the inmates transferred there are handled with the highest level of security."
Moussaoui arrived at 5:17 a.m. EDT, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said in a statement. Prison spokesman Todd Javernick refused to say whether Moussaoui made any comments.
The transfer came got under way on the same day that Moussaoui's court-appointed lawyers appealed his life sentence and the denial of his request for a new trial.
In a one-paragraph notice of appeal, the lawyers said Moussaoui wanted the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the final judgment and sentence he received May 4 and Judge Leonie Brinkema's May 8 denial of his request to withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial on the original charges.
The $60 million Supermax, formally called Administrative Maximum, was built in 1995 in a town of 3,600 people. The triangular, two-story prison was designed for inmates once held at the U.S. Penitentiary in Marion, Ill., which had replaced Alcatraz when it closed in 1963.
Among the inmates at the prison are Ramzi Yousef, Eric Rudolph, Ted Kaczynski and Terry Nichols. Also there is Richard Reid, the would-be shoe bomber he said was to help him fly a fifth plane into the White House. The Bureau of Prisons said the Supermax currently houses 398 "of the nation's most violent, disruptive and escape prone inmates."
Since Moussaoui's sentencing, he has said he lied when testifying at his sentencing trial that he was to hijack a fifth jetliner on Sept. 11, 2001. He has returned to claiming — as he had for four years before the trial testimony — that he had nothing to do with the suicide hijackings that took nearly 3,000 lives.
Moussaoui was in jail in Minnesota on immigration charges when the attacks took place. But he has admitted he was training to hijack a 747 jetliner and fly it into the White House as part of a later plot to gain release of a radical Egyptian sheik who is serving a life term for terrorist acts.
Moussaoui pleaded guilty in April 2005 to six counts of conspiring with al-Qaida to fly planes into U.S. buildings. A jury considering the three counts that carry the death penalty decided he was eligible for execution. They could not agree unanimously that he deserved it, so he was automatically sentenced to the lesser and only other penalty permitted: life in prison.
Brinkema sentenced him to six life terms, to run as two consecutive life sentences.
At Supermax, the soundproofed cells were designed so inmates cannot make eye contact with each other. Each 7-by-12-feet cell has a long, narrow window looking out at other prison walls or the small concrete recreation yard.
Concrete platforms topped with mattresses function as beds. Each cell also contains a concrete stool, shower and toilet.
Inmates get one hour out of their cells each day to eat or play basketball or handball, though some earn longer recreation periods through good behavior. They can take academic courses via closed-circuit television in each cell. Religious services are conducted in a small chapel.
Bacon and eggs for breakfast. Pork barbecue on a bun for lunch. Spareribs for supper. Sounds about right.
Have a nice life, Zac, with all the aryans who are locked up there. In addition to the AB, he can mix with MS13 and and the countries lowest forms of life. Death would have been letting this guy off too easy..
Ah Zacharias,
Once you had dreams of martyrdom and 72 virgins dancing in your head. Instead you'll get 72 bubbas who'll treat you as THEIR virgin.
Have at him boys.
DOH! Countries=country's..
John Walsh (America's Most Wanted) occasionally reads off a list of men who raped/murdered children AGAIN...after they were released from prison, where they were ALL serving LIFE SENTENCES without possibility of parole.
That means the phrase "without possibility of parole" is useless in this country of law enforcers (the good), lawbreakers (the bad) and lawyers/lawmakers (the ugly).
*cough* shank *cough*
Those lawyers can't help you now Moussaoui baby...you fouled your bed now sleep in it
My he live as long and well as Jeffrey Dahmer.
(His head was smashed in shortly after he arrived)
Yep, beaten to death with a broomstick in a WI prison. The guy who did it was a lifer himself, who just wanted to make his bones..
My money says he'll be out again within 5 years.
Ratboy was pretty cocky until he found out where he'd be doing his time. He thought he'd be doing easy time in the general population recruiting other inmates into islam/al-qaeda. Live it up, sucker.
OK, thanks for letting us know. Now, we need to hear nothing more about this scumbag other than an announcement of his death. Got it? Nothing.
Who knows whether it is true, but it is interesting.
A question about Zacarias. Will the media ever be allowed to interview him? Will he be able to write a book?
The 9th Circuit of Appeals will release him just in time for him to become a Democratic elector for Hlllary in 2008.
I wonder when we will start seeing things like "Free Moussaoui" benefit concerts. You just know it's coming.
I know you cant profit from a crime in some cases. I dont know how it works in a 23 hour lockdown. That moron would need a ghost, anyway.
Isnt Ramzi Yousef in Florence?
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