Just How Fair Can This Trial Really Be?

It was nice to see the first indictment of a terrorist in this country, wasn't it?

You know, this guy is going to be the poster boy for 9/11 angst in this country.

I wondered how long it would take to actually indict somebody. It took longer than I expected, but I suppose the government wanted to build in double and triple redundancies of evidence.

The last thing the government wants is to have one of these guys acquitted.

Tuesday's federal grand jury indictment alleges Zacarias Moussaoui conspired with other as yet unindicted co-conspirators to murder thousands of innocent Americans.

A strange twist to the story comes from the fact that the alleged terrorist was in jail on 9/11 in Minnesota for immigration violations.

According to Associated Press, Moussaoui faces arraignment Jan. 2 on conspiracy charges for terrorism, aircraft piracy, destruction of aircraft, use of weapons of mass destruction, murder and destruction of property.

The guy who the FBI says was supposed to be the 20th hijacker, wired $14,000 to Moussaoui from Germany the month before the Sept. 11 attacks. A week later, Moussaoui paid $6,300 in cash to a flight school in Minnesota.

AP reported that the indictment said Moussaoui's activities mirrored those of the 19 hijackers - he attended flight school, opened a bank account with cash, joined a gym, purchased knives, bought flight deck videos and looked into crop dusting planes.

But apparently, while being a nice guy, Moussaoui was a lousy student.

A teacher at the Airman Flight School in Norman, Okla., said he was a lousy student.

Even after 57 hours of flight lessons he still wasn't able to fly solo. Usually, students fly solo in a third of that time.

The instructor said he was a very polite guy and never did anything that seemed suspicious.

Nothing suspicious until Aug. 17, when he went to Minnesota to train on Boeing flight simulators.

Moussaoui was detained there because he told the people who ran the simulators he wanted to learn how to fly jetliners but wasn't interested in learning to take off or land.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft says Moussaoui was an active participant in the Sept. 11 attacks. He underwent the same training as the terrorists on the hijacked planes.

My guess is that if this guy hadn't been locked up, he would have been on one of the 9/11 jetliners. That's the government's guess, too.

It will be interesting to watch this trial unfold.

It is also interesting to note that it will be a federal trial, not a military tribunal as spelled out in a recent, much-maligned executive order.

I think the decision to use a federal court for Moussaoui's case is a good one.

And the decision must have caught a lot of pundits off guard. You know, the people who have been blathering on as if anyone remotely associated with terrorism was going to be dragged into a star chamber, secretly and unjustly persecuted without evidence and then summarily executed.

I've thought all along the executive order was meant to offer an option for Al-Qaida types captured in the war on terrorism overseas - or even for bin Laden himself.

I mean, really, could you imagine us putting bin Laden on a jet and flying him back to the U.S. for a trial in a federal court?

No, I think a military tribunal would be a good fit for bin Laden.

And frankly, a military tribunal would probably be at least as fair as a U.S. court martial.

Nobody seems to have a problem with a court martial for military personnel. Why should a suspected terrorist, who isn't even a U.S. citizen, be afforded a higher level of constitutional protection than a member of the military?

I think Moussaoui's trial will be quite revealing. I think the Justice Department attorneys will piece together a chilling trail of evidence for us leading all the way back to Afghanistan and bin Laden himself.

A couple things about it seem strained, though.

The concept of innocent until proven guilty, the bedrock principle of our judicial system, is tough to maintain in a case like this.

I think everybody has a presumption about this guy and his role in terrorism, all right.

But it's not a presumption of innocence.

Which brings me to the question of where in this country will you find an impartial jury of his peers?

The case will be tried in Arlington, Va. But really, where in the country could you legitimately try the case to avoid excessive and adverse pretrial publicity?

And finally, how would you like to be Moussaoui's court-appointed attorney? Not exactly a highly esteemed position.

Say what you want about military tribunals or our judicial system, I will end with this one observation.

The indictment runs to 35 pages and has been characterized by the Justice Department as a "chronicle of evil." Four of the charges against Moussaoui carry the death penalty.

Regardless of method of adjudication, I think this guy's fate is sealed.