MOUSSAOUI TRIAL Jurors listen to 9/11 flight recording

Defense lawyers will argue that the defendant should get life in prison.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Jurors in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial listened Wednesday to a recording of terrified shouts and cries in the cockpit as desperate passengers twice charged panicked hijackers during the final half hour of doomed United Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001.
"Is that it? I mean, shall we pull it down?" one hijacker asked in Arabic 123 seconds before the 757 jetliner slammed into a Pennsylvania field with 33 passengers, seven crew members and four hijackers. "Yes, put it in it, and pull it down," another voice replied in Arabic.
In the remaining two minutes, more voices are heard than earlier, including some that say in English:
"Go. Go."
"Move. Move."
And in Arabic: "Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest."
Then only the roar of static.
The government rested its case for executing Sept. 11 conspirator Moussaoui shortly after 17 jurors and alternates and 150 audience members became the first people other than investigators and victims' relatives to hear the only audible cockpit recording recovered from the four jetliners hijacked by Al-Qaida in the nation's most deadly terrorist attack.
Court-appointed defense lawyers will begin arguing today that the 37-year-old Frenchman, who was in jail in Minnesota on 9/11, played so small a role and had such mental problems that he deserves life in prison instead of execution.
Here's the court scene
The jurors couldn't take their eyes off the video screens as prosecutors used a multimedia presentation to try to put them inside the Flight 93 cockpit.
Slumped in his chair and impassive, Moussaoui, too, watched intently.
A transcript, which translated Arabic into English and converted many nearly inaudible sounds into text, scrolled up the side of the screen. Synchronized with the text and drawn from the recovered flight data recorder, dials showed the plane's speed, altitude and wing attitude compared with the horizon. Other indicators showed the autopilot, the steering yoke position and the plane's trajectory.
Despite the detail and because the cockpit ceiling microphone can pick up sounds from the passenger cabin, particularly if the cockpit door is open, there were multiple interpretations of the final seconds.
Some thought they heard the passengers struggling with hijackers for control of the steering yoke inside the cockpit during the final seconds. The Sept. 11 Commission's study reached no conclusion on whether any hijacker was killed in the struggle with passengers.
The 30-minute tape begins with a hijacker saying in English: "Please sit down. Keep remaining seating. We have a bomb on board. So sit." There follows several minutes of commands such as: "Don't move." "Shut up." "Down, down, down, sit down."
During a period of quiet, apparently unbeknownst to the hijackers, passengers with cell phones learn that jets have crashed into the World Trade Center. But the hijackers detect something is up.
Then 30 seconds past 9:59 a.m., an enormous crash: metal against metal, glass breaking, plastic cracking. The Sept. 11 Commission theorized passengers used a drink cart to ram the cockpit door.
Final minutes
The hijacker pilot pushes the steering yoke forward and back, perhaps to throw the attacking passengers to the floor. The tail sags, sounding the stall alarm. Then the nose comes back down, silencing it.
Then just 123 seconds before the crash, one hijacker asks again in Arabic, "Is that it?" Two minutes later, the plane rolls belly up and noses over, then crashes.
Moussaoui pleaded guilty last year to conspiring with Al-Qaida to fly planes into U.S. buildings. A week ago, the jurors ruled him eligible for the death penalty even though he was in jail in Minnesota on 9/11.
They decided that lies he told federal agents a month before the attacks led directly to at least one death that day by keeping agents from identifying and stopping some of the hijackers. Now they must decide whether he deserves execution or life in prison.
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