Al-Qaida conspirator testifies in 9-11 death penalty trial

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane and fly it into the White House as part of the attack that unfolded Sept. 11, 2001.\nMoussaoui's testimony on his own behalf stunned the courtroom. His account was in stark contrast to his previous statements, in which he said the White House attack was to come later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik imprisoned on earlier terrorist convictions.\nOn Dec. 22, 2001, passengers subdued Reid when he attempted to detonate a bomb in his shoe aboard American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami. There were 197 people on board. The plane was diverted to Boston, where it landed safely.\nMoussaoui told the court he knew the World Trade Center attack was coming and that he lied to investigators when arrested in August 2001 because he wanted it to happen.\nSpecifically, he said he knew the World Trade Center was going to be attacked, but asserted he was not part of that plot and didn't know the details.\nNineteen men pulled off the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington in the worst act of terrorism ever on U.S. soil.\n"I had knowledge that the twin towers would be hit," Moussaoui said. "I didn't know the details of this."\nSally Regenhard, whose firefighter son Christian died at the World Trade Center, said "at least there would have been a chance" to head off the attacks if Moussaoui had told investigators in August 2001 what she heard him admit in court Monday.\n"I was convinced that this man was only a heartbeat away from taking the controls of a plane," she said.\nAsked by his lawyer why he signed his guilty plea in April as "the 20th hijacker," Moussaoui replied: "Because everybody used to refer to me as the 20th hijacker and it was a bit of fun."\nBefore Moussaoui took the stand, his lawyers made a last attempt to stop him from testifying but failed. Defense attorney Gerald Zerkin argued that his client would not be a competent witness because he has contempt for the court and only recognizes Islamic law, and therefore "the affirmation he undertakes would be meaningless."\nMoussaoui first denied he was to have been a fifth hijack pilot, but under cross-examination spoke of the plan to attack the White House. He said Reid was the only person he knew for sure would have been on that mission, but others were discussed.\nReid, a self-proclaimed member of al-Qaida who has pledged support to Osama bin Laden, pleaded guilty in October 2002 to trying to blow up Flight 63 and was sentenced to life in prison.\nMoussaoui testified that at one point he was excluded from pre-hijacking operations because he had gotten in trouble with his al-Qaida superiors on a 2000 trip to Malaysia. He said it was only after he was called back to Afghanistan and talked with Osama bin Laden that he was approved again for the operation.\n"My position was, like you say, under review," Reid said. \nPrevious testimony indicated that Moussaoui had irritated his hosts in Malaysia who were members of an al-Qaida affiliate. Although al-Qaida was a well-financed group, he had asked his Malaysian hosts for money to take flight training.\nOn Sept. 11, 2001, the 19 terrorists hijacked and crashed four airliners, killing nearly 3,000 people in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on the planes. The intended target of the plane that crashed into a Pennsylvania field remains unknown.\nBefore Moussaoui took the stand, the court heard testimony that two months before the attacks, a CIA deputy chief waited in vain for permission to tell the FBI about a "very high interest" al-Qaida operative who became one of the hijackers.\nThe official, a senior figure in the CIA's Laden unit, said he sought authorization on July 13, 2001, to send information to the FBI but got no response for 10 days, then asked again.\nAs it turned out, the information on Khalid al-Mihdhar did not reach the FBI until late August. At the time, CIA officers needed permission from a special unit before passing certain intelligence on to the FBI.\nThe official was identified only as John. His written testimony was read into the record.\n"John's" testimony was part of the defense's case that federal authorities missed multiple opportunities to catch hijackers and perhaps thwart the 9/11 plot.\n-- Associated Press writer Michael J. Sniffen contributed to this report.