Judge Assigns APA Attorney to Assist Moussaoui

But conspiracy defendant refuses to meet with court-appointed lawyer

By Andrew Chow
AsianWeek Staff Writer

Defense attorney Alan H. Yamamoto has taken on some tough cases before, but none as challenging as having to assist the man charged as a conspirator in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

On June 17, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema named Yamamoto “standby counsel” for Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen whom federal prosecutors allege to be the “20th hijacker” in the terrorist attacks that killed more than 2,800 people in New York City, Washington, D.C. and rural Pennsylvania.

Moussaoui, who is acting as his own attorney, fired his previous court-appointed lawyers, calling them “bloodsuckers.” He has refused to meet with Yamamoto.

“This is probably the worst possible situation,” Yamamoto, 56, said from his Alexandria, Va., office in a phone interview with AsianWeek, “because you don’t have any control over the case, and you don’t have any control over your client. I don’t have any idea what his defense is.”

In court filings released last week, Moussaoui made statements “that weren’t in his own interest,” Yamamoto said. The handwritten motions combined insults and religious references with quotations from the Constitution and other court cases.

Moussaoui wrote that Brinkema “is suffering from post-traumatic mental disorder and she must be dismiss for her own mental interest.”

“The curse of Allah is and will be on you,” he wrote to the judge on several occasions.

Alan H. Yamamoto was recently named “standby counsel” for Zacarias Moussaoui.

Moussaoui, who often misspelled words and used poor grammar, called his now-dismissed legal team “a bunch of blood suckers really disgusting.” He said the court-appointed team included a “wicked” public defender, a “nasty Jewish zealot” and a “right wing fascist.”

Moussaoui also sought to move his trial to Denver, which he argued was a “more neutral” location that would result in “a jury pool without overrepresentation of loyal government employees.” He added that “12 Talebans from Cuba” would be a fairer jury.

The government said it would seek the death penalty for Moussaoui, the only individual indicted for an alleged role in the Sept. 11 attacks. He is charged with conspiring to commit terrorism and aircraft piracy, destroying aircraft, use weapons of mass destruction, murdering U.S. government employees and destroy property.

Moussaoui is being held in near-total isolation at the Alexandria Detention Center.

Brinkema last week turned down his requests, saying that he “has not articulated any compelling reasons” for his pretrial release and that he could file motions — possibly using Yamamoto, the new court-appointed lawyer — to pursue evidence that could help his case.

But Yamamoto said he has received “no direction from the client,” noting Moussaoui’s mother has made public pleas urging her son to reconsider acting as his own attorney. “I will do everything I can to prepare for trial,” Yamamoto said, but “I’ve not talked to him, and from what I understand, he did not heed his mother’s advice.”

In the Moussaoui case, Yamamoto said his legal challenges included having to review “hundreds of thousands of pages of documents,” including classified information. Moussaoui cannot see classified information, Brinkema ruled, because he might share it with future hijackers.

If Moussaoui changes his mind, his trial won’t be the first time Yamamoto has argued a death-penalty case before Brinkema. He did so in 2000 when he defended a convicted carjacker accused of causing the death of a witness in a burglary case. That defendant also acted as his own attorney.

Yamamoto also served as the court-appointed attorney for one of two men charged with helping two Sept. 11 hijackers obtain false identification cards in Virginia. That defendant received a 27-month prison sentence earlier this year.

Yamamoto was born in Dinuba, Calif., and grew up in Watsonville. He received an accounting degree from the University of California, Berkeley, then served in the Army during the Vietnam War.

“That probably helped push me toward legal services, protecting the indigent,” Yamamoto said. He earned his law degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and has been in private practice since 1986.

Yamamoto, a third-generation Japanese American whose parents and grandparents were relocated to an Arizona internment camp during World War II, compared the anti-Japanese hysteria of that era to what is happening today, post-Sept. 11. “It reminds you of World War II … and what’s happening to Middle Eastern people now. It’s really scary,” Yamamoto said. “And we’ve got an attorney general going off on his crusade with trying to get the terrorists and at the same time taking away civil rights.”

But that shouldn’t stand in the way of Moussaoui receiving a fair trial, Yamamoto said. Americans following the case should remember “that he’s innocent until he’s proven guilty,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Reach Andrew Chow at achow@asianweek.com.