9/11 conspirator sues Trump, claims ‘psychological torture’
Published 8:06 am Tuesday, February 6, 2018
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The only person convicted in the United States in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is suing President Donald Trump over conditions at a federal prison, where he alleges he experiences “psychological torture” while kept in total isolation.
Zacarias Moussaoui, 49, has filed handwritten petitions in federal courts in Oklahoma and Colorado in which he accuses federal authorities of attempting to cover up the “true” Sept. 11 conspirators. Courts have dismissed other federal lawsuits Moussaoui filed over the years in various states, including a 2014 lawsuit in which he claimed he could offer inside information about the inner workings of al-Qaida.
Among other things, Moussaoui’s petitions seek an end to prison guidelines that he says “keep me in total isolation without access to a lawyer to break me psychologically…” Moussaoui, who describes himself as a “slave of Allay” and the “so call 20th hijacker” in the petitions, also seeks the assistance of various civilian and military judicial officials and claims that he has been assaulted while in federal custody.
A French citizen of Moroccan descent, Moussaoui lived and attended flight school in Norman, Oklahoma, prior to the terrorist attacks. He left Oklahoma for Minnesota and was arrested on immigration charges in August 2001 after employees of a Minnesota flight school became alarmed that he wanted to learn to fly a Boeing 747 even though he had no pilot’s license.