Moussaoui denied direct questioning

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A federal appeals court yesterday refused to reconsider a request by accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui for direct access to three terror suspects held by the Bush administration as "enemy combatants."

The decision clears the way for the government's death-penalty case against Moussaoui, 35, who is charged as the 20th conspirator in the September 11 hijacking plot.

Moussaoui, who was arrested on immigration charges before the attacks, had sought to interview suspected al Qaeda members detained after September 11, whom he says would prove he had no part in the plot that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Last month, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond had rejected Moussaoui's request and handed authority to rule on the matter to the U.S. district judge presiding over the case in Alexandria federal court.

Under the appeals court order, U.S. District Court Judge Leonie M. Brinkema still may allow Moussaoui access to statements made by the three detained suspects and to submit written questions to them for his defense.

The names of the three have not been released, although two are believed to be high-ranking al Qaeda suspects Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who are being interrogated by the United States at secret locations.

During the interrogations, Mohammed, the suspected operational mastermind of September 11, has denied "ever considering Moussaoui" for the plot, according to a final report released in July by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

However, the report outlines a degree of confusion between Mohammed and Binalshibh over Moussaoui's role and ultimately concludes that he may have been "being primed as a possible pilot" in the plot.

Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, is acting as his own attorney and is the only person charged in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

Some officials describe him as the intended "20th hijacker" had he not been arrested for overstaying his visa to the United States in August 2001. Authorities were drawn to him after staffers at a Minnesota flight school phoned the FBI with concerns that he was a terrorist.

Moussaoui reportedly paid for flight lessons mainly in cash and asked about the amount of fuel carried in a Boeing 747 and how much damage it could cause if it hit something. During court hearings, he has acknowledged belonging to al Qaeda, but adamantly denied involvement in the attacks.

In August 2002, Judge Brinkema ordered that Moussaoui be allowed to question enemy combatant terror suspects via a secure satellite transmission instead of bringing them physically into the courtroom to testify at trial.

But U.S. Attorney Paul J. McNulty argued such "unprecedented depositions" would jeopardize national security at a time of war. In court papers, he offered detailed interview alternatives in lieu of any direct questioning by Moussaoui of the enemy combatants.