The only individual in the United States convicted over his involvement in the 9/11 attacks has filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump over claims he is experiencing “psychological torture” while kept in solitary confinement.
Zacarias Moussaoui, currently serving a life sentence at the Supermax federal penitentiary in Colorado for his planned involvement, has filed handwritten lawsuits in federal courts in Oklahoma and Colorado alleging mistreatment at the hands of prison authorities.
He goes on to claim that prison guards have assaulted him and also keep him “total isolation without access to a lawyer” in an attempt to “break” him psychologically.
The 49-year-old, who describes himself as the “slave of Allah” and the “so-called 20th hijacker,” accused federal authorities of trying to hide the identity of the “true” 9/11 conspirators and called on civilian and military judicial officials to help him with his case.
Moussaoui, a French citizen of Morrocan descent, was first arrested in August 2001 on illegal immigration charges after causing alarm at a Minnesota flight school when he revealed he wanted to learn how to fly a Boeing 747.
After years of investigation, Moussaoui pled guilty in April 2005 to his planned involvement in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
Since his conviction, Moussaoui has made multiple attempts to increase the leniency of his sentence, which include retracting his guilty plea and denying all involvement as well as offering testimony on Saudi Arabia’s alleged patronage of Al-Qaeda.
In 2006, he filed papers claiming that allegations of his involvement in the plot were a “complete fabrication,” and referenced a recording attributed to Islamist terrorist kingpin Osama Bin-Laden where he said that Moussaoui “had no connection at all with September 11.”
Then, in 2015, Moussaoui wrote to a federal judge asking to provide testimony on Saudi government involvement in the attacks, claiming that he discussed a plan to shoot down Air Force One with a Saudi official at their Washington embassy.
Officials in Riyadh have vigorously denied any such claims, describing Moussaoui as a “deranged criminal” with “no credibility.”
It is also not the first time that Moussaoui has complained about his treatment in prison. In 2014, he wrote a letter to Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan claiming that his life was endangered as other prisoners viewed him as a “snitch” and have threatened to kill him.
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