Terrorism Trial's Strategies Revealed

Moussaoui has indicated that he wants to testify, sources said, which is his right under the U.S. Constitution. At his plea hearing, he said he would "fight every inch against the death penalty."

Prosecutors and defense attorneys would not comment beyond the court filings.

Moussaoui has been in the Alexandria jail for nearly four years. He was arrested more than three weeks before Sept. 11 and was charged in December 2001 with conspiring with al Qaeda in the Sept. 11 attacks.

A constitutional showdown over access to top al Qaeda detainees delayed the case for more than two years. Moussaoui wanted to interview the captives, saying they could clear him. Brinkema agreed, but the government vehemently resisted on national security grounds.

Eventually, a federal appeals court ruled that Moussaoui could not interview the detainees but could present to the jury portions of statements they made to interrogators.

The two sides are still fighting over the issue. In May, defense attorneys sought access to other detainees, recently unsealed court filings show. Brinkema has yet to rule on the request. And the government urged Brinkema to reconsider her earlier rulings, saying the al Qaeda witnesses are not relevant to the sentencing trial.

Brinkema declined to do so in an order unsealed Thursday, writing that the witnesses' statements "remain extremely material to this case."

It is unclear how the statements will be presented at the trial, but what is clear is that much will turn on whether jurors conclude that Moussaoui lied to federal agents after his arrest. The newly unsealed documents indicate that is the heart of the government's case.

According to a transcript of the Oct. 12 hearing unsealed last week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Brinkema said to prosecutors: "I think your theory of the case now is that his failure to tell the agents what he knew about Sept. 11 resulted in death."

"You are correct, your honor," responded Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert A. Spencer. Later in the hearing, Spencer referred to Moussaoui's admissions in the statement of facts and said: "We know he knew that much and lied, and instead of giving those answers, he gave false answers."

The hearing transcript was released with redactions; much of the material in the case is classified. Attorneys can view classified material only in two locked rooms -- a defense room in the basement of the federal courthouse in Alexandria and a government room within the U.S. attorney's office, located in the same building, sources said.

At the Oct. 12 hearing, defense attorneys outlined their argument that Moussaoui knew very little about Sept. 11 and that his confession wouldn't have stopped the attacks anyway because the government had repeatedly failed to act on warnings about al Qaeda's plans.

"We're trying to pinpoint what information the government had before 9/11 . . . to compare it with what Mr. Moussaoui may or may not have known or what they did even with the information that they had," MacMahon said.

Another recently unsealed defense filing says that President Bill Clinton was warned in 1998 "that bin Laden was preparing to hijack United States aircraft." The same filing cites a controversial August 2001 briefing given to President Bush titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."

The White House declassified that briefing last year after a request from the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. It warned Bush that the FBI had information that terrorists might be preparing for a hijacking in the United States and might be targeting a building in Lower Manhattan.

"Substantial evidence will be presented at trial," Moussaoui's attorneys wrote in their filing, "that the United States government knew more about al Qaeda's plans to attack the United States than did Mr. Moussaoui."