Horror Takes the Stand At the Moussaoui Trial

Although the trial's first phase centered on Moussaoui's culpability for lying to federal agents about the pending al-Qaeda plot and the failure of the U.S. government to stop Sept. 11, the final stage is raw emotion.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert A. Spencer told jurors they would hear the final words of a woman who worked on the 83rd floor of the trade center and who called 911 while huddled on the floor. "The floor is completely engulfed," he quoted her as saying. "We're on the floor, and we can't breathe and it's very, very hot. All I see is smoke. I'm going to die, aren't I? I'm going to die."

"In this part of the trial, you will hear the voices of the victims of September 11, 2001. You will hear the voices of the victims' families," Spencer said.

Defense attorney Gerald T. Zerkin acknowledged the emotional power of the prosecution's case but said he would focus instead on Moussaoui's troubled childhood and questionable mental state. Two doctors will testify about their diagnosis, that Moussaoui suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, the defense said.

"The government's evidence will present an extraordinary challenge for you," Zerkin told jurors in his opening statement. "Nevertheless, you must open yourselves to the possibility of a sentence other than death." If Moussaoui is not sentenced to death, he will automatically receive a term of life in prison without the possibility of release.

Giuliani, who gained fame for his response to Sept. 11 and is a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2008, started the day's testimony by injecting some star power into the prosecution's case. Lines were longer than usual to get into the courtroom, and spectators craned their necks as the former mayor walked in, buttoning his dark blue suit.

Giuliani spoke in his familiar calm and reassuring tones but also offered flashes of humor and his trademark New York intensity. He corrected the prosecutor, pointing out that he had been mayor for two terms, not one. And, asked to describe the World Trade Center's history, he managed to point out within seconds that New York City was "the first capital of the United States" and the place where George Washington was inaugurated as the country's first president.

But it was the testimony of ordinary people that generated the most tears in the courtroom. James Smith, a New York police officer so big and burly that he nearly spilled out of the witness box, sobbed as he described his wife, Moira, also a police officer -- at one time his partner -- and how her death at the trade center has affected his life and that of their daughter, Patricia.

"It," he began and paused to take a deep breath that came out in quiet sobs. "The loss to Patricia, I can't even ever begin to explain. The things she will never be able to do with her mother, the first day of school . . ." His voice dropped off.

Tu Ho Nguyen followed the police officer to the stand. Her husband, Khang Nguyen, a civilian electrical engineer at the Pentagon, died in the attack. On the morning of Sept. 11, she said, her husband ran out of the house after their son's school bus, shouting at him, " 'Say bye-bye to Daddy one more time.' My son looked out the window and said bye-bye for the last time."

Her son, An, now 8, has had severe developmental problems and often shows no interest in his toys or his favorite television shows. She has told her son that his father is in heaven. Now, she said, her son wants to be an astronaut "so he can go to space to look for his daddy."