The horror of September 11 is seared into the souls of many Americans and the collective psyche of their nation.
But hundreds of potential jurors were told on Monday to put their haunting memories of that terrible day in 2001 aside, to grant fair justice to would-be al-Qaeda suicide pilot Zacarias Moussaoui.
”I assume every one of you is aware of what happened on September 11 2001 and has watched or read extensive media coverage about that day,” Judge Leonie Brinkema said at the start of jury selection in the Washington suburb of Alexandria. ”Persons on trial must be judged not on the basis of what is in the news or popular media, but rather on the hard evidence presented in the courtroom during the trial.”
Brinkema told the 500 or so possible jurors they should make clear on a 49-page questionnaire if their feelings on September 11 were so strong they could not sit in fair judgement.
They were also told to state whether Moussaoui’s theatrical shows in court, in which he branded United States justice a ”circus” and was sent back to the cells four times, could make it hard for them to give him a fair trial.
Questions narrow in on where the potential jurors were on September 11, the day al-Qaeda hijackers rammed three airplanes into US landmarks and another into a Pennsylvania field.
It asks them whether they have a relative who was killed or injured in the attacks, or if anyone in their family has received training as firefighters or airline industry workers.
The questionnaire also asks people to indicate if they speak Arabic, and if they have strong negative feelings towards Arabs or people from the Middle East.
Each line of questioning is designed to whittle the pool of 500 jurors down to a 12-person bench and six alternates, in time for the start of the trial on March 6.
Defence and prosecution lawyers have both conceded that the task of finding a jury to rule fairly on such an emotive case will be fiendishly difficult, especially in the Virginia suburbs, which have a large share of government and military workers who may have been closely impacted by September 11.
September 11 and its aftermath garnered incessant television coverage and rules have been imposed on the media for the duration of the trial.
Brinkema warned potential jurors they must avoid news coverage of the upcoming trial — and pointedly referred to a story on the front page of Monday’s Washington Post, which a number of jurors had carried into the courtroom.
The media have been prohibited from taking photographs of jurors during the trial, or of interacting or identifying them in any way. — Sapa-AFP