PARIS, 22 July — Mrs. Aicha El-Wafi has decided to take her case to Paris, and hopefully eventually Washington, as the countdown begins toward a trial scheduled for Sept. 30 that could very well see her celebrated son, Zacarias Moussaoui, be condemned to death for his purported role in last Sept. 11 attack on the United States.

In choosing to make her way to Paris from Narbonne — the city in southern France that has never hidden its conviction that Zacarias Moussaoui, a local boy who was known to be peaceful and kind to others, has nothing to do with the terrorist attacks— Mrs. El-Wafi has decided to take the bull by the horns and attempt to wake up international public opinion as to her son’s innocence.

Speaking before the Centre d’Accueil de la Presse Etrangere, the prestigious platform where the foreign press usually receives heads of state and other international bigwigs, Mrs. El-Wafi said that she had decided to come address the international press in the hope of convincing world opinion that her son’s incrimination as the only surviving participant in the Sept. 11 attacks is nothing short of ridiculous.

"It’s an absurdity," she noted, something she says she had already realized following her first attempts to enter into contact with her son, presently imprisoned in a federal facility outside of Washington.

"Today I’m convinced he had nothing to do with the preparation of the September 11 attacks, and that if he recently chose to plead guilty, all that I can say is that he’s not in his right mind and surely is being manipulated."

Mrs. El-Wafi said her son was apparently being coerced into making the guilty plea by US authorities who had kept him several months in isolation.

Moussaoui surprised US magistrate Leonie Brinkema last week when he suddenly chose to plead guilty to the various charges brought against him. He also openly pledged his allegiance to Osama Bin laden, all the while admitting that contrary to what he’d admitted until now, he was in fact a member of Al-Qaeda.

Until yesterday, Moussaoui had denied that he was a member of Al-Qaeda or that he had any links with Bin Laden.

When Judge Brinkema remarked that Moussaoui had already changed his mind during the past months as to his role in the attacks and wondered whether he may do so again, all that the "twentieth" Taleban would say was that "this time I’ll not change my mind."

Seemingly incredulous as to his guilty plea, Judge Brinkema decided to give Moussaoui a week to reflect and perhaps retract his statement, especially as he intimated he would be cooperating with US authorities to provide details as to the preparation of the attacks.

Only the previous day, Francois Roux, the French attorney for Mrs. El-Wafi and the Moussaoui family, said that according to his information, Moussaoui was "in a profound state of despair," and that his recent statements "should be taken with a grain of salt."

"His statements have to be considered with precaution," he noted during a hastily improvised press conference, "he has no American attorney and has been in isolation the past eight months. For me and for his family, he’s in a profound state of despair and I hope that the US judge who recorded his plea will not take it seriously."

Roux, who remained in France as he cannot plead for Moussaoui in the US, says that he hopes that Moussaoui will remain in contact with the French Consulate in Washington.

"I just hope," he added, "that they’ll be able to bring him back to reason."