ALEXANDRIA, Virginia, 14 March 2006 — An angry federal judge abruptly suspended the sentencing trial of confessed Al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui yesterday to consider whether to rule out the death penalty, after it was revealed that the American government had been coaching witnesses.

The stunning development came at the opening of the fifth day of the trial after the government informed the judge and the defense over the weekend that a lawyer for the Federal Aviation Administration had coached four government FAA witnesses in violation of the rule set by US District Judge Leonie Brinkema.

The rule was that no witness should hear trial testimony in advance. “This is the second significant error by the government affecting the constitutional rights of the defendant and the criminal justice system in this country in the context of a death case,” Brinkema told lawyers in the case outside the presence of the jury.

“In all the years I’ve been on the bench, I’ve never seen such an egregious violation of the court’s rule on witnesses,” said Judge Brinkema. Defense attorney Edward MacMahon moved to have the judge dismiss the death penalty as a possible outcome, saying, “This is not going to be a fair trial.” In the alternative, he said, at least she should excuse the government’s FAA witnesses from the case.

Even Prosecutor David Novak conceded that the witness coaching was “horrendously wrong.” According to descriptions by the lawyers in court, it appeared that a female FAA attorney who had attended closed hearings in the case went over with four coming witnesses from her agency the opening statements at the trial, the government’s strategy and even the transcript of the questioning of an FBI agent on the first day. “She was at the Classified Information Act procedures hearing and she should have known it was wrong,” said Novak, adding the FAA lawyer also apparently told the witnesses — erroneously, Novak said — that the government was planning to say that magnetometers at airport check-ins are 100 percent effective. Novak claimed there was no harm in that disclosure because the government is not going to make that argument.

Brinkema warned the government at that point that it was treading on shaky legal ground because she knew of no case where a failure to act resulted in a death penalty as a matter of law.

Moussaoui, a 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan origin, was arrested shortly before the 9/11 attacks after arousing suspicion at a flying school. Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country with the 9/11 attacks.

He pleaded guilty in April to conspiring with Al-Qaeda to hijack planes and to other crimes, but he denies any role in 9/11, saying he was training for a possible future attack.

Moussaoui is represented by a team of court-appointed lawyers, which he has repeatedly denounced in court. He also has cursed America and smiled during accounts of the four airplanes that were slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Before Brinkema recessed the trial, the jury was to hear from the Minneapolis FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui – he is the key witness in the trial.