Court to hear 9/11 cockpit tape :: Namibia Internet Gateway cc ::

Articles: Court to hear 9/11 cockpit tape

Posted by admin on Thursday, April 06, 2006 - 08:15 AM

The cockpit recording from the hijacked airplane which crashed in Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001 is to be played in public for the first time.

Only the victims' families have heard the cockpit recording

The judge in the trial of self-confessed al-Qaeda plotter Zacarias Moussaoui ruled that the audio could be played to the court. The tape of the last minutes of United Airlines Flight 93 has only been played to victims' families. The sentencing trial of 37-year-old Moussaoui will reconvene on Thursday. He has pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to attack the US and a jury has ruled he is eligible to face the death penalty. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that the jury, who are to decide whether Moussaoui should be executed, could hear the recording and read a transcript of it. Public release She did not rule on a request from the prosecutors that the tape and transcript be kept from the general public. She gave family members until next Tuesday to submit objections to the release of the material, saying she was aware that relatives might object "to the voices of their loved ones being publicly revealed in this manner". But she said that if there were none, the recording would be released to the public the day after it was submitted as evidence. The commission set up to investigate the 9/11 attacks described the final minutes of the flight in its report and released some details of what was heard on the cockpit recording. Prosecutors wants to use the recording to show the jury how passengers were treated by 9/11 hijackers. Flight 93 was one of four planes hijacked on 11 September 2001. En route from New Jersey to California, it crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing 40 passengers and crew. Mobile phone conversations from passengers and flight attendants showed that they had heard about the other hijackings and planned to fight back. It is thought that hijackers crashed the plane, believed to be heading for Washington, when passengers were close to overwhelming them.

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