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    By Jerry Markon
    The Washington Post

    Saturday 08 April 2006

Prosecutors ordered to disclose records given to Moussaoui's defense team.

    The judge overseeing the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui yesterday ordered prosecutors to provide hundreds of thousands of government documents generated as evidence in the case to lawyers representing families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

    US District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema issued the order in connection with a civil lawsuit filed by the families against the aviation industry, alleging that it failed to prevent the attacks. The civil case is pending in New York, and Moussaoui is on trial in a separate criminal proceeding in Alexandria.

    But attorneys for the victims came to Brinkema's Alexandria courtroom yesterday because, they said, she had the authority to order the disclosure of documents that have been turned over to Moussaoui's defense team. The plaintiffs' attorneys said they believed the documents, which they have been unable to obtain from the government, will help them show in the civil case that the airline industry knew about the risks of airline hijackings before Sept. 11 but failed to act.

    In granting the request, Brinkema criticized the government for what she said was excessive secrecy in the Moussaoui case and other matters. "I've always been troubled by the degree to which our government keeps things secret from the American people," she said.

    The judge ordered the government to give the civil lawyers all the unclassified materials provided to Moussaoui's defense, but the document production would not start until after Moussaoui's trial. Moussaoui is the only person convicted in the United States in connection with the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. A federal jury in Alexandria is considering whether he should be executed. Testimony resumes Monday.

    It is unclear what is in the documents or how many there are, although prosecutors indicated at the hearing yesterday that they gave Moussaoui's attorneys hundreds of thousands of FBI reports alone. Prosecutors opposed the document request as overly broad and unrelated to the criminal case against Moussaoui.

    But the plaintiffs' attorneys hailed Brinkema's order as a victory for the nearly 3,000 people who died Sept. 11. "We're just asking to see what Moussaoui's guys saw," one of the lawyers, Ron Motley, said after the hearing. "That's fair."

    Tim Wagner, a spokesman for American Airlines, said he could not comment on pending litigation. Spokesmen for United Airlines did not return calls. The airlines are among the parties being sued in the New York civil case, which was filed in 2002.