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Show World & NatidJrThe Utah Stat< Prosecutors reveal Moussaoui offered to testify against himself AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, center, the head of the right-wing Likud Party, shakes hands with supporters as he leaves the party's election center in Tel Aviv, late Tuesday March 28. The Likud, which dominated Israeli politics for three decades and opposes leading Kadima party's Ehud Olmert's plan to withdraw from much of the West Bank, came in distant fourth, according to the polls. Projections show Olmert winning Israeli election JERUSALEM (AP) - Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel will seek negotiations with the Palestinians but act on its own if necessary to draw final borders in a victory speech after exit polls showed his centrist Kadima Party headed for a win in Israeli elections TAiesday. The projections had Kadima capturing fewer parliament seats than expected but was forecast to have enough to form a ruling coalition that would support Olmert's plan to withdraw from much of the West Bank and set Israels borders by 2010. In the speech, Olmert said he was ready for new peace talks and was prepared to make painful compromises such as uprooting some Jewish settlements in the West Bank and allowing Palestinians to have a state. "In the coming period, we will move to set the final borders of the state of Israel, a Jewish state with a Jewish majority," Olmert said. "We will try to achieve this in an agreement with the Palestinians." Olmert also praised his mentor, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose vision has shaped the campaign even though has lain in a coma for nearly three months. Olmert has said he would govern only with parties that accept his program, and projections showed a center-left coalition capturing 61 to 65 seats in the 120-member parliament. The hawkish parties fell far short of their plan to win enough seats to block Olmert's program. As Israel held its election, the Palestinian parliament approved a new Cabinet led by the Hamas militant group, which refuses to renounce violence or recognize Israel's right to exist. Incoming Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told Al-Jazeera television that he opposed Olmert's plan. "Such a plan definitely won't be accepted by the Palestinian people or the Palestinian government," he said. Allies of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate from the Fatah Party, called for immediately renewing talks on the internationally backed "road map" peace plan under the auspices of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which he heads. "We're ready to go into direct and immediate negotiations to implement the road map," said Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh. Olmert has said he supports the road map but will not wait indefinitely for a peace deal and would move unilaterally after a reason- able period of time. Israeli officials have ruled out new talks while Hamas remains in charge. With 50 percent of votes counted, Kadima was winning 29 seats, Labor 21 and Likud 12, Israeli media reported. • That was in line with TV projections which showed Kadima winning 29 to 32 seats, fewer than the 34 seats projected in recent polls. "Kadima has won today. The next prime minister is Ehud Olmert," said Roni Bar-On, a Kadima legislator. The leader of the largest party is traditionally asked first to try to form a ruling coalition. Whether Olmert chooses to form a government with dovish parties or more hardline factions could determine his ability to carry out his plan. Olmert could form a coalition with Labor, the dovish Meretz and a party that advocates pensions for retirees, or he could add the ultra-Orthodox Shas or United Torah Judaism parties to his government. Olmert, the vice prime minister and former mayor of Jerusalem, took over the party after Sharon suffered a devastating Jan. 4 stroke an<3 immediately became th^ favorite' to win the elections. Much of Kadima's campaign was built around Sharon, Israel's most popular politician, and his legacy resonated with many voters. "It was important for me to vote, to continue the way of Sharon," said Rina Golan, 65, who voted for Kadima. Huge pictures of Sharon adorned Kadima's campaign headquarters; there was none of Olmert. Shortly after exit polls were announced, a tape of Sharon's voice boomed from loudspeakers, and video clips of him were played on a TV screen. The TV projections gave Labor 20-22 seats, a strong showing by new party leader Amir Peretz, who ran on a social platform advocating a higher minimum wage and guaranteed pensions for the elderly. "The Labor Party has regained its credibility," said Labor lawmaker Colette Avital. Likud, which had dominated Israeli politics for decades, was crushed, dropping from the 38 seats it won in the last election to 11 or 12 seats, according to the exit polls. Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister and current party head, warned that further unilateral withdrawals would bring >• ELECTIONS See page 74 Renown Brazilian Guitar Puo ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui offered last month to testify for prosecutors against himself at his death-penalty trial and told agents that he did not want to die in prison, according to last-minute testimony Tuesday. The bizarre testimony capped a trial that has seen more than its share of the unusual over three tumultuous weeks. Introduced as part of a brief government rebuttal case, this testimony may be the firmest evidence the 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent hopes for martyrdom through execution and could provide fodder for the closing arguments of both prosecutors and Moussaoui's court-appointed defense attorneys. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema set Wednesday afternoon for closing arguments on whether the actions Moussaoui has admitted make him eligible for the death penalty. The jury must decide whether the only man charged in this country in the Sept. 11 plot will be executed or imprisoned for life. Moussaoui offered on Feb. 2, just before jury selection began, to testify that he was to have hijacked and piloted a fifth plane on Sept. 11, 2001. He did not ask that prosecutors stop pursuing the death penalty in return. He sought only better conditions in prison and a promise not to be called to testify against other al-Qaida members. FBI agent James Fitzgerald said Moussaoui told him—in a jailhouse meeting the defendant requested—that he did not want to die behind bars and it was "different to die in a battle ... than in a jail on a toilet." Moussaoui dropped this bid after he learned that he had an absolute right to testify in his own defense. On Monday, he stunned the court by asserting that he was to fly a 747 jetliner into the White House on Sept. 11, despite having claimed for three years that he had no role in the plot. Instead, he had said he was to be part of a possible later assault. The February meeting was to have been off the record but was introduced by prosecutors to rebut a defense exhibit. Closing its case Tuesday, the defense had introduced a partial transcript of Moussaoui's guilty plea last April. In that 2005 pleading, Moussaoui said, "Everybody knows that I'm not 9/11 material." He said Sept. 11 "is not my conspiracy." He said he was going to attack the White House if the United States did not release radical Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel Rahman, imprisoned for other terrorist crimes. The latest strange turn in Moussaoui's __.„ . behavior could bolster the defense's claims that he would say anything to achieve martyrdom. Defense attorney Edward MacMahon told jurors in opening remarks that Moussaoui can only achieve that now if they vote to execute him. "Don't make him a hero," MacMahon pleaded. Prosecutors got Brinkema to bar a repeat of that plea as an emotional rather than legal argument. But she agreed to allow MacMahon to argue Wednesday that evidence of a desire for martyrdom calls into question the credibility of Moussaoui's confession to being a part of Sept. 11. The defense closed out its case Tuesday by using two high-ranking al-Qaida operatives to rebut their own client's claim that his plan to attack the White House was part of the Sept. 11 attacks. The leaders of Osama bin Laden's terrorist group cast doubt on whether Moussaoui was part of Sept. 11, one portraying him as a misfit who refused to follow orders. Tuesday's proceedings were quite unusual for an American courtroom: Defense attorneys—appointed by the court to represent a client who despises them—tried to undermine the defendant's own bombshell testimony of Monday by using witnesses who were not present or seen in the courtroom, primarily because the government refused to allow captured al-Qaida mem- AP Photo/Sherbume County, Minn., Sheriff's Office ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI is shown in this Aug. 2001 photo released by the Sherburne County Sheriff's Office. After three rocky weeks, prosecutors have rested their case for executing Moussaoui. But the witness who could prove most valuable for them has yet to take the stand: the defendant himself. bers to appear for national security reasons. Testimony from five al-Qaida members was read to the jury as defense attorneys tried to undo damage Moussaoui might have done to his case when he testified against their advice. One terrorist, identified as Sayf al-Adl, a senior member of al-Qaida's military committee and close aide to bin Laden, stated sometime between Sept. 1, 2001, and late July 2004 that Moussaoui was "a confirmed jihadist but was absolutely not going to take part in the Sept. 11, 2001, mission." The 9/11 Commission reported the U.S. recovered from a safehouse in Pakistan a letter written by al-Adl describing the various candidates considered for the Sept. 11 attacks. Another top terrorist witness—Waleed bin Attash, known as Khallad—is considered the mastermind of the 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole and an early planner of the Sept. 11 plot. He said he knew of no part that Moussaoui was to have played in the Sept. 11 attacks. Khallad was captured in April 2003. Their testimony supports that of another captive, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, chief organizer of the Sept. 11 attacks. He said in testimony read Monday that Moussaoui had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 plot, but was to have been part of a later wave of attacks. Most of the testimony of al-Qaida opera- , tives was compiled from statements made during U.S. interrogations. The captives themselves have never spoken to either defense attorneys or prosecutors in this case, because prosecutors prevailed in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals over the defense's request to question these witnesses live in court, or at least on videotape. Also Tuesday, defense attorney Alan Yamamoto read portions of the joint Sept. ' 11 report by the Senate and House intelligence committees. The panel said that before Sept. 11, the U.S. intelligence community produced 12 reports between 1994- and 2001 "suggesting that terrorists might use airplanes as weapons." Later, the defense played videotape of thenNational Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and other top officials telling the 9/11 Commission they had no inkling al-Qaida had considered using airplanes as missiles. This combination supported the defense theory that the government knew more beforehand than Moussaoui about Sept. 11 but ignored or bungled leads that might have unraveled the plot. Prosecutors contend Moussaoui's lying to FBI agents upon arrest prevented the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration from identifying the hijackers and keeping them off airplanes on Sept. 11. Want to get involved? Check out the Utah Statesman at TONIGHT! www.utahstatesman.com Manon Caine Russell Kathryn Caine Wanlass Performance Hall Wednesday, March 29,7:50 Tickets*! 5 and USU Students FREE with IP To guarantee a seat reserve your tickets early. Call 797-5011. This applies to USU students as well to send letters to the editor, take polls or check out USU calendar items. |