LAT: FBI Agent Says Moussaoui Sought Last-Minute Deal

FBI Agent Says Moussaoui Sought Last-Minute Deal
By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer
March 28, 2006

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- In an odd twist to an already bizarre trial, the last witness in Zacharias Moussaoui's trial today described a secret nighttime meeting last month at a local jail in which Moussaoui tried to strike a deal with the government to save his life.

FBI Special Agent Jim Fitzgerald, one of the lead agents in the Moussaoui case, told the jury he and federal prosecutors were summoned to the Alexandria City Jail by Moussaoui, who tried to persuade them he was worth more to them alive than he would be dead if they followed through on their effort to seek the death penalty.

But the meeting in the jail law library late on Feb. 6, one month before the trial began, broke down when the government demanded he provide "full and complete" cooperation, not just about his Al Qaeda activities but everything he knew about Osama bin Laden's organization.

Moussaoui came away from the clandestine meeting empty-handed, Fitzgerald said. Moussaoui told the FBI and prosecutors that he believed death at the hands of the U.S. government was not a fitting end to an avowed terrorist like himself.

"He states it was different to die in battle, like an F-16 pilot," Fitzgerald recalled, "than to die in jail like in a toilet."...

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