The relatives of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only one prosecuted and sentenced in a court for the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States, have expressed their willingness for him to be sent to France to serve his life sentence there.
His niece explained in a conversation with the French broadcaster RMC: "I think he should return to France," appealing to empathy towards the mother of the prisoner, who "has not been able to touch her son's hand in decades" and who lacks the resources to travel and "see him behind bars."
During the interview, the niece criticized that he was held legally responsible for the 9/11 attacks for being the only living member of the cell. In her opinion, "they could have punished him for being a member of Al-Qaeda, but there is a big difference between that and participating in the death of 3,000 people."
The September 11 attacks began when a Boeing 767 from American Airlines crashed at 8:45 AM (local time) into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York, one of the symbols of the financial district. On board the aircraft were 81 passengers and 11 crew members.
The second crash occurred at 9:03 AM (local time), when a Boeing 757 from United Airlines, which was on the route between Boston and Los Angeles with 56 passengers on board, crashed into the South Tower. In less than two hours, both twin towers completely collapsed.
While televisions around the world broadcast live images, another American Airlines plane crashed into the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, the Pentagon, with 58 passengers and 6 crew members. There would still be a fourth aircraft involved: a United Airlines flight covering the Newark-San Francisco route that crashed at 10:10 AM (local time) in Somerset (Pennsylvania) with 38 passengers and 7 crew members.
Moussaoui was arrested in the state of Minnesota after authorities became suspicious of him when he enrolled in a flight school to pilot commercial airplanes without having prior experience with smaller aircraft.
In 2005 he admitted his guilt on six charges, including terrorist conspiracy for his ties to Al Qaeda, and in 2006 he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. That same year, in May 2006, an audio recording attributed to Osama Bin Laden —whose authenticity could not be verified— emerged, in which it was stated that Moussaoui "had no connection to September 11."