- ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CBS News)
-- The judge presiding over the trial of the
- only man charged so far in this country in the Sept.
11 attacks reports a
- serious U.S. government blunder.
-
- The Justice Department is still unclear on how it happened,
but somehow
- as many as 48 documents that officials now say should
have been
- classified, were inadvertently turned over to terrorist
suspect Zacarias
- Moussaoui as part of the discovery process in his upcoming
trial.
- According to court records released Thursday, U.S. District
Judge Leonie
- Brinkema, who is presiding over the case, called the
'mistake' a grave
- security breach.
-
- Moussaoui has been acting as his own attorney in a potential
death
- sentence case in which he is charged with being a part
of the September
- 11 plot. He's been reviewing paperwork in his Alexandria,
Va. cell.
-
- The classified documents were given to Moussaoui, the
only person charged
- in the United States for the hijacked plane attacks on
the World Trade
- Center and the Pentagon, by mistake over the past few
months as part of
- the evidence turned over to him by federal government
prosecutors.
-
- The classified documents, which were FBI summaries of
interviews, then
- had to be retrieved during several days of searches of
Moussaoui's jail
- cell in Alexandria, Virginia, where he is being held
in solitary
- confinement awaiting trial.
-
- "Despite their hard work and valiant effort, the
Marshal's Service could
- not find two of the seven documents. Unfortunately, one
of the remaining
- two documents is the most critical of the seven,"
prosecutor Robert
- Spencer wrote. It was not clear whether those documents
eventually were
- recovered.
-
- It's not clear if Moussaoui even saw them in the mass
of material he's
- been presented. A Justice Department official said the
government was
- "quite confident" that Moussaoui never read
the documents.
-
- As CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports, the papers
have since been
- retrieved, but the government says it's now begun a damage
assessment
- study to not only find out if national secrets have been
compromised, but
- how something like this could have happened in the first
place.
-
- Brinkema issued an order Thursday that made public the
correspondence on
- the matter. She said she agreed with Moussaoui's court-appointed
lawyers
- that the government's letters to the judge had been kept
secret solely to
- avoid embarrassment to prosecutors.
-
- Further, she said, the government disclosed the classified
nature of the
- materials in a pleading sent to Moussaoui, who is not
supposed to see
- secret material in his case. The court-appointed lawyers,
who assist
- Moussaoui while he represents himself, are cleared to
see the material.
-
- The documents, FBI interview reports called "302s,"
"are the properly of
- the United States and the court has authority to order
that the property
- be returned to the United States," Spencer wrote
the judge Sept. 5.
-
- In a separate letter the same day Spencer wrote, "The
defendant now has
- access to national security information...The access
to this material by
- the defendant is a situation that, even if of our own
making, is improper
- and unacceptable. Simply put, it is illegal and dangerous
for the
- defendant to possess the material, and there must be
some way that we can
- correct the situation."
-
- The judge on Aug. 23 questioned why the government sought
to tip off
- Moussaoui that the documents were classified since there
was no
- indication on the records themselves of their secret
nature.
-
- "You may find in the final analysis that less harm
will be done by not
- drawing the defendant's attention to these documents,"
the judge wrote.
-
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- published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The
Associated Press
- and Reuters Limited contributed to this report.
-
- http://cbsnews.cbs.com/stories/2002/09/26/national/main523452.shtml
|
