Harrowing 9/11 tape grips jury

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The tape begins with a hijacker saying in broken English: "Please sit down. Keep remaining seating. We have a bomb on board. So sit." A half-hour of chaos ensues before a final utterance: "Allah is greatest." Then nothing but the roar of static.

Jurors and a couple of hundred courtroom spectators got a glimpse Wednesday into one of the remaining mysteries of Sept. 11, 2001: the harrowing final moments of United Flight 93, when passengers tried to retake the plane from al-Qaida hijackers.

They heard a murky 30-minute cockpit recording. It sounded like passengers tried twice to ram their way into the cockpit with a drink cart. Prosecutors thought it would help convince jurors that Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui deserves to be executed.

At least these people may now know why investigators and victims' relatives who have heard the recording before came to varied conclusions about what happened.

"Is that it? I mean, shall we pull it down?" one hijacker asked in Arabic two minutes before the 757 jetliner slammed into a Pennsylvania field with 33 passengers, seven crew members and four hijackers. "Yes, put it in it, and pull it down," another replied in Arabic.

In those remaining two minutes, more voices are heard than earlier, including some saying in English:

"Go. Go."

"Move. Move."

"Push, push, push, push, push."

Then in Arabic: "Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me."

Finally in Arabic: "Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest."

The government rested its case shortly after the first public playing — other than for investigators and victims' relatives — of the only audible cockpit recording recovered from the four jetliners hijacked by al-Qaida in the nation's most deadly terrorist attack.

On Thursday, court-appointed defense lawyers will begin arguing that the 37-year-old Frenchman, who was in jail in Minnesota on 9/11, played so small a role and had such mental problems that he deserves life in prison instead of execution.

The 17 jurors and alternates couldn't take their eyes off the video screens — even during long silent periods — as prosecutors used a multimedia presentation to try to put them inside the Flight 93 cockpit.

Slumped in his chair and impassive, Moussaoui too watched intently.