Moussaoui sent to 'supermax' for six life terms

Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced yesterday to spend the rest of his life in near-solitary confinement as the judge in his case cut short the final diatribe he delivered to a Virginia courtroom, and told him he would never be able to speak out publicly again.

In the final act of legal proceedings that have dragged on for more than four years, federal judge Leonie Brinkema sentenced him to six life sentences for his role in planning the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

He will be sent to the "supermax" federal prison in Florence, Colorado with no chance of early release. The jury on Wednesday chose life imprisonment over execution because they did not believe Moussaoui played as central a role in the attacks as he claimed, and because they did not want to indulge his ambition to become a martyr to the cause of Islamic fundamentalism.

Judge Brinkema took issue with Moussaoui's outburst that he had "won" by avoiding the death penalty, saying: "Mr Moussaoui, when this proceeding is over, everyone else in this room will leave to see the sun ... hear the birds... and they can associate with whomever they want.

"You will spend the rest of your life in a supermax prison. It's absolutely clear who won."

She went on: "Mr Moussaoui, you came here to be a martyr in a great big bang of glory, but to paraphrase the poet TS Eliot, instead you will die with a whimper."

Earlier in the sentencing hearing, Moussaoui made a long, rambling speech in which he declared, among other things: "God save Osama bin Laden - you will never get him."

Judge Brinkema finally cut him off, saying: "You will never get a chance to speak again and that's an appropriate ending."

Moussaoui's outbursts provoked emotional responses from bereaved relatives of the 11 September attacks in the courtroom. "I hope you rot in a jail cell and never see the sky, never see the sun, have no contact or your name to come up in another newspaper," said Rosemary Dillard, whose husband died on the plane that flew into the Pentagon. "For you, I feel nothing but contempt."