NBC news reporter Pete Williams speculates that the feds have rigged a defiant Zacarias Moussaoui with a stun belt, an "electro-shock" device, apparently part of a growing "shock technology" arsenal used by torturers in South Africa, China, and Lebanon. "Amnesty International is extremely concerned about the introduction by the prison authorities in the United States of America of a remote controlled electro-shock stun belt for use on prisoners in chain gangs, judicial hearings and transportation," the human rights organization declared in 1996. "Officers can use it to psychologically threaten a prisoner, and it appears designed to humiliate and degrade a prisoner… Data from other electro-shock weapons indicate that the high pulse 50,000 volt shocks lasting eight seconds at a time could result in longer term physical and mental injuries."

Is it possible Moussaoui is now admitting he was involved in a plot to crash an airliner into the White House with the shoe bomber mental case Richard Reid in a Pavlovian response to 50,000 volts of electricity? If the feds are using electro-shock against the alleged wanna-be "al-Qaeda" operative, is it possible they are also drugging him? Aicha el-Wafi, Moussaoui's mother, believes her son "must have been drugged" when she saw him in court, according to Yahoo News. "That is not Zachary," she declared.

It should be remembered that Moussaoui previously denied any involvement in the nine eleven attacks and his sudden if not electrifying (pun intended) eleventh hour conversion during the penalty phase of his trial is highly suspicious. Moreover, according to nine eleven "mastermind" Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (supposedly in custody), Moussaoui was to take part in a second wave of attacks and was not part of the September 11, 2001, attack. Of course, this contradiction is not worth consideration, either by the jury or the corporate news media. It appears the patsy Zacarias Moussaoui is indeed a dead man walking-with a little help from a 50,000 volt shock belt.

Addendum

As an example of Moussaoui's precarious mental state, Daniel McGrory, billed as a Times Online "al-Qaeda expert," cites several examples of his unusual behavior. "Asked why he signed a guilty plea as 'the twentieth hijacker', Moussaoui smirked and said: 'Because everybody used to refer to me as the 20th hijacker and it was a bit of fun,'" McGrory writes. "Prosecutors have no interest in demolishing Moussaoui's extraordinary confession as the self- proclaimed al-Qaeda terrorist seems to have done their job for them. It does not appear to matter to them that Moussaoui's testimony contradicts their own evidence."

It appears Moussaoui made things up as he went along. "Defense lawyers argue he has repeatedly changed his story about his supposed role in a deliberate attempt to confuse US authorities…. First he claimed he was to be used in a plot to free a blind Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, jailed in the US in 1996 for an earlier attempt to blow up the World Trade Centre. Moussaoui told how he was to pilot a plane carrying the freed sheikh to Afghanistan…. Then he changed his mind and said that he was to take part in a second wave of aerial attacks in the US. He did not give a date, but claimed he was to crash his aircraft into the White House."

Moreover, Moussaoui's claim he plotted with the demented shoe bomber Richard Reid is at odds with the facts. "The question to be asked about his latest confession is, why would he implicate Richard Reid, his friend from their days at Finsbury Park mosque? Both men were at training camps in Afghanistan at the same time but, as evidence has shown, Reid, and another young Briton, Saajid Badat, were being groomed for an entirely different role…. Investigators know that Reid's path never crossed that of the 9/11 cell. Before he was ordered to carry a bomb onto a plane, Reid had other uses for al-Qaeda. Using his British passport, he was sent on reconnaissance missions across Europe and the Middle East at the time the 9/11 hijackers were finalizing their plans…. There is no mention of anything remotely connected to 9/11."

Moussaoui is a textbook example of a patsy. "The patsies ultimately have three vital functions," explains Webster Griffin Tarpley. "The first is that they have to be noticed. They must attract lots and lots of attention. They may issue raving statements on videotape, or doubles can be used to issue these statements for them if they are not up to it. They need to get in to fights with passersby, as Mohammed Atta is said to have done concerning a parking space at the airport in Maine early in the morning on September 11."

"Those who remember Moussaoui from his loudmouth displays at London mosques, and who trained with him in Afghanistan, describe him as a man who enjoyed exaggerating his own importance," McGrory continues. "He claimed to be a particular favorite of Osama bin Laden, which none of the al-Qaeda captives verify…. He liked the idea that London had provided al-Qaeda with a small army of would-be suicide bombers, and that he would be the first to die. He continually boasted about wanting to be a martyr for al-Qaeda…. After his testimony yesterday he may yet get his wish."