Michael Thexton

Psychiatric, yeah.

absolutely and i think um you know i that was particularly brought home that um in 2001 the pakistanis released the leader on parole they deported him and he was immediately picked up by the fbi yeah and taken to america where they proposed to put him on trial i mean he was released in september 2001 just after 9 11

very bad time for a hijacker of an american plane to be at large in the world um and so george w bush was able to say well we've caught this guy and you know we're going to put him on trial

I don't approve of the death penalty.

I think it's wrong and barbaric.

But for many years, I had thought in his case, I would make an exception because what he did was so horrific that the only thing that would recognize how serious it was would be the death penalty.

And then they asked me as if my opinion mattered.

And that's a different sort of question.

And I said, well, having thought about it deeply again, I don't think he should have the death penalty because that would make him a martyr.

In 2004, they said, we're going to put him on trial and the judge has asked for witnesses to be in the court.

Will you come to Washington and sit there in the courtroom and tell us your story?

And...

And again, I had to go.

It was almost like having to go to Broad Peak to say goodbye to Peter.

I had to go and see him.

People like Veeraf Daroga, who was the first to speak, Sunshine, who was the second to speak.

And a lot of them had never spoken about it.

The last six people to speak, all members of the same family, a mother who'd been on the plane with her two tiny children, a father who'd stayed at home in America with two other children.

And Mrs. Hussain, the last witness to speak, she spoke, I think, for two and a half hours.

And she had never spoken about it before to anybody, not to her family.