Moussaoui in Final Court Outburst

Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in the US of involvement in the September 11 2001 attacks, left court flashing a victory sign today after being formally sentenced to life imprisonment.

"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," Judge Leonie Brinkema told the 37-year-old French national as she sentenced him to six life terms without the possibility of parole.

Before sentencing, Moussaoui was allowed to address the court in his last public statement before being taken to a maximum security jail in Colorado.

During his speech, which lasted less than five minutes, he told the court: "You have branded me as a terrorist or a criminal or whatever. Look at yourselves. I fight for my belief."

He concluded: "God save Osama bin Laden - you will never get him."

After his speech, and amidst repeated interruptions from Moussaoui, Judge Brinkema told him: "You will never get a chance to speak again and that's an appropriate ending."

Responding to his declaration following the jury's verdict yesterday that America had lost and he had won, she said: "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."

The judge informed Moussaoui of his right to appeal but said it "would be an act of futility".

The jury rejected the government's case that Moussaoui should be executed yesterday. After seven days of deliberation, the jurors decided instead that he should spend the rest of his life in prison without the chance of parole.

Some of the jurors were not convinced that Moussaoui, who had been in jail on immigration charges on the day of the attacks, played a significant role, despite his claims that he had.

The French authorities said they may eventually press the US to have Moussaoui serve his sentence in France.

His mother, Aicha El Wafi, pleaded with her country to intervene. "Now he is going to die in little doses," she said. "He is going to live like a rat in a hole. What for? They are so cruel."

Today's formal sentencing marked the end of a two-month trial in which Moussaoui showed no remorse for the attacks and gave evidence which opposed his own defence counsel's case on more than one occasion.

He sat emotionless as the wife of one of those who died in the Pentagon attack told him: "There is still one final judgement day."