9/11 Suspect Given Fbi Al-qaida Files

Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the United States in connection with the September 11 attacks, was mistakenly given access to 48 classified and highly confidential FBI documents.

The attorney general, John Ashcroft, has ordered an investigation into how they ended up in his cell.

The documents were summaries of interviews related to his case and contained details of the bureau's investigation of al-Qaida.

They were found in his cell this summer, but the information did not become public until this week, when court papers connected to the case were released at the request of Mr Moussaoui's lawyers.

These show that Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered a search after ruling that "significant national security interests of the United States could be compromised if the defendant were to retain copies of this classified information".

The case of Mr Moussaoui, a 34-year-old French national, is a complex one. He admits being a member of al-Qaida and supporter of Osama bin Laden, but denies being involved in the September 11 attacks.

He sacked one set of lawyers and tried to plead guilty, but the plea was rejected once it became known that he did not understand its implications.

It appears that he was given access to the FBI reports as part of the normal legal disclosure process once he had said that he wanted to defend himself.

The classified documents were in a mountain of material delivered to his cell in Alexandria, Virginia, and there is no indication whether he was aware of their significance or had studied them since.

He was said to have been cooperative during the search.

Prosecutors tried to prevent news of the error being made public this week, arguing that it affected national security.

But defence lawyers argued that the attempts to withhold news of the mistake were motivated not by security considerations but by a desire to avoid embarrassment.

The prosecutors denied the claim.