Alexandria, USA: September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was once a happy and "funny boy", but a violent home cursed his family with severe mental illness, jurors in his death penalty trial heard on Tuesday.
Defence lawyers introduced mitigating evidence designed to potray Moussaoui as the product of a broken home in France, rejected by others as a "dirty Arab" and traumatised as he was bumped from one orphanage to another.
Jan Vogelsang, a clinical social worker from Greeneville, South Carolina, called as an expert witness after interviewing 51 of Moussaoui's acquaintances, shed light on the youth of the future Al-Qaeda fighter.
Moussaoui boasted a sharp sense of humor and was a friendly, smiling child, who triumphed over apparent learning difficulties by earning a high school diploma, a technical degree and a master's degree from a London university, she said.
He grew up in a "violent, chaotic and very, very emotional" home and he and three siblings were often sent to orphanages during upheavals as the abusive marriage of his Moroccan immigrant father Omar and mother Aicha deteriorated.
Prodded by defence lawyer Gerald Zerkin, Vogelsang suggested that children from such environments grow up robbed of the life skills and stability needed in normal life.
The would-be Al-Qaeda suicide pilot, facing death or life in prison, often appeared amused at the defence case, shaking his head several times. After court recessed for lunch he shouted "Zerkin! A lot of American B.S.!"
Moussaoui's sisters Jamila and Nadia both now suffer from serious delusions or schizophrenic tendencies, and cannot function without medication, Vogelsang said.
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