Where Moussaoui Is Likely to Spend Life in Prison

• Share

Zacarias Moussaoui will live out the rest of his days surrounded by poured concrete, with a thin horizontal window providing his only view of the country he conspired to attack. He'll be in this cell at all times except for the 90 minutes he'll get five days a week to go outside into a caged courtyard to exercise on his own, with no contact with other inmates. This is life at ADX Florence, the maximum security prison in the high desert of southeastern Colorado where the convicted 9/11 conspirator will almost certainly begin his life sentence. (The Bureau of Prisons won't officially confirm his destination until he arrives.)

Moussaoui, 37, will likely be held in the most restrictive part of the prison, sleeping on a thin, green mattress that rests on an unforgiving concrete bed. He can sit on a concrete stool at a concrete desk to write letters and read books. Above him at all times will be a video camera monitoring his every move. If he is well behaved, he could eventually be allowed to have a black-and-white television in his cell that plays, on closed circuit, religious programs, psychological help tapes or educational shows. His toilet can flush only a certain number of times an hour so he can't flood his room to get the guard's attention. For the same reason, his shower will run only for a short period of time.

Although Moussaoui won't get to mingle, he will be near other notorious inmates at ADX Florence including Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid, 1993 World Trade Center mastermind Ramzi Yousef, 2000 Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph and FBI agent turned Soviet spy Robert Hanssen.

Moussaoui will also be part of an elite minority at ADX Florence: the five percent of inmates who were sent there immediately after their sentencing hearing. The vast majority of the 399 prisoners took a more circuitous route, earning their spot in the country's most high-tech and restrictive prison by doing things like attacking guards at other prisons, killing inmates or trying to escape. After a number of prisoner-on-prisoner fatalities, says spokeswoman Krista Rear, the super max in Florence cut off all contact among inmates. There hasn't been a fatality since, she says.