Associated Press

                 The lawyer and fiancee of the man known as Carlos the Jackal said today that she will represent Zacarias Moussaoui, the French
                 citizen indicted for conspiracy in the Sept. 11 attacks.

                 Paris lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre said she would defend Moussaoui's rights as a French citizen, such as trying to protect him
                 from the possibility of the death penalty, which France opposes.

                 Moussaoui, a 33-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent now in U.S. custody, was named Tuesday by a federal grand jury in
                 the first indictment directly linked to the suicide hijackings. He was charged with six felonies, including four that carry the death
                 penalty.

                 ``I am a French lawyer, he is French. So I am going to do everything in my power to ensure his rights as a French citizen,'' Coutant-Peyre
                 said in a telephone interview. Moussaoui already has a lawyer in the United States.

                 Coutant-Peyre said Moussaoui's mother, Aicha, asked her to represent her son.

                 Two months ago, Coutant-Peyre said she would marry Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, who is serving a life sentence in France for the 1975
                 murders of two French secret agents and an alleged informer. The Venezuelan-born Ramirez, who was arrested in Sudan in 1994, is
                 also under investigation for three terrorist attacks in the 1980s.

                 A Muslim convert, Ramirez recently told the France Soir newspaper that he felt ``relief'' at the Sept. 11 attacks. In 1998, Ramirez
                 told France Soir that he wished good luck to Osama bin Laden, who had been indicted for the embassy bombings in Kenya and
                 Tanzania.

                 Coutant-Peyre said she hoped Moussaoui will be brought back to France. She said she has not yet spoken with Moussaoui, nor
                 does she know where he is being held.

                 Coutant-Peyre suggested Moussaoui has been made a scapegoat.

                 ``There is, in the end, a big manipulation to designate him as one of those responsible for what happened on Sept. 11,'' she said.
                 ``It is normal, of course, that the American authorities are charged with looking for those responsible for what happened - but not
                 to find a public scapegoat.''

                 The French government said yesterday that it would object to the death penalty for Moussaoui, and Justice Minister Marylise
                 Lebranchu said France would provide him consular protection - meaning it would work to assure he has a fair trial according to
                 French standards.

                 Copyright 2001 Associated Press.