Zacarias Moussaoui, on trial for 9/11 is a paranoid schizophrenic with delusions. Last week, in his second appearance as a witness, the 37-year-old Frenchman reiterated his stunning earlier testimony that he was to hijack a fifth jetliner on Sept. 11 and fly into the White House - a plan he had said for years was intended for a later date.



He added that he has dreamed Bush will release him before leaving office in 2009 as part of a prisoner exchange for U.S. troops captured abroad, and said he is convinced that will occur.



One of Moussaoui guards at the Alexandria Jail said Moussaoui has told him that after Bush frees him, he will “fly to London, write a book, make some money and go back to the mountains of Afghanistan and be al-Qaeda.”



Earlier defense witnesses described Moussaoui’s impoverished childhood with a violent, alcoholic father and his later embrace of radical Islam, after anti-Arab racism and his background thwarted his desire to become an international businessman. , reported Forbes.com, sourcing the Associated Press news agency.



They described him a boy who witnessed violence at home and endured five stints in orphanages, frequent moves and deep poverty but nevertheless became an engaging and fun-loving teenager known for his smile and his ambition. His Moroccan ancestry and lack of family financial backing, however, helped block his ambitions, first in France and then in London. He withdrew from family and friends in 1995, gained weight, shaved his head and took up Islamic fundamentalism, these witnesses said.



His sister Jamilla. described him as “a pretty little baby, always smiling. ... He was the little sweetheart of the family.” And she described abuse by their father, Omar, who repeatedly beat Jamilla and his wife, Aicha. “He almost killed me; he tried to kill me,” she said. When her mother had money for food, “he ate everything and left us nothing.”



Omar is now hospitalized in France for treatment of bipolar disorder. Jamilla has a guardian and is treated for schizophrenia. The oldest sister, Nadia, also has a guardian and is being treated for psychosis with schizophrenic features, records show.



Moussaoui’s mother Aicha provided little supervision and no religious training. The family celebrated Christian and Islamic holidays because wanted her children to integrate into French culture, a social worker said.



She said children with childhoods like Moussaoui’s fail to develop normal resilience and adaptability to life’s setbacks. They choose poor role models and fail to deal with feelings of aggression, she testified. Interestingly, Moussaoui’s older brother, Abd Samad Moussaoui, emerged from the same family to become an engineering teacher rather than a terrorist.



As a teenager, Moussaoui was rejected as a “dirty Arab” by the family of his girlfriend, the social worker said.



Imam Abdul Haqq Baker, chairman of the Brixton mosque Moussaoui attended in London, said men like Moussaoui were easy prey for radical Islamists seeking recruits. Radicals who disapproved of Brixton’s moderate stance “would pass out leaflets: `Learn the truth about kafir (infidels),’” Baker said. Moussaoui changed dramatically after exposure to the radicals, he said.