France may ask the United States to allow 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui to serve his life prison sentence in a French jail.
The French Foreign Ministry said a request by lodged to repatriate the 37-year old French citizen, who was sentenced today to life in prison with no possibility of release for his role in the attacks that led to the death of 3,000 people.
Moussaoui's mother and his lawyer want him to be allowed to serve his sentence in France and the ministry indicated it could apply for his return under the terms of two agreements the country's signed in the 1980s relating to the transfer of convicts.
"A possible demand for transferring Zacarias Moussaoui could be looked at within this framework," Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said.
"But in any case, we have to wait for the American justice system to provide a definitive sentence and to define the conditions of the sentence," he added.
Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy later said in a statement that he had instructed the French embassy in Washington to "remain very attentive to the situation of Zacarias Moussaoui."
US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declined to say whether Moussaoui could be extradited. "I don't think it's appropriate at this time to comment on that," he told a news conference in Vienna after talks with EU and Russian counterparts on security cooperation.
"Obviously there's been no formal request made, and with respect to a request by the French government, we would of course consider it at that time," he said.
Moussaoui's mother, Aisha el Wafi, said her son would be living like a "rat in a hole" and accused France of siding with the United States during the trial.
"I feel there is a part of me that is dead, buried with my son who will be buried for the rest of his life at the age of 37 for things he hasn't done," she told a news conference in Paris.
The jury found that while Moussaoui was a conspriator he was not responsible for the deaths of those at the World Trade Centre, the Penatgon and Flight 93, which went down over Pennsylvania.
It found Moussaoui should not face the death penalty prosecutors were seeking.