"If I had known he would end up with this group of wrongdoers, I would have attracted his attention ... but I did not see it coming," said el-Wafi. Her son remains the only man convicted in the U.S. over the 9/11 plot. "I think that when a child comes home, shrugs his shoulders and does not listen to the parents ... and says ... you are not good Muslims, there is a danger."
El-Wafi, who was born in Morocco, believes Moussaoui was victimized because of the color of his skin. "He loved a girl he was forbidden from seeing... well the Islamists and the extremists found a grievance in the heart of my son. My son was born in France, my son loves France ... but he was not accepted. He was rejected by French society.
"My son suffered a lot from daily racism," she said. In the city of Narbonne he was called a "dirty Arab and dirty negro" and told to go home. "These are words that kill a child when he is 16, 18, 19 years of age."
El-Wafi now berates herself for failing to realize that her son had become involved with radical Islamists until it was too late. But by then he had been arrested and charged in connection with the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The media dubbed him the "20th hijacker." Moussaoui was convicted of criminal conspiracy and, after making several anti-Western outbursts, jailed for life. El-Wafi accepts that her son, whom she loves "more than before," was involved with extremists, but says she believes he had nothing to do with 9/11.
Now el-Wafi is drawing on her experience by visiting schools to educate young people and parents about radicalization, and issues such as arranged marriages. In an emotional interview she described how her life was haunted by the fate of her son and images of the attacks.
El-Wafi, who spoke to CNN at a recent conference in Dublin organized by Google to tackle extremism and promote reconciliation, urged parents to be alert. "They must keep their eyes and ears open, because I was a bit naïve. I loved my children.
"Everything was fine at home after their father left: we were not living in poverty. I was working; we lived well."
She now works as an activist with French feminist group Ni Putes Ni Soumise (Neither Whores Nor Submissives) that works with Muslim families. "I visit schools, I talk to young girls with regards to arranged marriages at 14 or 15 years of age. I see the parents and tell them you must talk about your problems you have at home, you must talk about it.
"When their parents do not have a worthwhile career, education, or qualifications, the children look upon their parents as having less than nothing."
Early life
El-Wafi was 14 when she married Omar Moussaoui in Morocco. Five years later they moved to the southern French city of Narbonne where Zacarias was born in 1968. Omar regularly battered his wife until she left him in 1972, according to Jan Vogelsang, a clinical social worker who gave evidence during Moussaoui's trial. CNN could not independently verify the claim made in court and the father has not responded to the allegation.
Zacarias studied business in Montpellier before moving to London in 1993 where he took a master's degree at London's South Bank University. While living in London, Moussaoui attended the same Brixton mosque as shoe bomber Richard Reid.


