Paris ? Zacarias Moussaoui’s older brother blamed “merchants of hate” Muslim radicals for his brother’s extremism and urged him Friday to abandon the path that put him in jail, charged with conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers.

“If I have a message for him, it is that he change, that he abandon this ideology of hate and understand that he is mixed up in an abominable tragedy,” Abd Samad Moussaoui said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It is possible for him to change.”

The elder Moussaoui has remained largely silent since his brother’s arrest, and his comments, in an interview and at a news conference, coincided with publication of his book, “Zacarias Moussaoui, My Brother.” It is a portrait of a rootless family and a denunciation of the Wahhabi strain of Islam that he says was his brother’s downfall.

The book is expected to be available in the United States by March.

Abd Samad Moussaoui, 35, a high school technology teacher, said he learned of his brother’s arrest on the radio two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, while negotiating the winding mountain roads near Montpellier, his home in southern France.

Zacarias Moussaoui, 34, was detained Aug. 16, 2001, on an immigration charge, and was later charged with conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers. He had gone to the United States in February.

The book was a way to “deliver myself of this burden,” the older Moussaoui wrote. But, as he probed his brother’s life, he became a man with a mission, blaming the strict tenets of Wahhabi Muslims for Zacarias’ drift into extremism and calling the Wahhabi movement the “detonator.”

While the strict tenets of Wahhabi Islam are practiced peacefully by millions in the Persian Gulf, including the Saudi royal family, Osama bin Laden and his followers also embrace its fundamentalist creed.

“The reason for this book is to point the finger at this ideology of hate” promoted by “merchants of hate … Wahhabi gurus” and to dissuade others from being tempted, Moussaoui said.

“I’m afraid youths … will use him (Zacarias) as a model” who could be seen as a “martyr” if convicted, the elder Moussaoui said.

Zacarias Moussaoui, who is representing himself, has admitted his loyalty to the al-Qaida terror network led by bin Laden. However, he has denied conspiring with the suicide attackers, as the U.S. government claims.

Abd Samad Moussaoui says he will not attend his brother’s Jan. 6 trial. Moussaoui could face the death penalty if convicted.

“I don’t see how I could be useful in any way to my brother,” he said.

He said he has not seen his brother or had contact with him for seven years.