Bogus ?Terrorist? Case Exposed (for the nth time)
Subject: Bogus ?Terrorist? Case Exposed (for the nth time)
Date: 9/2/04 7:16 AM PST
Author: R7Fel@aol.com
Report Scolds Terrorism Prosecutors
U.S. to Drop Convictions Against Trio in Detroit
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 2, 2004; Page A03
The Justice Department released a harshly critical review yesterday that shows that prosecutors failed to turn over dozens of pieces of evidence to defense attorneys in the first major terrorism trial after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and chronicles "a pattern of mistakes and oversights" so egregious that the government has agreed to abandon the terrorism portion of the case altogether.
A special attorney assigned to review the convictions of three alleged members of a terrorist sleeper cell in Detroit found that the prosecution withheld numerous e-mails, photographs, witness statements and other items that undercut the government's case and should have been turned over to the defense, according to a 60-page memorandum filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit late Tuesday and released yesterday.
The errors and possible misconduct were so rampant that there is "no reasonable prospect of winning" on appeal, according to the filing to U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen. As a result, prosecutors agreed to a defense request for a new trial and will pursue only document fraud charges against the three defendants, two of whom were convicted of terrorism charges last year.
The review by Craig S. Morford, a federal prosecutor in Cleveland, is particularly critical of the former lead prosecutor in the Detroit case, Richard Convertino, who, among other things, allegedly failed to turn over photographs to the defense and elicited testimony from witnesses that led the judge and other lawyers to believe they did not exist.
Convertino, who has been removed from the case and is the subject of an ongoing criminal probe, told investigators he does not recall the photos and has disputed other allegations against him, according to Morford's review.
"In its best light, the record would show that the prosecution committed a pattern of mistakes and oversights that deprived defendants of discoverable evidence . . . and created a record filled with misleading inferences that such material did not exist," the report says.
The admission of error by the Justice Department comes as the Bush administration is highlighting its anti-terrorism efforts at the Republican National Convention in New York. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft had previously hailed the Detroit prosecution as a major victory in the war on terrorism, and the case was listed as one of the department's "notable achievements" in a report to Congress in January.
Convertino, who has filed a lawsuit against Ashcroft and the Justice Department, declined to comment. His Washington attorney, William Sullivan, said Convertino is a "vigorous and principled prosecutor" who always had "the safety and protection of his community" in mind.
"Even if [Assistant U.S. Attorney] Convertino had knowledge of the materials characterized as being disclosable to the defense, those materials were insubstantial, cumulative and would not encourage the reasonable possibility that a different verdict would have resulted after trial," Sullivan said in a statement.
The Justice Department has secured a number of guilty pleas and convictions in high-profile terrorism cases over three years. But in recent months it lost an important case in which it accused an Idaho man of using the Internet to recruit and raise money for holy war abroad, and was embarrassed by the FBI's erroneous detention of an Oregon man -- a convert to Islam -- for involvement in the Madrid train bombings based on an inaccurate fingerprint match.
"It's just another in a long line of mishaps by this Justice Department in prosecuting the so-called war on terror," said I. Michael Greenberger, a Justice official in the Clinton administration who now heads the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland.
Justice spokesman Mark Corallo said Ashcroft's decision to assign Morford to review the case shows the department's willingness to examine its own shortcomings. "We stepped up to the plate and did the right thing in the interest of justice," he said.
Defense attorneys in the case did not return telephone calls yesterday.
In the first major terrorism trial since the Sept. 11 attacks, two defendants, Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi and Karim Koubriti, were convicted in June 2003 of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and document fraud, while a third man, Ahmed Hannan, was convicted of document fraud. A fourth defendant was acquitted.
The general prosecution theory was that the men were part of a fundamentalist "sleeper cell" who had been caught with materials indicating that they had been casing a U.S. air base in Turkey and a Jordanian hospital as possible targets of terrorist attacks.
But the report raises serious questions about the veracity of most of the key evidence and testimony at the heart of the case. It includes strong indications that a videotape and sketches portrayed as terrorist surveillance material may have been nothing more than tourist footage and innocent doodling. Prosecutors also failed to inform defense attorneys that many U.S., Turkish and Jordanian officials had doubts about various aspects of the case, the report said.
The report also raises doubts about the testimony of star prosecution witness Youssef Hmimssa, an admitted credit card fraud artist who alleged the defendants were Islamic fundamentalists involved in terrorist activities.
The central figure in the Morford probe is Convertino.
In one incident, Morford contends that Convertino "made a deliberate decision not to have the FBI take any notes" during debriefing sessions with Hmimssa to limit defense attorneys' ability to challenge his statements. Prosecutors in Detroit and at Justice Department headquarters argued against this unorthodox approach, the memo says.
In another instance, the report alleges that Convertino may have elicited "misleading testimony" from an FBI agent and others, leading Rosen and defense attorneys to believe that photographs that should have been turned over did not exist.
Keith Corbett, Convertino's supervisor and co-counsel, who also was removed from the case, told investigators that "he would not have participated" if he had known about much of the information that was not disclosed to defense attorneys. Corbett declined to comment yesterday.
Staff writer Allan Lengel contributed to this report.
Re: Bogus ?Terrorist? Case Exposed (for the nth time)
Date: 9/2/04 5:54 PM PST
Author: R7Fel
Federal judge dismisses terrorism charges against two men in Detroit
9/2/2004, 6:53 p.m. ET
By SARAH KARUSH
The Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) Â? Warning that the fight against terrorism must not trample on the Constitution, a federal judge on Thursday dismissed terrorism charges against two men convicted last year.
But U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen ordered the two, as well as a third man, to stand trial again on charges of document fraud.
The dismissal came at the request of the government after it admitted widespread prosecutorial misconduct. The case had been hailed by the Bush Administration as a victory in the war on terror but began unraveling last fall after the government acknowledged that evidence that could have helped the defense was improperly withheld.
"This case Â? and all of the issues that have been raised by it Â? has always stood against the backdrop of the Sept. 11 attacks upon our nation and in the continuing shadow of the threat of future terrorist attacks," Rosen wrote in Thursday's order. "Certainly, the legal front of the war on terrorism is a battle that must be fought and won in the courts, but it must be won in accordance with the rule of law."
Karim Koubriti, 26, and Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi, 38, were convicted in June 2003 of conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism and to engage in fraud and misuse of visas and other documents. Ahmed Hannan, 36, was convicted of only the fraud charge, and Farouk Ali-Haimoud, 24, was acquitted.
The government's change of heart, outlined in a filing late Tuesday night, came after a monthslong court-ordered review of documents connected to the case. The Justice Department uncovered much more potentially exculpatory evidence that should have been given to the defense before trial, but was not.
For instance, prosecutors never revealed that there was no consensus within the government regarding a day planner found in the defendants' apartment. Prosecutors maintained the notebook contained casing sketches of potential terrorist targets. They did not reveal that some officials, including a CIA expert, disagreed, the government said.
Rosen said the prosecution's "understandable sense of mission and zeal to obtain a conviction" in the wake of the Sept. 11 "overcame not only its professional judgment, but its broader obligations to the justice system and the rule of law."
"It is an inescapable conclusion that the defendants' due process, confrontation and fair trial rights were violated," he wrote. "There is at least a reasonable probability that the jury's verdict would have been different had constitutional standards been met."
The defense team on Wednesday greeted the government's decision to drop the terrorism charges jubilantly, but said they believed the misconduct was severe enough to warrant a dismissal of the fraud charges as well.
Elmardoudi's attorney William Swor said Thursday he was not surprised by the judge's decision.
"Obviously, we're still going to pursue our claim that the charges should be dismissed, but we're also going to be prepared for trial," he said.
Rosen heaped praise on the government for its thorough post-trial review and for making what he said was likely a tough, but "legally and ethically correct decision."
U.S. Attorney Craig Morford, who led the post-trial review, said the judge's opinion contained "very important and profound" points.
"It's our job to pursue justice Â? that's what we do," he said. "We're called upon to do it in different ways and in different forms, and this is the toughest in many ways Â? those rare times when we have to address our own mistakes. But that's what justice calls for."
The judge said he personally reviewed not only the evidence brought forward by the government, but also all classified CIA materials concerning the case. Those materials "provide additional and substantial support for the conclusions reached in the government's filing," he said.
Rosen emphasized that it was not his role to assign blame for the misconduct, noting ongoing Justice Department investigations.
The government's filing put most of the blame on lead prosecutor Richard Convertino, who said through his lawyer Wednesday that he had done nothing wrong and was disappointed that the government was not standing by the terrorism convictions.
Â?__
On the Net:
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan (with link to judge's opinion): http://www.mied.uscourts.gov/index.html
Subject: Re: Bogus ?Terrorist? Case Exposed (for the nth time)
Date: 9/6/04 8:21 AM PST
Author: R7Fel
Dangerous Errors
Monday, September 6, 2004; Page A22
"Today's convictions send a clear message: The Department of Justice will work diligently to detect, disrupt and dismantle the activities of terrorist cells in the United States and abroad."
SO SAID ATTORNEY General John D. Ashcroft on June 3, 2003, the day Karim Koubriti, Ahmed Hannan and Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi were convicted in Detroit in the first major terrorism prosecution to follow the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Barely a year later, the department's work on the case looks far from diligent, and it is by no means clear that the government disrupted a terrorist cell. The lead prosecutor is facing a criminal investigation, and the evidence he presented in court has been so discredited that the Justice Department asked the court last week to overturn the convictions and dismiss the terrorism charges. U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen agreed that the government had "materially misled the Court, the jury and the defense [about] critical evidence that provided important foundations for the prosecution's case." Mr. Ashcroft, so quick to crow about a victory in court, now owes a candid, public explanation of what has happened.
The defendants, along with one other, were accused of being part of a sleeper cell of Islamic fundamentalists, collecting intelligence for possible attacks abroad and in the United States. Two were convicted of conspiracy to support terrorism and document fraud, one on only the lesser charge; one was acquitted. Now the department acknowledges that it "failed to disclose matters which, viewed collectively, were 'material' to the defense" and the information it withheld "significantly undermines the basis" of the most serious charges. In its 60-page filing, the department eviscerates its own case. Prosecutors withheld information impeaching their star witness's reliability, it says. A drawing said at trial to be a "casing" sketch did not correspond with photographs of the site it supposedly depicted -- photographs that were never disclosed. Prosecutors' characterization of another sketch, the government now says, was controversial within the government; it may have been an innocent doodle. A videotape said to be surveillance of possible targets may have been taken by Tunisian tourists. There is, quite simply, nothing solid left of the case.
The chief problem here appears to have been the lead prosecutor, Richard Convertino, whom the department yanked from the case after the allegations arose and whose conduct it is now investigating. Judge Rosen described him as having "simply ignored or avoided any evidence or information which contradicted or undermined" his belief in the defendants' guilt. Mr. Convertino has sued the department, alleging a smear, and his lawyer called the withheld materials "insubstantial" and said they would not have prompted a "reasonable possibility that a different verdict would have resulted after trial." But it is highly unusual for the Justice Department to scuttle its own case as it has here. It would be all the more extraordinary if the materials it withheld were not, in fact, important.
The Justice Department responded seriously to the problem, appointing a special attorney to clean up the mess. Its filing last week was comprehensive and candid, and Judge Rosen lavished praise on the new team for "vigorously pursuing and producing to the Court all possible evidence" related to the train wreck. But how did errors so fundamental go undiscovered for so long in such a high-profile case? Why were the department's counterterrorism officials not more closely supervising the work of prosecutors in the field? Why were red flags not raised when officials of different agencies -- as the department now reports -- became concerned that Mr. Convertino was interested only in analysis that supported his case? Mr. Ashcroft needs to answer these questions and make sure that future terrorism cases are not plagued by such dangerous errors again.
Date: 9/2/04 7:16 AM PST
Author: R7Fel@aol.com
Report Scolds Terrorism Prosecutors
U.S. to Drop Convictions Against Trio in Detroit
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 2, 2004; Page A03
The Justice Department released a harshly critical review yesterday that shows that prosecutors failed to turn over dozens of pieces of evidence to defense attorneys in the first major terrorism trial after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and chronicles "a pattern of mistakes and oversights" so egregious that the government has agreed to abandon the terrorism portion of the case altogether.
A special attorney assigned to review the convictions of three alleged members of a terrorist sleeper cell in Detroit found that the prosecution withheld numerous e-mails, photographs, witness statements and other items that undercut the government's case and should have been turned over to the defense, according to a 60-page memorandum filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit late Tuesday and released yesterday.
The errors and possible misconduct were so rampant that there is "no reasonable prospect of winning" on appeal, according to the filing to U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen. As a result, prosecutors agreed to a defense request for a new trial and will pursue only document fraud charges against the three defendants, two of whom were convicted of terrorism charges last year.
The review by Craig S. Morford, a federal prosecutor in Cleveland, is particularly critical of the former lead prosecutor in the Detroit case, Richard Convertino, who, among other things, allegedly failed to turn over photographs to the defense and elicited testimony from witnesses that led the judge and other lawyers to believe they did not exist.
Convertino, who has been removed from the case and is the subject of an ongoing criminal probe, told investigators he does not recall the photos and has disputed other allegations against him, according to Morford's review.
"In its best light, the record would show that the prosecution committed a pattern of mistakes and oversights that deprived defendants of discoverable evidence . . . and created a record filled with misleading inferences that such material did not exist," the report says.
The admission of error by the Justice Department comes as the Bush administration is highlighting its anti-terrorism efforts at the Republican National Convention in New York. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft had previously hailed the Detroit prosecution as a major victory in the war on terrorism, and the case was listed as one of the department's "notable achievements" in a report to Congress in January.
Convertino, who has filed a lawsuit against Ashcroft and the Justice Department, declined to comment. His Washington attorney, William Sullivan, said Convertino is a "vigorous and principled prosecutor" who always had "the safety and protection of his community" in mind.
"Even if [Assistant U.S. Attorney] Convertino had knowledge of the materials characterized as being disclosable to the defense, those materials were insubstantial, cumulative and would not encourage the reasonable possibility that a different verdict would have resulted after trial," Sullivan said in a statement.
The Justice Department has secured a number of guilty pleas and convictions in high-profile terrorism cases over three years. But in recent months it lost an important case in which it accused an Idaho man of using the Internet to recruit and raise money for holy war abroad, and was embarrassed by the FBI's erroneous detention of an Oregon man -- a convert to Islam -- for involvement in the Madrid train bombings based on an inaccurate fingerprint match.
"It's just another in a long line of mishaps by this Justice Department in prosecuting the so-called war on terror," said I. Michael Greenberger, a Justice official in the Clinton administration who now heads the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland.
Justice spokesman Mark Corallo said Ashcroft's decision to assign Morford to review the case shows the department's willingness to examine its own shortcomings. "We stepped up to the plate and did the right thing in the interest of justice," he said.
Defense attorneys in the case did not return telephone calls yesterday.
In the first major terrorism trial since the Sept. 11 attacks, two defendants, Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi and Karim Koubriti, were convicted in June 2003 of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and document fraud, while a third man, Ahmed Hannan, was convicted of document fraud. A fourth defendant was acquitted.
The general prosecution theory was that the men were part of a fundamentalist "sleeper cell" who had been caught with materials indicating that they had been casing a U.S. air base in Turkey and a Jordanian hospital as possible targets of terrorist attacks.
But the report raises serious questions about the veracity of most of the key evidence and testimony at the heart of the case. It includes strong indications that a videotape and sketches portrayed as terrorist surveillance material may have been nothing more than tourist footage and innocent doodling. Prosecutors also failed to inform defense attorneys that many U.S., Turkish and Jordanian officials had doubts about various aspects of the case, the report said.
The report also raises doubts about the testimony of star prosecution witness Youssef Hmimssa, an admitted credit card fraud artist who alleged the defendants were Islamic fundamentalists involved in terrorist activities.
The central figure in the Morford probe is Convertino.
In one incident, Morford contends that Convertino "made a deliberate decision not to have the FBI take any notes" during debriefing sessions with Hmimssa to limit defense attorneys' ability to challenge his statements. Prosecutors in Detroit and at Justice Department headquarters argued against this unorthodox approach, the memo says.
In another instance, the report alleges that Convertino may have elicited "misleading testimony" from an FBI agent and others, leading Rosen and defense attorneys to believe that photographs that should have been turned over did not exist.
Keith Corbett, Convertino's supervisor and co-counsel, who also was removed from the case, told investigators that "he would not have participated" if he had known about much of the information that was not disclosed to defense attorneys. Corbett declined to comment yesterday.
Staff writer Allan Lengel contributed to this report.
Re: Bogus ?Terrorist? Case Exposed (for the nth time)
Date: 9/2/04 5:54 PM PST
Author: R7Fel
Federal judge dismisses terrorism charges against two men in Detroit
9/2/2004, 6:53 p.m. ET
By SARAH KARUSH
The Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) Â? Warning that the fight against terrorism must not trample on the Constitution, a federal judge on Thursday dismissed terrorism charges against two men convicted last year.
But U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen ordered the two, as well as a third man, to stand trial again on charges of document fraud.
The dismissal came at the request of the government after it admitted widespread prosecutorial misconduct. The case had been hailed by the Bush Administration as a victory in the war on terror but began unraveling last fall after the government acknowledged that evidence that could have helped the defense was improperly withheld.
"This case Â? and all of the issues that have been raised by it Â? has always stood against the backdrop of the Sept. 11 attacks upon our nation and in the continuing shadow of the threat of future terrorist attacks," Rosen wrote in Thursday's order. "Certainly, the legal front of the war on terrorism is a battle that must be fought and won in the courts, but it must be won in accordance with the rule of law."
Karim Koubriti, 26, and Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi, 38, were convicted in June 2003 of conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism and to engage in fraud and misuse of visas and other documents. Ahmed Hannan, 36, was convicted of only the fraud charge, and Farouk Ali-Haimoud, 24, was acquitted.
The government's change of heart, outlined in a filing late Tuesday night, came after a monthslong court-ordered review of documents connected to the case. The Justice Department uncovered much more potentially exculpatory evidence that should have been given to the defense before trial, but was not.
For instance, prosecutors never revealed that there was no consensus within the government regarding a day planner found in the defendants' apartment. Prosecutors maintained the notebook contained casing sketches of potential terrorist targets. They did not reveal that some officials, including a CIA expert, disagreed, the government said.
Rosen said the prosecution's "understandable sense of mission and zeal to obtain a conviction" in the wake of the Sept. 11 "overcame not only its professional judgment, but its broader obligations to the justice system and the rule of law."
"It is an inescapable conclusion that the defendants' due process, confrontation and fair trial rights were violated," he wrote. "There is at least a reasonable probability that the jury's verdict would have been different had constitutional standards been met."
The defense team on Wednesday greeted the government's decision to drop the terrorism charges jubilantly, but said they believed the misconduct was severe enough to warrant a dismissal of the fraud charges as well.
Elmardoudi's attorney William Swor said Thursday he was not surprised by the judge's decision.
"Obviously, we're still going to pursue our claim that the charges should be dismissed, but we're also going to be prepared for trial," he said.
Rosen heaped praise on the government for its thorough post-trial review and for making what he said was likely a tough, but "legally and ethically correct decision."
U.S. Attorney Craig Morford, who led the post-trial review, said the judge's opinion contained "very important and profound" points.
"It's our job to pursue justice Â? that's what we do," he said. "We're called upon to do it in different ways and in different forms, and this is the toughest in many ways Â? those rare times when we have to address our own mistakes. But that's what justice calls for."
The judge said he personally reviewed not only the evidence brought forward by the government, but also all classified CIA materials concerning the case. Those materials "provide additional and substantial support for the conclusions reached in the government's filing," he said.
Rosen emphasized that it was not his role to assign blame for the misconduct, noting ongoing Justice Department investigations.
The government's filing put most of the blame on lead prosecutor Richard Convertino, who said through his lawyer Wednesday that he had done nothing wrong and was disappointed that the government was not standing by the terrorism convictions.
Â?__
On the Net:
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan (with link to judge's opinion): http://www.mied.uscourts.gov/index.html
Subject: Re: Bogus ?Terrorist? Case Exposed (for the nth time)
Date: 9/6/04 8:21 AM PST
Author: R7Fel
Dangerous Errors
Monday, September 6, 2004; Page A22
"Today's convictions send a clear message: The Department of Justice will work diligently to detect, disrupt and dismantle the activities of terrorist cells in the United States and abroad."
SO SAID ATTORNEY General John D. Ashcroft on June 3, 2003, the day Karim Koubriti, Ahmed Hannan and Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi were convicted in Detroit in the first major terrorism prosecution to follow the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Barely a year later, the department's work on the case looks far from diligent, and it is by no means clear that the government disrupted a terrorist cell. The lead prosecutor is facing a criminal investigation, and the evidence he presented in court has been so discredited that the Justice Department asked the court last week to overturn the convictions and dismiss the terrorism charges. U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen agreed that the government had "materially misled the Court, the jury and the defense [about] critical evidence that provided important foundations for the prosecution's case." Mr. Ashcroft, so quick to crow about a victory in court, now owes a candid, public explanation of what has happened.
The defendants, along with one other, were accused of being part of a sleeper cell of Islamic fundamentalists, collecting intelligence for possible attacks abroad and in the United States. Two were convicted of conspiracy to support terrorism and document fraud, one on only the lesser charge; one was acquitted. Now the department acknowledges that it "failed to disclose matters which, viewed collectively, were 'material' to the defense" and the information it withheld "significantly undermines the basis" of the most serious charges. In its 60-page filing, the department eviscerates its own case. Prosecutors withheld information impeaching their star witness's reliability, it says. A drawing said at trial to be a "casing" sketch did not correspond with photographs of the site it supposedly depicted -- photographs that were never disclosed. Prosecutors' characterization of another sketch, the government now says, was controversial within the government; it may have been an innocent doodle. A videotape said to be surveillance of possible targets may have been taken by Tunisian tourists. There is, quite simply, nothing solid left of the case.
The chief problem here appears to have been the lead prosecutor, Richard Convertino, whom the department yanked from the case after the allegations arose and whose conduct it is now investigating. Judge Rosen described him as having "simply ignored or avoided any evidence or information which contradicted or undermined" his belief in the defendants' guilt. Mr. Convertino has sued the department, alleging a smear, and his lawyer called the withheld materials "insubstantial" and said they would not have prompted a "reasonable possibility that a different verdict would have resulted after trial." But it is highly unusual for the Justice Department to scuttle its own case as it has here. It would be all the more extraordinary if the materials it withheld were not, in fact, important.
The Justice Department responded seriously to the problem, appointing a special attorney to clean up the mess. Its filing last week was comprehensive and candid, and Judge Rosen lavished praise on the new team for "vigorously pursuing and producing to the Court all possible evidence" related to the train wreck. But how did errors so fundamental go undiscovered for so long in such a high-profile case? Why were the department's counterterrorism officials not more closely supervising the work of prosecutors in the field? Why were red flags not raised when officials of different agencies -- as the department now reports -- became concerned that Mr. Convertino was interested only in analysis that supported his case? Mr. Ashcroft needs to answer these questions and make sure that future terrorism cases are not plagued by such dangerous errors again.
posted by R7 | 9/06/2004 11:27:00 AM
1 Comments:
Terror Case Collapse Blow to Bush
Adds to List of High-Profile Losses
by Curt Anderson
WASHINGTON—The collapse in Detroit of the U.S. Justice Department's first post-Sept. 11, 2001, prosecution of an alleged terrorist sleeper cell has left the Bush administration with few high-profile major criminal victories in the war on terrorism — and a growing list of losses and questionable cases.
There's been a tendency of the justice department to act overly aggressively, to hold news conferences, to seek headlines, but when the facts come out they are often shown to be exaggerated.
David Cole
Georgetown University law professor
Justice department officials insist their record since the attacks on the United States reflects a successful strategy of catching suspected terrorists long before they can launch deadly plots, even if that involves charging them with lesser crimes. Yet some legal experts and Bush administration critics say many such cases are pumped up by overzealous prosecutors.
"There's been a tendency of the justice department to act overly aggressively, to hold news conferences, to seek headlines, but when the facts come out they are often shown to be exaggerated," said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor and frequent critic of Bush administration counterterrorism policies.
According to the latest available figures, since Sept 11, 2001, the justice department has charged more than 310 people in terrorism-related cases and won 179 convictions — many for such relatively minor infractions as document and credit card fraud and immigration violations.
With fighting terrorism a cornerstone of President George W. Bush's re-election campaign, the Bush administration has been unapologetic in its aggressive approach. "You have to have a zero-tolerance policy for anything that could germinate into a terrorist plot or facilitate a terrorist plot," said U.S. Attorney David Kelley of New York.
In the Detroit case, the justice department agreed last week with defence lawyers that charges of material support for terrorism should be dropped against two men who were convicted in the first major terrorism prosecution after the attacks.
An internal probe uncovered prosecutorial misconduct that included withholding evidence that tended to bolster the men's claims of innocence.
Problems have recently cropped up in a number of other high-profile cases:
In Portland, Ore., lawyer Brandon Mayfield was held for days as a material witness in May after the FBI mistakenly said his fingerprint matched one found on a plastic bag connected to the deadly terror bombings in Madrid, Spain. Two leaders of a mosque in Albany, N.Y., were released on bail Aug. 25 after a federal judge concluded they were not as dangerous as prosecutors alleged.
A Saudi college student in Boise, Idaho, was acquitted in June on charges of giving terrorists material support by creating an Internet network that prosecutors claimed fostered Islamic extremism and helped them recruit.
In addition to those cases, the only person charged in the U.S. over the Sept. 11 attacks, Zacarias Moussaoui, has continued to knot up the court system by insisting on access to captured Al Qaeda leaders he says can prove his innocence. His case is on hold pending resolution of that question.
And one of two U.S. citizens whom Bush declared enemy combatants — Yaser Esam Hamdi — is about to be returned to Saudi Arabia in a deal being negotiated by his defence lawyer and the government.
© Copyright 2004 Associated Press
Post a Comment
<< Home