John Cole writes about today's New York Times' article outlining the paltry evidence against Mohamed Yousry, defense lawyer Lynne Stewart's translator in the Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman case.

Both Yousry and Stewart were convicted of terrorism-related charges and are awaiting sentencing.

“I still don’t know what it is that I did that was even wrong, much less illegal,” said Mr. Yousry, alternately indignant and mournful, in an interview in the Manhattan office of one of his lawyers, Mr. Stern. “I followed a process that was designed by the lawyers. They said this is what we’re going to do, and I followed that. .... “The fact that I now know that these lawyers were following a strategy that the government didn’t like, that makes me a criminal?” he asked.

What Mr. Yousry finds most confounding is that he was convicted of aiding Mr. Abdel Rahman’s fundamentalist Islamic cause even though the prosecutors acknowledged that he was nonviolent, did not support the sheik’s politics and was not a practicing Muslim.

U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson in New York sentenced Yemeni cleric Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad to 75 years today, saying "We must all remember September 11."

What did the cleric have to do with 9/11? Nothing.

While the trial was not about the Sept. 11 attacks, he said, the evidence of al-Moayad's ties to bin Laden and Hamas required a stiff sentence.

Background on the trial is here.

by TChris

Ahmed Ressam, "who plotted to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on the eve of the millennium," received a 22 year sentence today. Fortunately for Ressam, he wasn't charged with delivering a small amount of crack as a repeat offender, or he might have been looking at some serious time.

Update: U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour, tacitly criticizing the Bush administration, made these compelling remarks at sentencing:

I would like to convey the message that our system works. We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, or detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant, or deny him the right to counsel, or invoke any proceedings beyond those guaranteed by or contrary to the United States Constitution.

The Washington Post has completed an analysis of the Administration's claim that it has obtained convictions of 200 terrorists. Here are the results:

An analysis of the Justice Department's own list of terrorism prosecutions by The Washington Post shows that 39 people -- not 200, as officials have implied -- were convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national security.

Most of the others were convicted of relatively minor crimes such as making false statements and violating immigration law -- and had nothing to do with terrorism, the analysis shows. For the entire list, the median sentence was just 11 months.

The most sensationalized details in the charges against the Lodi, CA terror defendants have been deleted from the final Affidavit filed with the court.

The first version of the affidavit released to media organizations Tuesday by the Department of Justice in Washington said potential terrorist targets included hospitals and stores and contained names of key individuals and statements about the international origins of "hundreds" of participants in alleged Al Qaeda terrorist training camps inside Pakistan.

by TChris

Sameeh Hammoudeh, Ghassan Zayed Ballut and Hatem Naji Fariz are accused of working with former University of South Florida Professor Sami al-Arian to raise money for an organization that allegedly participates in terrorism. Their defense attorneys told a jury yesterday that their clients "are victims of selective interpretation of evidence gathered by overzealous government agents."

The defense maintains prosecutors will be able to provide no evidence directly tying the four men to the terrorist group or any criminal activity. And they said there are reasonable explanations for wiretapped phone conversations and other evidence offered by prosecutors to link the defendants to the group.

The defense contends that the men simply wanted to help charitable organizations provide for needy individuals in Palestinian territories. Defense lawyers told the jury that their clients support peace in the mideast, a position contrary to that taken by the organization they are charged with aiding.

Background on the accusations against Sami al-Arian can be found here and here.

Opening arguments were held today in the trial of Tampa Professor Sami Al-Arian.

In his opening statement, Al-Arian's attorney, William Moffitt, characterized him as a scholar and political activist who spoke out with strong words against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories but committed no crimes.

"The evidence will show that this case is about Dr. Al-Arian's right to speak, your right to hear him and the attempt of the powerful to silence him," Moffitt told jurors.

The Government claims Al-Arian was the end-all and be-all of Palestinian terror financing.

Sami Al-Arian was at one time "the most powerful man in the world" in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, federal prosecutor Walter E. Furr III told jurors in his opening statement.

He and four others are charged with 53 counts of racketeering, conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists. Background from our May 15 post:

by TChris

Are federal prosecutors worried that they can't convict Osama Awadallah if he has a fair trial? Awadallah is charged with committing perjury while testifying before a grand jury. The prosecutors want grand jurors to testify about their impressions of Awadallah's demeanor during his grand jury appearance. In other words, they want to call grand jurors to testify, "yep, he sure looked like he was lying, shifty eyes and all" -- or as close to that as they can come.

Awadallah was handcuffed to his chair when he appeared before the grand jury. Judge Shira Scheindlin had the good sense to protect Awadallah from prejudicially speculative interpretations of Amadallah's "demeanor" as he sat handcuffed before his inquisitor. The prosecution appealed that ruling, delaying the start of Awadallah's trial.

A small victory for Mr. Awadallah: Judge Scheindlin made the government pay for his return to California while he waits for his trial to resume.

Not surprisingly, Tarik Shah, the martial arts expert/musician charged with the Florida doctor in New York's latest terror case is asserting an entrapment defense. His lawyer says he is the victim of an "orchestrated prosecution."

Asked if he felt his client had been entrapped, [attorney]Ricco said: "It's a sting operation and one thing our country is good at is we're really good when it comes to setting up people in these cases. When it comes to trying to do something other than that, we seem to be lousy at it. ... That's what happens when you chase people like Tarik Shah. How do you expect to catch Osama bin Laden?"

The doctor hasn't gotten a lawyer yet. The next hearing is set for June 28.

Background here.

Update: New details are available from the 18- page Complaint. And the New York Times adds some context.

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original post:

A 50 year old physician from Palm Beach Boca Raton has been arrested at his home on a federal charge that he provided material support to terrorists. The AP reports the charges are out of the Southern District of New York and that the doctor is believed to have treated terrorists in Saudi Arabia. A second defendant, Tarik Shah, a New York martial arts expert, is alleged to have trained terrorists. Both are American citizens.

Prosecutors said Sabir agreed to treat jihadists, or holy warriors, in Saudi Arabia. Shah agreed to train them in hand-to-hand combat. The one-count complaint details a sting operation from 2003 to 2005 in which the two men took an oath pledging their allegiance to al-Qaida.

From the Sun Sentinel article:

Via Raw Story we learn of another FBI terror sting in Houston that sounds similar to the one involving the Boca Raton doctor announced today.

Ron Grecula did not try to hide his disdain for the "wicked" American government when he sat in a Houston hotel room two weeks ago with two men claiming to be terrorist operatives linked to Al Qaeda.

"I have no loyalty to America whatsoever," Mr. Grecula, 68, a destitute inventor from Pennsylvania, said in a conversation monitored by the authorities. He blamed the F.B.I. for imprisoning him in the abduction of his two children, he said, and he blamed the government for a foreign policy of world domination.

The U.S. agreed to waive the death penalty for accused terrorist Babar Ahmad if Britain would extradite him. Today, a British Court agreed he could be extradited, and Ahmad will become the first terror suspect to be extradited under its 2003 terror law, if he does not win an appeal. The law does not allow the suspect to challenge evidence presented by the US government.

Today, senior district judge Timothy Workman, sitting at Bow Street magistrates' court, in central London, said he accepted assurances by the US authorities that they would not seek the death penalty. He said he also accepted assurances that the US would not declare Mr Ahmad an "enemy combatant" - a category applied to prisoners at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where detainees have questionable legal rights.

Ahmad is charged in a Connecticut Indictment with: