[IP] Questions grow as another US terror case collapses
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From:
Date: September 23, 2004 6:45:07 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Questions grow as another US terror case collapses
Dave
please witheld my name if forwarded to IP
Questions grow as another US terror case collapses
By Edward Alden in Washington, Financial Times
One year ago, a 25-year-old translator working for the US Air Force at
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was charged with crimes that could have brought
him a death sentence. Ahmad al Halabi was accused of being part of an
undercover spy ring passing secret information to Syria with the intent
of damaging US efforts to fight the war on terror.
On Wednesday, the Pentagon dropped virtually all the charges against Mr
Halabi, who was imprisoned for nearly a year, admitting that he posed
no danger to the country and had done nothing worse than disobey orders
by taking two unauthorised photographs of Camp Delta and accidentally
carrying a copy of his classified orders to his living quarters on the
base.
The astonishing collapse of the case against Mr Halabi is only the
latest in what is becoming a catalogue of botched terrorism
investigations. Two of the three men accused of being part of the
Guantánamo spy ring have now been freed, while the other faces charges
only of mishandling sensitive information.
The Justice Department this week also said it would release without
charge Yaser Esam Hamdi, a US-born Saudi who was held in isolation for
more than two years after he was detained in Afghanistan, declared an
unlawful "enemy combatant" and interrogated for his supposed knowledge
of al-Qaeda plots.
The growing list of failed prosecutions is raising tough questions
about why Washington has so often levelled terrorism accusations
against innocent inviduals. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California
Democrat, said last week the Justice Department "trumpets arrests and
indictments in terrorism cases, but those announcements don't seem to
be matched by prosecution".
For instance, of the nearly 1,200 individuals imprisoned on immigration
violations after September 11 2001 on suspicion of having terrorist
ties, not one was convicted of a terrorist offence. And of the roughly
100 convictions the Justice Department has obtained in terrorism
investigations, virtually all have been for minor crimes not linked to
terrorism. A Syracuse University study late last year found that while
investigations of terrorism-related offences had grown five-fold in the
two years after September 11, convictions for serious crimes resulting
in five or more years in prison had actually fallen.
Similarly, the commission investigating the attacks released a highly
critical report last month on Washington's efforts to shut down alleged
terrorist financiers. One of the more prominent targets, Al-Barakaat, a
Somali-based money exchange company, was accused by the US of diverting
money to al-Qaeda and was shut down by US sanctions in November 2001.
But subsequent investigations by the FBI "could find no direct evidence
at all of any real link between al-Barakaat and terrorism of any type",
the commission's staff reported.
In other cases with more plausible links to terrorism, including the
Illinois-based charities Benevolence International Foundation and
Global Relief Foundation, the government has still been unable to
secure any terrorist-related convictions.
Washington defends its record by pointing to several successful
prosecutions for "material support" to terrorism, involving small
groups in northern Virginia, Portland and Lackawanna in upstate New
York.
But even in those cases, particularly the Lackawanna case - which
involved six men who had briefly attended al-Qaeda training camps
before returning home - serious questions have been raised about the
convictions.
US officials say that despite these setbacks, success should be
measured not by the number of successful convictions but by a different
standard - that of preventing further terrorist attacks.
Barry Sabin, chief of the counter-terrorism division in the Justice
Department, cryptically acknowledged to a Senate panel last week that
in order to prevent terrorism, arrests were often made before the
investigations were completed. If the US wants to disrupt potential
terrorists, he said, "cases are taken down earlier and you will have
less playing-out of the investigating".
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/6a769a80-0da8-11d9-a3e1-00000e2511c8.html
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