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New York Times Opinion - February 24, 2005
The case of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the American citizen accused of plotting with Al Qaeda to assassinate President Bush, will have his guilt judged in an American court. What we can say now is that his case seems to be another demonstration of what has gone wrong in the federal war on terror.
Mr. Abu Ali, 23, was arrested by Saudi officials in a crackdown after terrorist bombings in Riyadh in 2003. But the Saudis have never shown much interest in actually charging him with a crime. His parents claimed that he was being held at the behest of the United States, and sued in court to get him returned to this country. A federal judge has said that "there has been at least some circumstantial evidence that Abu Ali has been tortured during interrogations with the knowledge of the United States."
The Justice Department says Mr. Abu Ali, who went to Saudi Arabia to continue his religious studies, got Al Qaeda training and money from terrorist associates to buy a laptop computer and books. The indictment also says Mr. Abu Ali talked about assassinating Mr. Bush either by getting "close enough to the president to shoot him on the street" or figuring out a way to kill him with a car bomb.
If the Justice Department believed that Mr. Abu Ali was a serious terrorist, he should have been brought back here long ago for trial. Instead, he became part of an unknown number of prisoners who were swept up
by American officials or foreign governments working with Americans and questioned in the wake of Sept. 11. Many were then held indefinitely and, in some cases, tortured in hopes that they would provide information.
The civil liberties issues have always been evident, but now the practical consequences are becoming clearer as well.
In an undisciplined attempt to wring statements out of any conceivable suspect, American officials have worked with countries like Saudi Arabia, a nation whose attitude toward human rights is deplorable, and Syria, which is counted by Washington as a state sponsor of terrorism. And now these officials are faced with the problem of what to do with these prisoners, most of whom have proved to be no use to interrogators, but who remain on America's conscience.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/24/opinion/24thu2.html
Washington Post Editorial - February 24, 2005
Unveiling a terrorism case
For nearly two years, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was imprisoned in Saudi Arabia without charge, allegedly at the behest of the United States. The U.S. government has not clarified what role it played in the detention of this U.S. citizen. Indeed, in seeking to dismiss a civil case brought by Mr. Abu Ali's parents, the government relied not only on secret evidence but on secret legal theory as well. The government's behavior remains a mystery, but this week the Justice Department revealed its case against Mr. Abu Ali, who has at last been transferred to U.S. custody. According to an indictment issued early this month but kept under seal until this week, Mr. Abu Ali conspired to provide support to Al Qaeda, seeking to become a "planner of terrorist operations like Muhammad Atta and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad." The indictment alleges, among other things, that he "discussed plans" with figures associated with the group to assassinate President Bush….
How the indictment relates to the government's still-secret arguments in Mr. Abu Ali's civil case remains unclear. That case may now be moot, since it challenges a detention whose circumstances have so radically shifted. But any dismissal should be based on filings in the public record, not secret motions and evidence. However bad Mr. Abu Ali may be, secret law is unacceptable to the American legal tradition and must not gain a foothold.
Moreover, even as Mr. Abu Ali's indictment solves one problem, it potentially creates another. Mr. Abu Ali has alleged that he was tortured by the Saudis; federal prosecutors denied this claim yesterday, but, according to Post staff writers Jerry Markon and Steve Coll, Saudi security officials confirmed the use of some physical and psychological pressure tactics. An examination of the indictment does not reveal what evidence, if any, was gleaned directly or indirectly from coerced statements. But the timing of the indictment, nearly two years after the arrest, suggests that U.S. authorities may be relying on evidence provided by the Saudis. This is not necessarily inappropriate. But the courts need to ensure that no evidence obtained by torture -- with or without the connivance of the U.S. government -- is used to convict people in U.S. courts.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48689-2005Feb23.html
New York Times, 2/24/05
Prosecutors say accomplice in assassination
plot died in 2003 shootout
By Eric Lictblau and Neela Banerjee,
WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 - A suspected member of Al Qaeda who prosecutors say once talked with Ahmed Omar Abu Ali about assassinating President Bush was killed by Saudi authorities in a shootout 17 months ago, the Justice Department disclosed on Wednesday.
The disclosure that a potential witness in the case is dead could complicate the prosecution of Mr. Abu Ali on terrorism charges in an indictment against him that was unsealed in Virginia on Tuesday.
It came as prosecutors called Mr. Abu Ali a danger to society and urged that he be held without bail.
The discussions in Saudi Arabia about killing Mr. Bush were used in the indictment of Mr. Abu Ali, an American who had traveled there to study. He was arrested there in 2003 and was held there without charges until this week.
''It now turns out the only other witness to these supposed conversations about killing the president is dead, and that raises questions about how the government is going to prove its case,'' said Edward B. MacMahon Jr., a lawyer for Mr. Abu Ali. ''I think they've got a problem…''
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/24/national/24terror.html
Baltimore Sun Opinion - February 24, 2005
The U.S. and Mr. Abu Ali
By Unsealing a federal indictment against Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the U.S. government garnered headlines about an alleged terrorist plot, instead of the unexplained imprisonment of an American citizen in Saudi Arabia. By producing the 23-year-old Islamic student in a federal court in Virginia on charges he conspired to kill the president, it portrayed Mr. Abu Ali has someone other than a victim of torture. The government may think its secret is safe. But it isn't.
The detention of Mr. Abu Ali by the Saudis needs a full airing. A lawsuit filed by Mr. Abu Ali's parents to win his release charged that his imprisonment was at the behest of the U.S. government. But more disturbing is the allegation that the young man was tortured and the United States government knew about it. That would suggest the Abu Ali case is a variation on a U.S. policy known as "extraordinary rendition." The policy basically allows for the contracting out of interrogation of terror suspects to allies whose methods would be illegal here. In other words, torture.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, who heard the Abu Ali lawsuit, saw merit in the case. Faten and Omar Abu Ali fought to win their son's release through a writ of habeas corpus, a common law right that seeks protection against illegal imprisonment. And although the government has "produced the body" - the young Mr. Abu Ali - the questions about his confinement remain.
Born in Houston and raised in suburban Virginia, the former University of Maryland engineering student was arrested in June 2003 while studying in Saudi Arabia. No charges were ever filed against him there or here - until Tuesday. But Mr. Abu Ali alleges that the Saudis had no claim against him and that the U.S. government controlled his detention. He also claims he was tortured while imprisoned by the Saudis and was prepared to prove it by disrobing in federal court the other day.
The indictment against him relies on statements from unnamed co-conspirators. The charges are indeed grave - plotting with al-Qaida operatives to assassinate President Bush. The government now has to prove them. But the seriousness of that case doesn't outweigh the gravity of Mr. Abu Ali's charges against the government.
The Bush administration's mixed record on the use of torture during the Iraq war is well known. A Canadian citizen has charged that the United States deported him to Syria for the sole purpose of skirting U.S. prohibitions against torture. In Mr. Abu Ali's habeas claim, the government never rebutted the charges of U.S. complicity in his arrest and detention. But the administration shouldn't be allowed to remain silent on this issue.
The interrogation techniques approved for use in Iraq have shown the government's tolerance of harsh tactics. The implementation of those methods has already sullied America's reputation. But torture isn't any more acceptable because Washington has someone else do its dirty work.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-ed.saudi24feb24,1,1953530.story
Newsday Opinion - February 27, 2005
Shame on Bush for rights violation
An American citizen jailed and maybe tortured in Saudi Arabia for 20 months, possibly at the behest of the U.S. government, is the latest outrage in a litany of detention excesses in the war on terror.
That list of shame includes ghost detainees kept off the books by the CIA, captives abused in U.S.-run prisons abroad and prisoners designated enemy combatants and denied basic due process.
President George W. Bush should show more respect for the Constitution. Ceding the moral high ground on rights will do little to help the war effort and much to destroy the nation's standing as a champion of freedom.
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was arrested June 11, 2003, while taking a final exam at the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia. Although charged with no crime there, he was held for 20 months.
His family sued in federal court seeking his return to the United States. According to evidence they presented, Abu Ali was held at the behest of the U.S. government and tortured by his captors. Rather than contest that astounding allegation, the government argued that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction.
U.S. District Judge John Bates rejected that view. He ruled in December that there was persuasive, unrebutted evidence that the United States initiated Abu Ali's arrest, interrogated him in the Saudi prison, controlled his detention and was "keeping Abu Ali in Saudi Arabia to avoid constitutional scrutiny in the United States."
He was returned to the United States last week and charged with providing material support to al Qaida. Abu Ali may or may not be what officials say he is, a terrorist wannabe who conspired to assassinate Bush. That will be judged in a court of law now, as it should be.
The nation needs to be aggressive in preventing terrorism. But pulling an end run around the Constitution, as it seems the administration did, is abominable. It erodes important elements of what makes this nation special: Its respect for the rule of law and individual rights.
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-editorialb4159329feb27,0,7096382.story
Newsweek – March 7, 2005
Abu Ali is accused of plotting to assassinate Bush
but even some Feds think the government won't win
Michael Isikoff
..... So for the next 20 months, Justice let Abu Ali, a U.S. citizen, languish in a Saudi jail cell. He had no access to a lawyer, and no charges were filed against him. Critics say this is a prime example of how the Bush administration has "outsourced" the detention of terror suspects to cooperative Mideast countries with poor human-rights records. But Abu Ali's Virginia-based parents—his father works as a computer analyst for the Saudi Embassy—say their son was tortured into confessing to lies, and sued the federal government last year. The judge in the civil case, John Bates, grew impatient. Bates threatened to force Justice officials to explain under oath what they knew about Abu Ali's detention. So the department arranged to charge Abu Ali back in the United States with providing material support to terrorists.
The chief federal prosecutor in the case, Paul McNulty, asserted last week that the 23-year-old Houston-born Abu Ali had "turned his back on America and joined the cause of Al Qaeda." But inside Justice, many are still deeply uneasy. "I was amazed they did this," one veteran official said. "I don't know how [the prosecution] can be done successfully." Another senior law-enforcement official told NEWSWEEK that Justice was making the best of a bad situation. Even if the case ultimately collapses, an aggressive prosecution might be able to delay for years the day when Abu Ali will be able to "walk free," the official explained.
But is this a legitimate tactic in the war on terror? In the aftermath of September 11, the White House had resorted to even more brazen methods: it declared two other U.S. citizens, Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla, "enemy combatants" and threw them into military brigs without access to lawyers. But last June the Supreme Court ruled that the war on terror did not give the president a "blank check" to dispense with core constitutional rights. (Hamdi was released last fall.) The case against Abu Ali, legal experts say, could present even more daunting challenges.
The torture charge is an especially awkward one for the new Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who once reviewed alleged torture techniques in meetings at the White House. Under U.S. law, police brutality—or any hint of a coerced confession—is often ground for dismissal.
U.S. prosecutors insist that Abu Ali was examined by doctors and there were no signs of abuse. But a source close to the Saudi security forces told NEWSWEEK that the interrogations of Abu Ali had indeed been aggressive. "He definitely got slapped around," the source said. "But he was not tortured." Prosecutors will also have to explain how a man described as unfailingly polite became ensnared by terrorists. Abu Ali's family proudly notes that he graduated at the top of his class at the Islamic Saudi Academy outside Washington. But critics like Sen. Chuck Schumer accuse the school—which is funded by the Saudi Embassy—of teaching an intolerant brand of Islam that can breed sympathy for terrorist causes. Prosecutors also say Abu Ali was friendly with some members of a group of Islamic extremists who practiced paramilitary games in the Virginia woods, and sold one of them a rifle.
According to last week's indictment, one of the supposedly incriminating items found in the June 2003 search of his home was a copy of Handguns magazine with Abu Ali's name on the subscription label. That's not exactly a crime, though. One recent issue of Handguns hails President Bush's success in last year's election as a "Sportsmen's Victory." If prosecutors want to keep Abu Ali locked up in the long run, they will have to come up with something more. And if the Bush administration wants to fight a war that is increasingly becoming a legal morass, it may have to think up some new tactics.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7037619/site/newsweek/
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