Accused Student Warsame in Court on Terror Charge {accused of supporting Al-Qaida}

Star Tribune ^ | February 9, 2004 | Pam Louwagie

[wallcrawlr]

The public court file against Mohammed A. Warsame, the Minneapolis college student accused of supporting Al-Qaida, is conspicuously void of detail.

It alleges that he conspired to provide "material support and resources" to the terrorist organization starting in 2000 and says that he admitted going to an Afghanistan training camp with Osama bin Laden.

For a handful of defense attorneys near Lackawanna, N.Y., the case has a familiar ring. There, six men of Yemeni descent who also attended a training camp were charged under the same federal material support law in the fall of 2002.

Though the cases contain key differences and the law can be applied to a wide range of acts, there are enough similarities to provide a window into how people get to the camps, how they train and how the government has been using the justice system to try to root out terrorists and supporters.

Like all anti-terrorism laws, authorities have used the material support law a lot more in the past few years and call it a key weapon in fighting terrorism.

Federal prosecutors brought nine cases using it across the country in 2001 and another nine in 2002. The number increased to 34 cases in 2003.

The law has been used to cover a range of allegations, including giving terrorists money or computer services.

Using the law in Lackawanna, which is near Buffalo, prosecutors secured six high-profile guilty pleas, with sentences ranging from seven to 10 years.

Defense attorneys raised questions about the government's definition of "material support," though -- specifically, whether simply attending a training camp constitutes material support.

Some said the government used the law as a plea negotiation tool, leaving the possibility that more serious charges could be added. Though their clients maintained they never intended to terrorize the United States, some pleaded guilty out of fear, attorneys said.

But a New York prosecutor said the men knew what they were doing and pleaded guilty as a result.

Despite some basic similarities, Warsame, who is expected to appear in court in Minnesota today, differs from the Lackawanna defendants. He is a Canadian citizen, and the Lackawanna defendants were U.S. citizens. And Warsame is alleged to have gone to Afghanistan twice.

The U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Thomas Heffelfinger, said the cases seem to have "a couple of tangential similarities, but that's about it." More facts are likely to come out in court, he said. "One ought not conclude that all individuals charged under (the statute) committed the same factual acts," he said.

Duped or fanatic?

Yasein Taher, a 25-year-old former high school soccer player who married a cheerleader, never intended to wage terrorism on America when he went from Lackawanna to Afghanistan in the spring of 2001, according to his defense attorney, Rodney Personius.

Instead, Personius said, Taher was searching for his religious identity and succumbed to a pitch by recruiters at his local mosque. The recruiters made the men feel bad about their sins, made them feel sorry for Muslims who were being persecuted in other parts of the world and persuaded them to prepare themselves physically to fight for their religion if the need arose in those places, Personius said. They were promised a straight shot to heaven if they trained.

There was "never any suggestion of anything to do with attacking America," Personius said. It was pre-Sept. 11, and few in the United States really understood what Al-Qaida was doing, he argued.

Group members on the expenses-paid trip made their way to Pakistan, where they stayed at a guest house and were shown videos before being taken to a desert training camp. They practiced mountain climbing and using automatic weapons and hand grenades. And they started to hear anti-American messages, including a speech by bin Laden.

They tried to get out as quickly as they could but weren't allowed to leave right away, Personius said.

"Four out of the Lackawanna six all left the camp early," argued defense attorney Joseph LaTona, who represented defendant Faysal Galab. "Certainly, if one was a true believer in Al-Qaida, he'd have stayed around."

For that reason, defense attorneys in the Lackawanna case say there is an argument to be made that simply going to a training camp shouldn't constitute material support.

The law says that the definition of material support or resources includes training, personnel, money, communications equipment, facilities and other assets. It specifically exempts medicine or religious materials.

Personius said that in the plea papers, the government was careful to include tangible acts taken by the six, such as buying uniforms and standing guard at the camp -- actions that Personius argued were just part of the training.

Tested in court

A federal appeals court based in San Francisco dealt a blow to the law in December, ruling that it was unconstitutional to punish people for providing "training" or "personnel" to a terror group. The decision came in the case of a civil liberties organization that lobbied Congress on behalf of groups on the terror watch list. The government argued that donating "personnel" on behalf of one of the groups amounted to aiding terrorism.

The prosecutor in the Lackawanna case, William Hochul, said he knows nothing about the Warsame case, but that the Lackawanna defendants knew what they were getting into and admitted that going to the camp was material support.

The men "admitted that they knew even before they got to the camp that it was an Al-Qaida camp," he said. "You couldn't not know what Al-Qaida stood for."

By pleading guilty, they reinforced arguments that the law is sound, he argued.

"They all basically admitted that they were involved in either contributing services, consisting of themselves, or providing material support, consisting of themselves, to Al-Qaida," Hochul said. "Fortunately, the six men who were in the best position to know said, 'Hey, it's absolutely a good law and we broke it.' "

Let's make a deal?

Personius and defense attorney John Molloy, who also represented one of the six, said they think prosecutors used the original material support charges as a point to start plea negotiations.

The government talked about other charges with stiffer penalties, they said.

"They were also talking about Guantanamo Bay. They were also talking about treason," which can be punishable by death, Molloy said.

The men, afraid more charges with more severe penalties could be added, wanted to plead, the attorneys said.

Hochul, chief of the anti-terrorism unit at the U.S. attorney's office in the Western District of New York, said he couldn't discuss what could have been charged.

In the end, he said, each defendant and attorney signed a plea saying they had not been threatened and were pleading because they were guilty.

"It's serious, deadly serious business. . . . From what we can tell, nobody accidentally goes to a terrorist training camp," Hochul said. "You never want to allow a crime of the terrorist magnitude to take place."

In the Department of Justice's arsenal for fighting terrorism, the material support statute is important, spokesman Bryan Sierra said.

"It's the only way you can cut off their plans, choke them off and cut off their supply of money, funds, support. It's a key tool in the overall effort to track down terrorists," he said.

[observer5]

"Taher was searching for his religious identity and succumbed to a pitch by recruiters at his local mosque. The recruiters made the men feel bad about their sins, made them feel sorry for Muslims who were being persecuted in other parts of the world and persuaded them to prepare themselves physically to fight for their religion if the need arose in those places, Personius said. They were promised a straight shot to heaven if they trained."

Ahhhh! Those poor misunderstood terrorists. Its that evil Bush again!

[jokar]

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