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In a recent criminal trial in Virginia, the prosecutor told the jury that the defendant couldn't be trusted to tell the truth, that he would lie to their faces -- all because of his religious beliefs. ADVERTISEMENT The defendant, an American citizen accused of supporting terrorism, was convicted. The religion in question, of course, was Islam. Now, the Virginia attorney representing Ali Al-Timimi is pushing for a new trial, saying that prosecutors secured the guilty verdict by appealing to religious bigotry against Muslims. The case illustrates the difficulty in prosecuting suspected terrorists who subscribe to a form of militant Islam,...

Ali al-Timimi, 41, who recently got a doctorate in computational biology at George Mason University, was convicted last week on ten federal counts of supporting and encouraging terrorist activities. He was convicted of urging his followers to join Afghanistan’s former Taliban regime and Lashkar-e-Taiba, a violent Pakistani radical group known for participating in the decade-long insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir and for attacking the Pakistani Shi’ite minority. That group may have been involved in the massacre latst week of Pakistani Shi'ites. Although the charges on which al-Timimi was convicted carry a mandatory prison sentence of life in prison without the possibility...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - An Islamic scholar who prosecutors said enjoyed "rock star" status among a group of young Muslim men in Virginia was convicted Tuesday of exhorting his followers in the days after Sept. 11 to join the Taliban and fight U.S. troops. The convictions against Ali al-Timimi, 41, carry a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison without parole. But the judge left open the possibility that she will toss out some of the counts. The jury reached its verdict after seven days of deliberations and convicted al-Timimi of all 10 counts. Prosecutors said the defendant - a...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A prominent Islamic scholar was convicted Tuesday of encouraging followers in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks to join the Taliban and fight U.S. troops. Jurors reached their verdict in their seventh day of deliberations in the trial of Ali al-Timimi. Al-Timini faces a mandatory maximum sentence of life in prison, federal prosecutors said. Prosecutors have said al-Timimi was a respected scholar who enjoyed "rock star" status among his followers and that he used that influence to guide them into holy war against the United States. Many of the followers often got together to play paintball...

U.S. case against Muslim scholar is religious attack: defense 04/18/2005 By MATTHEW BARAKAT / Associated Press The government's prosecution of a prominent Islamic scholar accused of recruiting for the Taliban in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks is an assault on religious freedom, a defense lawyer said Monday during the trial's closing arguments. "The government wants you to think Islam is your enemy," said Edward MacMahon, who represents Ali al-Timimi, 41, of Fairfax. "They want you to dislike him so much because of what he said that you'll ignore the lack of evidence." Prosecutors, on the other hand, said...

(AP) - ALEXANDRIA, Va.-A key prosecution witness at the trial of an Islamic scholar accused of exhorting his followers to fight U.S. troops in Afghanistan admitted under cross-examination Monday that he had long urged his friends to engage in holy war independent of any encouragement from the defendant. Yong Ki Kwon has testified that he was inspired by the defendant - Ali al-Timimi, 41, of Fairfax - at a Sept. 16, 2001 meeting to aid the Taliban in Afghanistan as it faced a looming U.S. invasion after Sept. 11. Kwon is one of four men who traveled to Pakistan...

September 24, 2004 Islamic Scholar From Virginia Is Charged in Holy War Plot By ERIC LIPTON The New York Times WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 - An Islamic scholar from Virginia was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges that in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks he urged a group of Muslim-American men to join a holy war against the United States by traveling to Afghanistan. The charges against the scholar, Ali al-Timimi, 40, of Fairfax, Va., are a follow-up on the successful prosecution of the Washington-area men who identified him as their spiritual leader. These men became...

September 10th, 2003 will forever be remembered as a grim day for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). On that day, the eve of the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, CAIR faced up to its own terrorist connections. It ran away from testifying before an influential Senate panel that heard a barrage of incriminating evidence about the group and its connections. It saw one of its former officials plead guilty to terrorist-related crimes in Federal Court. And, it was stood up by two Department of Justice officials at an immigration symposium in Florida. CAIR should find it hard...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In Friday morning raids, the FBI arrested at least seven men suspected of having ties to a foreign terrorist organization, government sources told CNN.</p> <p>The men are believed to be linked to Lashkar-E-Taiba, a Kashmir separatist group that the United States designated a terrorist organization in 2001.</p>