Free Republic

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a man’s lawsuit challenging his placement on the federal government’s “No Fly List” can proceed, finding that the government did not prove the case was moot after removing him from the list. Yonas Fikre, a U.S. citizen, claimed the FBI unlawfully placed him on the list and pressured him to become an informant. While the government argued Fikre’s removal meant the case was moot, the Court rejected this view, allowing the merits of the allegations to be examined in lower courts

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The leader of Portland's biggest mosque sits on the board of an Islamic charity that's being investigated for terrorist links, federal tax records show. The Oregonian reported Tuesday that Alaa M. Abunijem has served on a three-person board in charge of the Michigan-based Islamic Assembly of North America since at least 1999, according to federal documents reviewed by the Portland newspaper. An FBI agent testified in an Idaho federal court last week that the bureau's evidence "clearly points" to the Islamic Assembly's role in promoting terrorism. Abunijem and other directors of the Islamic Assembly have not...

PORTLAND, Ore.--Attorneys for two American Muslims charged with conspiring to wage war against the United States have asked a federal judge to throw out evidence gathered under the FBI's new spy powers in the Patriot Act. The attorneys could not offer specific arguments for why the evidence should be dismissed, because the government has classified affidavits that explain its reasons for collecting the information. The attorneys asked to suppress 36 secret warrants that allowed the FBI to electronically intercept 271 conversations and bug the Portland-area home of at least one of seven defendants. FBI agents arrested the members of the...

After he was arrested on federal terrorism charges, Portland Seven defendant Jeffrey Leon Battle told investigators “that his intentions were to go fight in the jihad against American and coalition troops” and named other defendants as taking part in the alleged plot, according to recently filed court documents. Battle’s comments were detailed at length in a motion filed with the U.S. District Court by attorney Andrew Bates requesting that his client, Muhammad Ibrahim Bilal, be tried separately from the other defendants. In the motion, which was filed Wednesday, Bates alleges that Battle told a federal informant that he wanted to:...

PORTLAND — Federal prosecutors on Monday (April 28) charged a former Intel Corp. engineer with allegedly conspiring to aid Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as part of a move to “levy war” against the United States, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury News on Tuesday (April 29). The ex-Intel engineer, Maher “Mike” Hawash, was arrested in March and has been held by the U.S. government without charge as part of what the report called a “secret investigation.” Hawash, 38, a U.S. citizen of Arab descent, worked for Intel from 1992 to 2001, when he was laid off....

April 28, 2003 Mike Hawash charged with terrorism related crimes PORTLAND - A Hillsboro man is the latest from our area to be charged with terrorism related crimes. Mike Hawash, an independent contractor who had been working for Intel was charged this morning with conspiracy to wage war on the US and support terrorism. Hawash has been detained for more than a month. The charges against him are related to the so-called "Portland Six" terrorism case, in which several men from our area went to china in an attempt to enter Afghanistan and join with al Qaeda and the Taliban...

Three of the so-called Portland Six--(from left to right) Patrice Lumumba Ford, Jeffrey Leon Battle, and Muhammad Ibrahim Bilal--were closer to Afghanistan than authorities have so far disclosed The seven muscular men would have stood out in any hotel. All heavily bearded, they hung around the lobby, doing chin-ups from the rafters and sparring in the courtyard of the Chini Bagh Hotel in Kashgar, China, where I saw them in late October 2001, about 185 miles from the Afghan border. THIS MONTH THREE of them were named as part of the so-called Portland Six, which U.S. authorities allege is a...