Appeals court overturns 1996 ban on providing aid to groups considered terrorist (9th Circus)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court Wednesday overturned part of a sweeping 1996 anti-terror law that prohibits financial assistance or "material support" to organizations classified as terrorist by the State Department.

The government has increasingly used the law to prosecute suspected terrorists, and the ruling could be a blow to the Bush administration's legal strategy in the war on terror.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that it is unconstitutional to punish people - sometimes with life in prison - for providing "training" or "personnel" to a terror group, categories the judges called overbroad.

The ruling also requires the government to prove that defendants knew their activities, such as donating money to outlawed groups, were actually contributing to acts of terror.

"According to the government's interpretation ... a woman who buys cookies from a bake sale outside of her grocery store to support displaced Kurdish refugees to find new homes could be held liable," Judge Harry Pregerson wrote in the 2-1 decision.

In addition, Pregerson wrote that it is unconstitutional to criminalize donations of personnel or training, which fall under the "material support" section of the law, because that "blurs the line" on protected speech.

The court ruled in a case involving a civil liberties organization's efforts to lobby Congress on behalf of a group on the terrorist watch list. The court ruled that the Humanitarian Law Project could legally lobby Congress and provide other nonfinancial assistance to the Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey.

The Bush administration argued that donating "personnel" on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers Party violated the 1996 law.

Increasingly, the charge of choice for prosecutors in the war on terrorism is that a suspect provided some form of material support to terror groups. Wednesday's decision means that for the first time, part of that strategy has been declared unconstitutional by a federal appeals court.

The ruling "declares unconstitutional one of the linchpins of the Ashcroft domestic anti-terrorism strategy," said Georgetown University Law Center professor David Cole.

A high-profile case brought under the law involved six Yemeni-Americans from Lackawanna, N.Y., who were convicted under the law of providing "material support" to al-Qaida. The first of the six received 10 years in prison Wednesday for attending an al-Qaida training camp.

The Lackawanna case isn't governed by the 9th Circuit. But if the U.S. Supreme Court agrees with the appeals court, the ruling may be a blow to that case and others brought in the war on terror.

The Justice Department could not immediately say how it will respond. The government has weeks to decide whether to appeal before the decision becomes law.

The law in question was adopted by Congress following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

THESE WERE TERRORRISTS that the 9th Circus wants to free...

http://www.theithacajournal.com/news/stories/20031125/localnews/704438.html

'Lackawanna Six' spill critical information
Al-Qaida recruits give intelligence as part of plea bargain
By CAROLYN THOMPSON
The Associated Press

BUFFALO -- Six Yemeni-Americans recruited to a terrorist training camp shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks have filled the government in on al-Qaida leaders, their training methods and other sensitive topics, according to federal authorities.

Since pleading guilty to providing material support to Osama bin Laden's organization, the so-called "Lackawanna Six" have provided "substantial assistance and information deemed highly valuable" to government terrorism investigations, prosecutors said in court papers obtained by The Associated Press.

During several interview sessions lasting from two hours to full days, the men, obligated by plea deals to cooperate, detailed:

Al-Qaida recruiting methods, including "how to identify potential recruits from among the American population."

Means by which recruits were transported from their home countries to training camps abroad.

How recruits are indoctrinated to identify America as an enemy.

Descriptions of "a number of al-Qaida leaders, trainers and recruits."

Weapons and explosives training at the al Farooq camp in Afghanistan, and the availability of "additional, advanced terrorist training" offered by al-Qaida elsewhere.

The location of al-Qaida "guest houses" and routes taken in and out of Afghanistan.
The U.S. Attorney's office in Buffalo outlined the findings to support sentencing recommendations for Shafal Mosed, 25; Mukhtar al-Bakri, 23; Faysal Galab, 27; Sahim Alwan, 30; Yahya Goba, 26, and Yasein Taher, 25.

The men face between 7 and 10 years in prison when they are sentenced individually over the coming weeks, beginning with al-Bakri on Wednesday, Dec. 3. They could have faced up to 15 years if convicted at trial.

The government, citing the "highly sensitive nature" of the information, provided few details. An affidavit by assistant U.S. Attorney William Hochul, the lead prosecutor, was sealed.

"The debriefing in this case has been extensive, more extensive than in my 28 years of practicing law," said Galab's attorney, Joseph LaTona.

Besides Buffalo-area investigators, the six have been interviewed by U.S. military officials, FBI agents and other investigators, LaTona said.

"He didn't finger Osama bin Laden," said Mosed's attorney, Patrick Brown. "I'm assuming they get bits and pieces from different people and different places and assemble it in a way that makes it beneficial to them."

Taher's attorney, Rodney Personius, described Taher as forthright, but left it to the government to characterize whether what he had to say was valuable.

"From where I sit, I don't know that Yasein knows an awful lot ... He certainly wasn't by any means an insider," he said.

The "Lackawanna Six," so named for the working-class city in which most were born and raised, were arrested in September 2002 after an anonymous letter tipped investigators to their travels to Afghanistan in the spring of 2001.

A seventh man, Jaber Elbaneh, 37, remains a fugitive, believed to be in Yemen. The FBI has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

Although authorities said there was no evidence the group was involved in imminent terrorist plans, the case has been used by the Bush administration as a model in pursuing and prosecuting terrorism suspects. The worldwide notoriety has caused some unease over how the group will be received in prison.

"He's not running scared but he recognizes that there may be those that he's going to have to be wary of," Brown said of Mosed. He and other lawyers said it was unlikely they would seek special protections for the men.

In the meantime, relatives have written to U.S. District Judge William Skretny seeking leniency and painting portraits not of potential terrorists, but loving husbands, community leaders and brokenhearted fathers who struggle to explain to young children why they cannot come home.

Those who know them say the men were duped into seeking military-type jihad training by high-pressure recruiters who appealed to their sense of religious duty and adventure.

"Everyone once in their life have that moment where they wish they could turn back the hands of time. My husband is definitely not what he is put out to be in the publics (sic) eye," wrote Amira Nasser, Mosed's wife.

"The folly of the spring of 2001 has cost Yahya dearly," wrote Goba's sister.

Hassan Muhsen, a Yemeni immigrant and Bethlehem Steel retiree, described Goba as a teacher of young people at their mosque. "I believe Mr. Goba would never participate in any violent act against the United States of America. America has given us too much to turn against it," he wrote.

Taher was the only family member to step forward when his grandmother needed home medical care for a heart condition, relatives wrote. "He teached (sic) us what to watch for in the kind of friends we hang out with to better our self in life," read a note penned by a child's hand on school notebook paper and signed, "the nephew, Amir."

"Take care of my uncle," his letter ended.

NEED MORE????

Al Qaeda trainee gets 10-year sentence
From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/03/buffalo.six/

(CNN) --The first of the six Yemeni-Americans from upstate New York who attended an al Qaeda training camp in 2001 was sentenced to 10 years in prison Wednesday for providing material support to a terrorist organization.

Mukhtar al-Bakri, 23, was the last of the six to plead guilty earlier this year. His sentencing hearing was in federal court in Buffalo, New York, before U.S. District Court Judge William Skretny.

Al-Bakri and five other men in custody flew to Pakistan and drove to Afghanistan in the spring of 2001. During their six-week stay, they were instructed in the use of Kalashnikov and M-16 automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and taught to assemble explosives at Al Farooq camp near Kandahar.

The recruits heard al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden speak in person just a few months before he ordered the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

The FBI learned of the Lackawanna, New York, men's illicit trip from an anonymous letter from an Arab-American and placed them under surveillance when they returned.

The tip undermined the group's cover story -- that they had gone to Pakistan for Muslim religious studies.

Prosecutors suggest the Lackawanna Six -- also known as the Buffalo Six because Lackawanna is a small city within 5 miles of Buffalo -- might have constituted a so-called sleeper cell, possibly waiting for orders to carry out some future attack in the United States, but they concede there was no evidence of such a plan.

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Hochul said the 1996 law under which the six were convicted defines "material support" as financial or personnel assistance.

Early in the case, defense lawyers argued that the law was being misapplied. Faced with the specter of more serious charges, ranging from weapons violations to treason, or even being labeled an "enemy combatant," each defendant entered a guilty plea between January and March, one by one, and agreed to cooperate with counterterrorism officials.

The six denied constituting a "sleeper cell" -- living incognito and awaiting orders from al Qaeda.

Al-Bakri was the first of the men arrested after two of his e-mails tracked by the FBI were interpreted to refer in code to imminent terrorist acts.

The FBI arrested the other men, named by al-Bakri, over the next few days in Lackawanna, where the men lived and grew up.

The men are expected to receive prison terms ranging from seven to 10 years as they are sentenced individually over the next two weeks.

The other men are: Yasein Taher, 25; Shafal Mosed, 25; Yahya Goba, 26; Faysal Galab, 27; and Sahim Alwan, 30.

A seventh man who traveled with the group, Jaber Elbaneh, 37, is still at large, and the U.S. government is offering $5 million for information leading to his capture.

The second Lackawanna man to be sentenced Thursday will be Taher, who is expected to receive an eight-year term.

The main recruiter of the Lackawanna Six, a Saudi born in Buffalo named Kamal Derwish, was killed in November 2002 by a CIA-launched Predator missile attack on al Qaeda operatives in Yemen.

A Derwish friend and al Qaeda recruiter who preached the religious obligation of training for jihad at the Lackawanna mosque, Juma al-Dosari, has been in custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since his capture by U.S. forces near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The lone link from the Humanitarian Law Project home page links to disarm.org , the Disarm Education Fund website. Say Hi to Ed Asner.

This link goes to the disarm.org Mission and History page.

Mission

The Disarm Education Fund promotes peace and social justice by forming strategic partnerships -- bolstered by humanitarian and technical aid -- with popular social movements in developing countries, and through advocacy in the United States for a foreign policy focused on human rights and human needs.

History

The Disarm Education Fund plays a vital role in movements for peace, social justice, and human rights at home and around the world.

Founded in 1976 as a gun control group, DISARM worked to ban all private ownership of handguns and to require the licensing and registration of all rifles and shotguns. Our early efforts led to the creation of the National Coalition to Ban Handguns.

In the 1980’s, DISARM expanded its programs to build opposition to nuclear weapons, particularly such first-strike systems as the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”). Our support for the Plowshares movement, to “turn swords into plowshares,” reflects our ongoing commitment to a world without nuclear weapons. DISARM was an early and persistent advocate for a reduction of the bloated military budget and the redirection of government resources to education, the alleviation of poverty, and other human needs.

In this period, DISARM became a prominent critic of the U.S. intervention in the internal affairs of other nations in the Americas, a stance we vigorously maintain. DISARM has been especially active in protesting Washington’s role in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.

Throughout El Salvador’s long civil war, DISARM worked to end U.S. military aid and support for the right-wing death squads, while helping the country’s popular liberation movement gain a still-fragile peace. We helped build the movement to cut off Washington’s support for the “Contra” war in Nicaragua and end U.S. interference in that beleaguered country’s politics. We continue to support popular Salvadoran and Nicaraguan organizations committed to genuine democracy and economic development. DISARM also joined efforts to end the genocidal war against the indigenous majority in Guatemala, where succeeding military governments inflicted immense suffering and deprivation for four decades.

DISARM supports the impoverished indigenous communities in Chiapas, Mexico; a region the government has militarized in order to suppress popular opposition. We helped give a voice to these villages by participating in high-visibility delegations that have exposed and publicized human rights abuses. DISARM also provides material support to the once besieged San Carlos Hospital in Altamirano, Chiapas, where armored military vehicles stood at the entrance to monitor and intimidate the progressive nuns who run the facility. We broke through that imposed isolation by delivering medicine with a wholesale value of $225,000 to the San Carlos Hospital, and contributed to the end of that military hostility.

Our major focus today is opposing the U.S. embargo against Cuba and alleviating the devastating effect of this policy on the health of the Cuban people. DISARM’s Cuban Medical Project directly benefits fully 20% of the Cuban population.

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