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Some background on this story from Internation Herald Tribune:

Case imperiled by infighting between FBI and prosecutors

Eight months after Attorney General John Ashcroft hailed the government's partial victory in a trial against an accused terror cell based in Detroit, the convictions of three men are in doubt amid growing turmoil within the offices of the federal prosecutor and the FBI here.

In recent weeks, both the Justice Department and the FBI have begun inquiries into the handling of terrorism-related cases in the region.

The prosecutor in the most prominent case has been removed, and the head of the FBI's office in Detroit has been temporarily recalled to Washington. The developments were reported this week by The Detroit News.

The names of government informants have also been leaked to the news media. One informant, an Arab man in his 30's, said in a recent interview with The New York Times that the prosecutor's office had clashed with the FBI over how he was used, and that he feared for his life after his name had been leaked.

Officials said the FBI was investigating the handling of the informant and possible misconduct by an agent.

The main case brought by federal prosecutors involved four men accused of forming a terrorist cell and hatching a variety of plots.

The men had a crude sketch that prosecutors said matched a U.S. air base in Turkey used to patrol Iraq's no-flight zone, as well as videotape of the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas and The New York Times headquarters, and audiotapes advocating jihad. Two of the men were convicted in June of terrorism charges, and a third was convicted of document fraud. The fourth was acquitted.

But in the months since the trial ended, the government agencies involved with the case have been plagued by turmoil. In September, Richard Convertino, the assistant U.S. attorney who led the government's case, was removed from it and the Justice Department began an internal investigation into his conduct. The accusations against Convertino include that he reduced the sentences of informants without approval from more senior prosecutors and tried to get confidential information about a defense witness in the terror case from a pretrial services officer. Convertino said the accusations had no merit.

The details of the inquiry were leaked this month to The Detroit Free Press, and published along with the names of the informants.

New prosecutors conceded in a hearing last month that evidence had been withheld that should have been turned over to the defense, principally a letter from a cellmate of the government's star witness, suggesting that the witness had lied.

The federal judge handling the case, Gerald Rosen, said at the hearing that the new evidence "should have been turned over, there's no question in the court's mind."

Rosen has ordered a scouring of the case file. Sentencing has been delayed while he considers a defense motion for a new trial.

The judge also admonished Ashcroft last month for violating an order barring discussion of the case.

Convertino said in a telephone interview last week that fighting within the Justice Department and with the FBI threatened to undermine the case and had led the department to accuse him wrongly of misconduct. "The office is in disarray and it's rudderless," he said of the Justice Department's division in southeastern Michigan.

Convertino said the letter that was withheld, which also accused the Bush family of being drug dealers, was not credible and was written by a man facing capital murder charges and trying to make a deal with prosecutors. He also said that he took up the matter with Keith Corbett, his supervisor and co-counsel on the case, and that Corbett agreed the letter did not have to be given to the defense.

Corbett was also removed from the case.

Convertino contends that the internal investigation into his conduct is in retaliation for his testifying in September about terrorism issues before the Senate Finance Committee. He was removed from the case within days of being subpoenaed.

"I was very vocal internally during the investigative stage, during the pretrial and trial phases, with the lack of support and resources, the micromanaging by Washington, and the total lack of cooperation and intense territorial infighting within the department and with other agencies," Convertino said.

"They kept saying, in their words, that I was off the reservation," he said.

For months, Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has been writing letters to Ashcroft seeking assurance that Convertino would not face retaliation because of his testimony.

Last week, Grassley said, "It's amazing that the very people within the Justice Department accusing this employee of unethical conduct appear themselves to be committing unethical acts."

Convertino remains on the Justice Department's payroll, but is temporarily working as a consultant on terrorism financing for the Senate Finance Committee.