Judge indicates he will limit government evidence against Al-Hussayen

A federal judge told prosecutors Thursday he would likely limit the e-mail evidence they can introduce against the University of Idaho graduate student they have accused of using his computer skills to foster terrorism.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge withheld ruling on any specific e-mails sent to Sami Omar Al-Hussayen by others in the e-mail group devoted to Chechen Muslims until an attempt is actually made to offer them as evidence.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Deitch argued the e-mail's sent to Al-Hussayen should be allowed to show what Al-Hussayen knew. Deitch also has said the value of the e-mails and their content should be left to the inference of jurors.

"I'm not comfortable with that," Lodge told the prosecution team. "I'm not going to let the jury speculate."

At issue are thousands of e-mails from the Web site http://www.qoqaz.com for which Al-Hussayen was one of the designated moderators. But defense attorney David Nevin has said his client barely participated with the site.

Whether more than 15,000 additional e-mails and 9,000 telephone calls government agents intercepted in their investigation of Al-Hussayen will be introduced as evidence remained uncertain.

Nevin wants the government barred from using any information gleaned from that material against Al-Hussayen because the material was not made available to the defense until the Friday before the trial began. The government claims the defense frittered away opportunities to review the material.

Lodge has not ruled on that matter directly. However, in an order issued earlier this week, he said he would give the defense additional leeway to add to the evidence and witnesses it may offer during the trial after it goes through that material.

The government has cited highly inflammatory e-mails in building its case against Al-Hussayen. The 34-year-old Saudi national is charged with using the Web site of the Islamic Assembly of North America in Michigan as the foundation for an Internet network that financed and recruited terrorists.

As a moderator, the government claims Al-Hussayen controlled content on the site and did little to prohibit objectionable postings.

Nevin conceded that "some of the messages are inflammatory. These are explosive e-mails."

But he said that Al-Hussayen posted only 74 of the 3,579 messages on http://www.qoqaz.com between its founding in January 2000 and the last check on Sept. 10, 2003, by Yahoo!, which organized the site.

He acted as moderator just 17 times — all but one of those in June and July 2000 — and essentially dropped his interest in the site.

One of the most inflammatory messages found on Al-Hussayen's home computer came from an unidentified person that sought targeting information on U.S. troops in Iraq.

Nevin said the e-mail was posted just before midnight and only five hours before federal agents raided Al-Hussayen's home on the Moscow campus and arrested him Feb. 26, 2003.

There is no evidence that Al-Hussayen even saw that e-mail and none that he read any of the other 3,500 that were posted on the site, let alone endorsed their content, his lawyer said.

"But even if he read them, that's a mile from adoption," Nevin said. "People don't have an obligation to go out and find statements they don't agree with and take affirmative action."

In earlier testimony Thursday, an Islamic history expert again maintained that the expansion of the Muslim empire 1,300 years ago resulted in the principle that promotion of that religion justifies violence.

Sheikh Ahmed Subhy Mansour testified that the terrorist acts being undertaken in the name of Islam violate the religion and its commitment to peace.

But under cross-examination, Mansour acknowledged that his interpretation of Islam differs from that of all three major Islamic sects and was responsible for his dismissal from Al Ahzar University in Egypt in 1987 following a tribunal. Mansour, an Egyptian, admitted that the school labeled him as being against Islam.

Mansour came to the United States on Oct. 15, 2001, to avoid arrest in Egypt. The government gave him political asylum in June 2002 and was paying him $200 an hour for his assistance in the case against Al-Hussayen. He has been a visiting fellow at the Harvard University law school since last June, working in the school's human rights program.
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Prior Knowledge -- What did Al-Hussayen know and when did he know it?

On September 11, 2000, AL-HUSSAYEN registered the www.alasr.ws web-site. In about June of 2001, an article entitled "Provision of Suicide Operations" was published on the internet magazine of the website www.alasr.ws. The article was written by a radical Saudi sheikh. A portion of the article read as follows:

The second part is the rule that the Mujahid (warrior) must kill himself if he knows that this will lead to killing a great number of the enemies, and that he will not be able to kill them without killing himself first, or demolishing a center vital to the enemy or its military force, and so on. Thisis not possible except by involving the human element in the operation. In this new era, this can be accomplished with the modern means of bombing or bringing down an airplane on an important location that will cause the enemy great losses. [Emphasis added].

However, the judge will limit what jurors are allowed to see concerning terrorist statements on the dozens of websites registered and administered by Al-Hussayen -- this may prejudice them. Who says Al-Hussayen can't get a fair trial in America? (These people do).

www.alasr.ws now traces to Saskatchewan, Canada at Amanah Tech. (where the Canadian taxpayers help fund it's operations).

Qoqaz.com is one of dozens of terrorist websites all hosted at the same ISP in Malaysia. Qoqaz (means Caucus in Arabic) is devoted to jehad in Chechnya. The site was strongly connected to the former Azzam.com. The Acmecommerce.com home page does not have much information (isn't that a little strange for an ISP?). If you do contact Acmecommerce.com and get a reply -- please forward a copy to me. Also contact webvisions.com (parent company).

http://www.whois.sc/qoqaz.com
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address: Acme Commerce Sdn Bhd address: Cyberjaya descr: Co-Location & Dedicated Hosting descr: Web hosting & Email Hosting descr: IDC-3 Cyberjaya, Malaysia remarks: Spam/abuse contact - abuse@acmecommerce.com person: Wong Fook Seong e-mail: abuse@acmecommerce.com phone: +60-3-9281-9329 phone: +60-19-2102-813 fax-no: +60-3-9283-2779 changed: indra@webvisions.com

From: The United States of America, Plaintiff, vs. Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, Defendant: INDICTMENT:

18. AL-HUSSAYEN was either the registrant of the administrative contact for a number of internet web-sites which either belonged to or were linked
to the IANA. A number of said IANA-related web-sites were registered to AL-HUSSAYEN directly, to the IANA or to Dar Al-Asr, a Saudi Arabian company that provided web hostings on the internet. AL-HUSSAYEN registered web-sites on behalf of Dar Al-Asr, identifying himself as the administrative point of contact for Dar Al-Asr and giving his Moscow, Idaho street address and University of Idaho e-mail address for reference.

19. Of the afor-referenced web-sites, AL-HUSSAYEN was the sole registrant of websites www.alasr.ws (crested September 11, 2000), www.cybermsa.org (created March 15, 2001) and www.liveislam.net (created July 8, 2002). Web-sites www.alasr.net (created August 15, 1999), www.almawred.com (created November 1, 1999) and www.heejrah.com (February 22, 2000) were registered to Dar Al-Asr, with AL-HUSSAYEN as the administrative contact person. Web-site www.almanar.net (created October 2, 1998) was registered to Al-Manar Al-Jadeed Magazine, with AL-HUSSAYEN as the administrative contact person. Iananet.org (created August 11, 1995) was registered to IANA and designed and maintained by the web-site entity Dar Al-Asr. Ianaradionet.com (created May 25, 1999) was registered to IANA, with AL-HUSSAYEN as the head of its supervisory committee and member of its technical committee. Islamway.com (created August 18, 1998) was registered to IANA, with direct links to AL-HUSSAYEN's web-sites including www.alasr.ws and www.cybersma.org. The registration of web-sites www.alhawali.org and www.alhawali.com (both created November 18, 2000) referenced Al-Asr and AL-HUSSAYEN, with AL-HUSSAYEN as the administrative contact for www.alhawali.com. These two web-sites corresponded to a radical sheikh referenced in paragraph 21 hereafter. Web-site www.islamtoday.net (created March 17, 2000) was related to a radical sheikh also referenced in paragraph 21 hereafter and posted articles to some of the Dar Al-Asr and AL-HUSSAYEN web-sites.

20. One of the afore-referenced web-sites registered by AL-HUSSAYEN was www.alasr.ws. On September 11, 2000, AL-HUSSAYEN registered the www.alasr.ws web-site. In about June of 2001, an article entitled "Provision of Suicide Operations" was published on the internet magazine of the website www.alasr.ws. The article was written by a radical Saudi sheikh. A portion of the article read as follows:

The second part is the rule that the Mujahid (warrior) must kill himself if he knows that this will lead to killing a great number of the enemies, and that he will not be able to kill them without killing himself first, or demolishing a center vital to the enemy or its military force, and so on. Thisis not possible except by involving the human element in the operation. In this new era, this can be accomplished with the modern means of bombing or bringing down an airplane on an important location that will cause the enemy great losses. [Emphasis added].

21. Www.alasr.ws and other web-sites registered to or linked to, or technically advised by AL-HUSSAYEN, including www.islamway.com (previously mentioned), also posted other violent jihad (holy war)-related messages by other radical sheikhs, including those referenced in preceding paragraph 19.

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