An undated family photo shows Ahmed Omar Abu Ali.
Posted on 02/22/2005 7:38:01 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
I read this first on CNN. They called him an American, and didn't give his name, or mention al qaeda.
No, it is a private Saudi funded Islamic school. When it opened a decade or so ago many people worried about what was being taught in it but they were called racists and most hushed up.
Thanks for the ping. I've heard about it on the radio today.
ping
American Muslim News Briefs
Friday, June 18, 2004
Protesters Decry Saudi Detention of U.S. Citizen
Click here to view full text ...
About 50 people protested outside the State Department on Thursday against the detention of a U.S. citizen they said has been held by Saudi Arabia for more than a year without charges.
Supporters said the man, Ahmed Abu-Ali, was being held by Saudi Arabia at the request of the U.S. government and demanded his release, saying they feared he might have been tortured.
"Innocent but behind bars," "Torture is un-American," and "Those who sacrifice liberty for security will have neither," read posters held by the protesters, who also accused the U.S. government of not respecting the civil rights of U.S. Muslims.
According to a Washington Post report in November, an FBI agent testified that Abu-Ali had told Saudi interrogators he had joined an al Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia and aspired to be a planner like Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker Mohammed Atta.
Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation told reporters he believed Abu-Ali was innocent, accused the State Department of "foot-dragging" and said Riyadh was willing to release Abu-Ali if Washington asked it to.
"The U.S. government knows Saudi Arabia is holding him ... why we are holding him and if the U.S. government makes an extradition request, Saudi Arabia will act on that request," Adel al-Jubeir, a foreign policy adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, said in a statement read by a spokesman.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher confirmed that Abu-Ali had been held in Saudi Arabia since June 2003 and said U.S. diplomats in the kingdom had visited him regularly..
I am trying to find out if he is also a registered Democrat. To your knowledge, has anyone already unearthed such info?
Well, I guess if they portrayed the truth we'd be forced to listen to a full hour of public service ads denying the truth.
[snip] NY Times sues Justice Dep't over phone records
First the Valerie Plame case, now a probe of an Islamic charity raid—the government just can’t get enough of New York Times reporter Judith Miller, only she doesn’t want to tell them anything. The paper yesterday sued the Justice Department in an effort to keep phone records for reporters Miller and Philip Shenon private. The paper was angered when Justice tried to obtan the records, from the post-Sept. 11, 2001 period, directly from the phone company instead of the paper. The records are part of a Justice investigation into a raid on the Islamic charity Global Relief Fund. The government says that the reporters were tipped by a government source about the raid, a tip it believes was criminal. The Times insists that the reporters’ phone records should be kept private under reporters’ privilege.[/snip]
NY Times sues Justice Dep't over phone records - MediaLifeMag (Sept 2004)
We have been following the Islamic Saudi Academy with interest, and have been inside and given a tour. It is quite the bastion of hate towards America. It is in Fairfax County, Virginia.
It has a history - Ismail Selim Elbarasse was the school's comptroller. He was also a Hamas financier and was arrested for videotaping the bridges over the Chesapeake Bay and Kent Narrows in August 2004.
http://www.tollroadsnews.com/cgi-bin/a.cgi/guyAUPa8EdiRW6r2jfFwDw
http://www.tollroadsnews.com/cgi-bin/a.cgi/t3TBfDE5EdmcEIJ61nsxIA
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33718-2004Aug25.html
Thank you!
I think I remember when that raid happened. I specifically remember it being in Northern Virginia!
Thanks for the ping!
I'm a day late on this one; but it looks like he is indeed a tried and true member of PROP. Why wasn't this in the first paragraph of MSM coverage?
Why indeed.
The raid was in December 2001 and Fitzgerald says flat out that he knows for a fact that Philip Shenon of the NY Times was tipped off that a raid on that charity was going to happen and he in turn tipped off the charity.
Fitzgerald further states that as a result the charity destroyed evidence before the agents arrived to conduct the search.
I wonder what the status is on the courts deciding if he can get those phone records?
Are you seriously thinking that information has not been conveyed and people might not understand that?
Give me a break.
Although the article doesn't spell it out, I would hazard a guess that Mr. Elbarasse is being held as part of the GRF cases being run out of Chicago.
It was Marzook's bank records that agents found in Saturday's search of Elbarasse's house. The federal indictment unsealed Friday in Chicago charges Marzook in an alleged racketeering conspiracy that authorities said raised millions of dollars for Hamas. Also charged were former Howard University professor Abelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar, 46, of Fairfax County and Muhammad Hamid Khalil Salah, 51, of suburban Chicago. Salah and Ashqar were arrested Thursday. Marzook, expelled from the United States in 1997, is believed to be living in Syria.[/snip]
Va. Family Defends Video of Bay Bridge - WaPo (8/25/2004)
Thanks for the additional information!
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