Posted on 11/02/2005 4:18:35 PM PST by blam
Terror Suspect: 'Everyone Makes Mistakes'
Thursday November 3, 2005 12:01 AM
By MATTHEW BARAKAT
Associated Press Writer
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - After confessing to FBI agents that he joined al-Qaida and discussed plans to assassinate President Bush, an American student wrote a letter to his parents saying that ``everyone makes mistakes.''
``I know this will be difficult for you ... but I've been detained here in Saudi Arabia for some charges of terrorism,'' wrote Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24, who is on trial in federal court for conspiracy to assassinate the president, providing support to al-Qaida and other charges.
``It seems like I will spend some years in jail. I know that you raised me to be a good person, but everyone makes mistakes, and the best people are the ones that learn from their mistakes,'' he wrote.
Jurors at Abu Ali's trial heard excerpts of the letter during testimony Wednesday, but were told nothing of the confession he made to the FBI before writing the letter. The September 2003 confession is inadmissible because FBI agents, who had traveled to Saudi Arabi to question Abu Ali, ignored his request for a lawyer.
Prosecutors are relying instead on a confession Abu Ali gave to the Saudis shortly after his arrest in June 2003 in Medina, where he was attending college.
Defense lawyers contend Abu Ali gave a false confession after being tortured by Saudi security forces. The government denies that Abu Ali was mistreated.
Abu Ali volunteered to write the letter at the end of his four-day interrogation, and asked FBI agent Luke Kuligoski to deliver the letter to his parents in Falls Church, Kuligoski testified Wednesday.
The letter contains no explicit admission of guilt by Abu Ali, but prosecutors believe the letter is evidence that Abu Ali was not coerced into confessing.
Also Wednesday, FBI agents testified that they found numerous suspicious items in Abu Ali's bedroom in the family's Falls Church apartment, including a book written by Osama bin Laden's top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, a magazine devoted to handguns and an article praising the Sept. 11 attacks.
Prosecutors learned late Tuesday and early Wednesday that they could not present testimony from several witnesses, including an expert on al-Qaida and a cryptographer with expertise in decoding secret al-Qaida messages.
Defense lawyers had complained that they received insufficient notice of the planned testimony, and U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee agreed, suggesting that prosecutors were engaging in ``trial by ambush.''
Abu Ali was born in Houston and grew up in Falls Church, where he was valedictorian at an Islamic high school. He was returned to the U.S. in February. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.
LOL..That's what my son said when he wrecked the SUV..but I told him it was the SUV's fault..(grin)
Oh, well.... Since he says it was a "mistake," I guess that makes it OK.
no doubt...and his parents or Mullah probably sent the 'boy' on his mission in the first place.
"Hey Mom, I was sorta, like, gonna assassinate the president and stuff, and, you know, it's like... oops, I guess I messed up, huh?"
Yes, we all make mistakes in our youth. Like the time when I was 24 and drank a bit too much at Husong's, then got sick. Boy was that a mistake. But, at least I................
I saw that header and I thought this was going to be a parody post.
"Everyone makes mistakes."
I'm sure his parents agree.
There was a French (of course) film in the mid 1970's - I think it was called "Le Weekend."
It was about these spoiled rotten rich French students who joined some kind of Weatherman-like organization and ended up assassinating an Ambassador or high politico.
The film is told partly through flashbacks and partly through narrative by one of the students. In the last scene, after they show the flashback of them killing Mr. Big, they go to her recounting this story.
The person she is talking to, rather in shock at the events, says, "So . . . what happened next?"
She shrugged and said something like, "Oh, we went back to school. Classes were starting."
Characterizing his role in a holy war for Allah as a mistake might mean a 'close shave' at the sword of his pals. I'd be careful if I were him.
"Oh, we went back to school. Classes were starting."
What's that saying, about the utter banality of evil?
This must have be written at the prompting of his attorney! It will look good in court to dumbed down jurists.
Yes, and that was the point of the film, although of course the filmmaker only "observed," made no moral judgment at all.
Your loving son.
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