Posted on 09/09/2006 7:56:45 AM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
It started with a police officer's intuition in a Central Peoria neighborhood just south of Northwoods Mall three days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Peoria officer noticed a car was being driven erratically and pulled it over. The driver had an outstanding warrant for failing to appear in court 10 years before on another infraction, and offered to pay a cash bond on the spot, even reaching into a briefcase full of money.
Something just didn't feel right, so the officer hauled the driver in on the warrant as well as the new traffic ticket.
That everyday occurrence resulted in the arrest and detention three months later of the man federal authorities have alleged was a sleeper agent sent to the United States to disrupt the country's computer systems and help with a second wave of attacks: Ali Saleh Kahleh al-Marri.
Al-Marri today is the only named enemy combatant so designated by President Bush who remains in custody. For the past three years, he has been held in solitary confinement at a Naval brig in South Carolina. Repeated legal attempts challenging his detention and his living conditions have failed. It does not appear likely the Qatari national will be released anytime soon.
Last month, he lost his battle when a federal judge in Charleston, S.C., denied his habeas corpus petition, the legal way a prisoner can challenge his incarceration. His attorneys have already filed motions to appeal that decision to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Nor does it appear likely that al-Marri's case will be one of the 14 that President Bush said this week would go before military tribunals if Congress were to approve legislation allowing that to happen. One of al-Marri's attorneys, Jonathan Hafetz, said he knows of no plans to move his client to Guantanamo Bay or for him to go before a military court.
Hafetz, of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, said this week the nearly five-year detention without trial "is both unconstitutional and unprecedented in American history."
Hafetz added that al-Marri "will continue seeking to vindicate his right, and the right of all Americans, to due process of law, a right denied by the President through the stroke of a pen declaring him an 'enemy combatant.'"
While the government has yet to prove in a court, civil or military, why it thinks al-Marri is a terrorist, authorities point to an 18-page declassified statement that claims al-Marri had information regarding poisons, toxins and computer hacking that "far exceeds the interests of a merely curious individual."
Who is al-Marri?
Little is known about al-Marri or his time in Peoria. His family - a wife and five children - lived in Edgewood Apartments on West Radan Court, less than a half-mile from Farmington Road. He supposedly was a graduate student at Bradley University, but school officials say that's not so and that he was a part-time undergraduate student taking computer science classes.
A mug shot taken when he was arrested for the traffic warrant shows al-Marri with long black hair, mustache and a scowl on his face. When he appeared for the first time in public in Peoria's federal court in May 2003, he wore glasses and had a full beard. The long black hair was tied into two braids running down his back.
His build was slight and he sported a broad smile. Yet, authorities say he's dangerous. He was initially arrested as a material witness for a grand jury sitting in Manhattan but was later charged with credit card fraud and lying to the FBI.
Among the allegations are:
- that he was to hack into the main computers of U.S. banks to wipe out balances and otherwise wreak havoc with banking records in order to damage the U.S. economy.
- that he met Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, at a terrorist training camp and pledged his loyalty to him.
- that al-Marri was running a credit card scam to help fund al-Qaida. He has also has been linked to Mohammed Atta, one of the men who hijacked a plane used in the attacks, and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, whom federal officials have dubbed the hijackers' money man.
Hafetz and others representing al-Marri deny those allegations and maintain he was only in Peoria to study. Government and defense officials have repeatedly declined to comment on the case beyond what is in court files.
A brother, Jarallah al-Marri, 32, also is being held by the military. He was arrested in Pakistan and has been at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002. He is accused of going to an al-Qaida training camp and then helping the Taliban or al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
Questions and concerns
In the days and weeks after his arrest, the Muslim community in Peoria rallied around al-Marri's family, offering support to his wife, a traditional Saudi woman who spoke no English. The family wasn't well known in the community, remembers Dr. Mohammed F. Malik, a spokesman for the Islamic Foundation of Peoria.
"We knew of him through his wife coming to the mosque. He was not a frequent attendee of the mosque," Malik said. "He was on the fringes from the get-go."
But if someone is in need, the community helps, and when al-Marri's wife made it known she needed help getting food and supplies - she had no driver's license - area Muslims pitched in. That is until the FBI began to question people and, gradually, the family became more isolated. They left Peoria not long after al-Marri was shipped to New York in February 2002. They left the country about a year later after living near the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C.
The questioning by FBI agents initially angered area Muslims who thought the agents weren't understanding of their culture and resented being stereotyped. Malik said the FBI's regional director visited Peoria to talk with people here. Those discussions resulted in both sides learning more about each other, raising the comfort level.
"We have not had any concerns since then," Malik said.
But Malik, like others, has problems with the notion that a person can be held without a charge.
"Only recently have they (the Bush administration) announced new revisions to issues of detainees and how they are going to be treated by the Army. I think that's been the record for the past five or six years, if I can do it, I will. That's not the system of checks and balances that this country was founded on," he said.
Same here. And my ears usually perk up at the mention of the town in which I was born.
He needs a higher profile lawyer, evidently.
;-)
Yep.
Is it me, or does he look a lot like Gallagher?
See: there's good news everywhere if only you look for it!
Surely considered the black goat of the family.
Yeah, I just happened to stumble on this one. Looked at an old bookmarked news site that I forgot that I had.
Tell us wherer bin Laden is and we'll let you go.
If he is an American citizen he should be tried, if not he should probably be deported. And once again, he should never have been allowed into the country, the same authorities who are now slapping themselves on the back for finding him are the ones that brought him here in the first place. Islamic terrorism in the West is an offshoot of the multicultural beliefs of Western elitists and their immigration policies.
We're at war! Take him out and shoot him.
Well said.
Farmington doesn't run right past Bradley - W Main does. But Farmington starts at W Main, heads north and west, and goes between St Joseph's Cemetery and the Laura Bradley Park. I don't recall the Pig N Whistle - I'd have to e-mail one of my aunts. We moved away in 1967, and I was still in elementary school. Moved to Wisconsin - which is a beautiful place, even if Madison is "80 square miles, surrounded by reality". (Very liberal.)
ALL muslims in the USA must be watched ALL the time.
That briefcase of cash was Saudi money from our oil purchases.
Which mosque does this mullet wearer attend?
Also not seen in five years. Coincidence?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.