Free Republic

February 3, 2005 -- Brooklyn jurors on the terror-financing case of a Yemeni sheik yesterday viewed secret tapes of him huddling with an assistant — allegedly to create code words for weapons and ammunition. Not knowing his German hotel room was wired, Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad allegedly suggested to his assistant that instead of referring to a shortage of ammunition, they could say, "The corn is running low." "A person must be clever," al-Moayad, 56, tells Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, 31, on the tape. "For example, if you wish to buy ammunition . . . 'By God, Sheik Mohammed,...

NEW YORK (AP) - Things had been looking up for Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad as he approached his trial on charges of supporting terrorist groups Hamas and al-Qaida. The government's star witness set himself on fire in a bizarre protest outside the White House. A judge limited some of the evidence that prosecutors said linked the Yemeni sheik to Osama bin Laden. And prosecutors had begun their case relying on hours of secretly recorded Arabic conversations that were hard to understand even in translation. But those tapes proved surprisingly damaging this past week as jurors in federal court heard...