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U.S.
prosecutors mistakenly provided alleged terrorist Zacarias
Moussaoui with classified documents which they had to retrieve
from his jail cell.
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WASHINGTON,
Sept 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. justice officials
faced public humiliation Friday, after a federal judge disclosed they
had mistakenly supplied terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui with
dozens of secret Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) documents.
U.S.
District Judge Leonie Brinkema had ordered the documents retrieved
from Moussaoui's cell and, in a move exposing the government's
clumsiness, released Thursday a collection of letters from federal
prosecutors in which they acknowledge the mistake and plead for help.
The
retrieval took several days of searches of Moussaoui's jail cell in
Alexandria, Virginia, where he is being held in solitary confinement
awaiting trial, reports news agencies.
The
contents of the 48 documents have not been formally disclosed.
Brinkema
reviewed two of the documents at issue, saying in the order, "We
find that significant national security interests of the United States
could be compromised if the defendant were to retain copies of this
classified information."
The
documents are reported to feature summaries of interviews conducted by
FBI agents with people detained in connection with the September 11
attacks and sensitive information about Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda
network.
Assistant
U.S. Attorney Robert Spencer said the documents "contain national
security information."
The
administration of President George W. Bush has denied access to such
data even to most members of Congress.
Moussaoui,
a 34-year-old Frenchman, faces six federal charges of conspiracy and a
possible death sentence for alleged involvement in the September 11
attacks.
The
secret FBI documents had been given to Moussaoui as part of the
discovery process, a legal requirement stipulating that a defendant
must be made aware of evidence that will be used against him in trial.
A
Justice Department official said the government was "quite
confident" Moussaoui never read the documents, which were not
stamped "classified," reports news agencies.
"We
are quite confident that Moussaoui never saw any of the materials of
concern," he said, but added that U.S. Attorney General John
Ashcroft had asked the FBI to conduct a damage assessment.
Moussaoui,
who some believe was designated to become a 20th hijacker in the
September 11 plot, was detained for immigration violations in the
northern state of Minnesota long before the attack and remained behind
bars when it occurred.
He
has admitted being an al-Qaeda member and bin Laden sympathizer but
has denied any role in the attacks. His trial is set to begin on
January 6.
Moussaoui
and Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq are the only people worldwide to
have been indicted for the September 11 attacks.
The
correspondence released by Brinkema reveals the Justice Department was
reluctant to admit the scope of its blunder.
In
his first plea mailed August 22, Assistant Attorney Spencer mentioned
only two sensitive documents. A week later, the number grew to seven.
It only reached four-dozen by mid-September.
"Simply
put, it is illegal and dangerous for the defendant to possess the
material and there must be some way that we can correct the
situation," Spencer implored.
The
blunder could not have come at a worse time for the U.S. intelligence
community, already reeling from charges it missed clues that should
have alerted it to the impending September 11 strikes.
Curiously,
a previously classified FBI report about the plot released by the FBI
Thursday contains no mention of Moussaoui at all, despite all the
charges against him.
The
account, first presented by FBI Director Robert Mueller at a closed
hearing in Congress in June, describes in painstaking details how the
19 alleged hijackers entered the United States, learned to fly planes,
communicated with each other and received money from abroad.
But
Mueller offered a conclusion that might have an impact on the
Moussaoui case.
"To
this day we have no one in the United States except the actual
hijackers who knew of the plot and we have found nothing they did
while in the United States that triggered a specific response about
them," he said.
The
report revealed the FBI still had unanswered questions about the
hijackers' activities.
It
still does not know, for example, why suspected terrorist ringleader
Mohamed Atta flew to the Spanish capital Madrid in January 2001 and
his associate, Marwan al-Shehhi, went to Casablanca, Morocco, at about
the same time.
Nor
is it clear why at least one of the plotters for each of the four
hijacked planes traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada, between May and August
2001, Mueller said.
Moussaoui
goes on trial January 6 on charges of conspiring with the September 11
hijackers to commit terrorism. The Justice Department said it would
seek the death penalty if he were convicted.
