CAIRO, March 30, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – Dealing a blow to US President George W. Bush's so-called "war on terror", two US federal officials were charged with hiding evidence to win conviction in a terrorism case against four Muslim men following the 9/11, The New York Times reported on Thursday, March 30.

Richard Convertino, the former Detroit federal prosecutor, and Harry Raymond Smith, former security official assigned to the US Embassy in Amman, Jordan, were indicted Wednesday, March 29, on charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making false declarations.

The two conspired to withhold photographs of a US military hospital in Jordan they claimed to be a target of a terror attack by four Muslim men who were arrested days after the 9/11 attacks in a dilapidated Detroit apartment.

Federal authorities claimed the men were part of a "sleeper" terrorist cell plotting attacks against Americans overseas.

Two of the men were convicted on terrorism charges after a high-profile trial in 2003.

But later, the case began to unravel amid accusations of concealed evidence and government misconduct.

The conviction was thrown in September 2004 at the request of the US Attorney's Office, which said Convertino had withheld key evidence from the defendants and allowed witnesses to mislead the jury.

Convertino, 45, who has left the Justice Department, faces 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine if convicted.

Smith, a security officer for the State Department who assisted in the prosecution, faces 20 years in prison and a $750,000 fine.

During the trial in 2003, Convertino said that sketches, with corresponding words in Arabic, represented "casings" of two overseas targets — an American air base in Turkey and a military hospital in Jordan.

Smith also testified that one of the sketch was an "exact" match to the area surrounding the hospital.

He lied under oath after the defense team asked prosecutors to produce photographs of the site for comparison.

Smith claimed he could not take photos of a military site without permission from Jordanian authorities.

The US government agreed in February to pay $300,000 to settle an illegal detention lawsuit brought by an Egyptian man who was among hundreds of Muslims rounded up in New York after the September attacks.

Thousands of Muslim and Arabic men were rounded up and questioned in the weeks and months following the terrorist attacks.

Some of the detainees have sued the US government after their release for inhumane and degrading treatment and a total blackout of communications in detention centers on the US soil.

A May 2004 report released by the US Senate Office Of Research concluded that the Arab Americans and the Muslim community in the United States have taken the brunt of the Patriot Act and other federal powers applied in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.