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Defense Says No Case Against Buffalo Suspects
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Members of Lackawanna and Buffalo, New York, Muslim community enter Court
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BUFFALO, New York, Sept 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Lawyers for six men accused of attending an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan argued Thursday that U.S. prosecutors had failed to back charges their clients lent material support to terrorist groups.
The defendants, all from the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna, include Yahya Goba, 25; Faysal Galab, 26; Shafal Mosed, 24; and Mukhtar Al-Bakri, 22. They could each face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
On the second day of a bail hearing, defense lawyers said no evidence had been offered of any criminal link between the six - all U.S. citizens of Yemeni descent - and an al-Qaeda conspiracy alleged by federal investigators. They are accused of providing support or resources to foreign terrorist groups.
"We don't know exactly what the government is attempting to prove," said Bill Clauss, lawyer for Yahya Goba, one of the six.
"There is still not enough of a case here to pass a probable cause standard."
Prosecutors had argued Wednesday the men should be denied bail because they are dangerous and might flee.
In evidence, they produced what they described as a coded e-mail sent in July by one of the defendants, Muktar al-Bakri, to an unindicted co-conspirator.
"The next meal will be very huge. No one will be able to stand it, except for those with faith," the e-mail said.
Prosecutors said al-Bakri had admitted the e-mail referred to a "large explosion" being planned by al-Qaeda against a U.S. target.
Al-Bakri's lawyer, John Molloy, however, said his client was only recounting a conversation he had with "a taxi driver and an old man" in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where al-Bakri was visiting his sister, reports USA Today
"He heard that an explosion was going to happen in Saudi Arabia," Molloy said. "He thought it was going to happen."
To support their charges, the government has offered only affidavits of an investigator who said two of the men admitted during interrogation that they had gone to the camp, reports the New York Times.
Clauss, who insisted no connection had been proved between his particular client and the e-mail, took 90 minutes to present his arguments on Goba's behalf.
The presiding judge, Kenneth Schroeder, made it clear all six men would be heard in full. All six were in court, wearing beige prison jumpsuits and cuffed at the wrists and ankles.
"Everybody has to admit this is a highly unusual case filled with emotion, filled with fear, filled with anxiety," said Schroeder. "We are dealing with serious constitutional issues." He added, "I am attempting to balance the rights of the people of the community to be safe and the rights of the defendants," reported the Times.
"I'm going to give every defendant as much time as he needs," Schroeder said.
According to court papers filed by prosecutors, the defendants took part in a training program at an al-Qaeda camp outside Kandahar, Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 2001.
They were allegedly trained in the use of Russian AK-47 rifles, handguns, heavy artillery, anti-aircraft guns and mountaineering by al-Qaeda.
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden visited the camp during that time and made a speech to the trainees, according to U.S. officials.
James Harrington, lawyer for defendant Sahim Alwan, said the men had believed they were going to receive religious instruction when they were instead brought to a terrorist training camp. He dismissed the case presented by Assistant U.S. Attorney William Hochul as vague and lacking in any proof of criminal intent.
Hochul said evidence found at Al-Bakri's last known residence included a rifle and a cassette tape that "asks Allah to give Jews and their enablers a black day."
"With each of the allegations he makes, he's doing the same thing: asking the court to fill in the blanks," said Harrington.
Rejecting the charge of providing support to al-Qaeda, Harrington read extracts from his client's September 12 statement to the FBI in which Alwan criticized the "crazy radical mentality" of the camp near Kandahar and voiced his desire to leave.
According to USA Today, Alwan told the FBI he grew concerned at the camp after bin Laden appeared and gave the fiery anti-American speech. "I did not agree with the mentality of the people at the camp," Alwan told the FBI on Sept. 12. "After realizing the crazy, radical mentality of people at the camp, I decided to leave."
The paper reported Alwan begged his hosts at the al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan to let him go home, Harrington said. Frightened and homesick, Alwan even feigned an ankle injury to persuade the camp to let him go.
Alwan's account of events was contained in a transcript of an interview he had with the FBI a day before he was arrested, reports the paper.
And lawyer Rodney Personius said information on airline tickets indicated that his client, Yasein Taher, returned home weeks earlier than scheduled. "You could conclude that Mr. Taher left early. He did not complete his training," Personius said.
Defense lawyers also dismissed claims that some of the suspects had access to large sums of cash.
Taher, an employee for a collection agency, reportedly took $15,000 to a casino in Canada to convert to Canadian money. Personius suggested Taher's brother, who faces federal drug charges, had used his client's identification to launder drug money, reports USA Today.
Saying his client had not been to the casino in more than four years, Mosed's lawyer, Patrick Brown, denied the allegation that his client had spent a total of $89,000 during several visits at a Canadian casino. Mosed also worked for a collection agency.
Brown suggested the figure was taken from a frequent user card that credits patrons for every transaction at the casino. The lawyer said Mosed had given the card to friends who probably ran up the total.
"He says he only wishes he had $89,000," the attorney said.
Two other suspected members of what investigators termed al-Qaeda's "sleeper cell" operating in Lackawanna are still at large and believed to be in the Gulf nation of Yemen.
One of them, identified as Kamal Derwish, is suspected of being the pivotal figure who recruited the others.
For its part, the local Yemeni and Muslim communities in Lackawanna feel they have become the targets of undue suspicion.
"I think now with all this publicity we have to fear more. ... We have to now watch our backs more," said Sherry, a woman of Yemeni descent standing in her driveway across the street from the Lackawanna Islamic Mosque where the six men had prayed.
"I'm still trying to take it all in," said the mother of seven, who like many in this Buffalo, New York suburb of 19,000, refused to give her last name.
Sherry, with a black hijab covering her head, said she fears "ignorant people" blaming her Muslim community just like Arab-Americans were targeted after the September 11 attacks on the United States, whose solemn one-year anniversary was remembered last week.
"Everybody [in our community] is a suspect now," she said as her two-year-old daughter played on the driveway.
Except for a small school incident in which one of her children was labeled a terrorist, she said she was not aware of any violence or hateful incident against her community.
But she's thankful that police have promised to beef up patrolling around the mosque and the Yemeni neighborhoods.
"We're just as American as anyone else, even though we cover ourselves. If you don't know Islam, don't knock it," said Sherry, whose hijab barely covers her patriotic yellow T-shirt reading "Let freedom ring."
"We believe as a community that life does go on even if we are looked upon," she said, adding their community is cooperating with authorities.
She like others approached on Wilkesbarre Avenue where the Islamic center is located and two of the accused had lived knew some of the six men and believe they are innocent despite seeking Islamic studies abroad.
"Right now, it's a waiting game," said Jasmine, another woman of Yemeni descent wearing a hijab while picking up her daughter from the school bus stop on the tree-lined street.
"I believe in the judicial system," she said. "If they did commit any crime, they should be punished." But, she stressed: "I don't believe none [eds: sic] of this at all," referring to the U.S. government's accusations.
Among others, Ahmed stressed that he's been in the community for 35 years and like many of the people around him is peaceful and law-abiding.
"We work for our kids to give them education," he said, smoking a cigarette before heading into the white brick mosque for afternoon prayer.
Outside of the Yemeni community, views were mixed about the arrest of the Yemeni men.
Holding an American flag steps away from the courthouse where the six were seeking bail, Tony, 31, said he wanted to show his support for the FBI.
"I'm siding with the FBI in this case. I believe the evidence will show they were up to no good," he said, saying he was countering a "ridiculous" protest Wednesday in which the FBI was labeled as being the "true terrorist."
Kathleen Pantano, 46, on the other hand, believes in the U.S. legal system's presumption of innocence.
"They should get a fair chance to be proved innocent," she said, hoping things would quickly return to normal in Buffalo, where media satellites crowd a downtown square.
"I feel sorry for some of these people of foreign descent and them being accused of doing something with terrorism" just for their religion or the way they look, she added.
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