Qaeda Case Undermined by F.B.I. Informant

[hang a left]

Qaeda Case Undermined by F.B.I. Informant
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 19, 2005


Filed at 4:23 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- Attorney General John Ashcroft announced a major blow in the war on terror in March 2003: The government had charged a Muslim cleric with personally handing $20 million to Osama bin Laden.

But as the trial approaches for Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad, the jurors are unlikely to hear that spectacular allegation. Its sole source, an FBI informant from Yemen, set himself on fire in front of the White House late last year, and it is all but certain prosecutors will not put him on the stand.

``The government has acted outrageously and unethically by trumpeting charges that it was not prepared to prove,'' said al-Moayad's attorney, William Goodman. ``Now they're hanging by their fingernails.''

U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf declined to comment.

Al-Moayad, 56, and his Yemeni assistant Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed are charged in federal court in Brooklyn with supporting al-Qaida and the Palestinian extremist group Hamas. Opening statements could start as early as next week, when the two men will join the small number of defendants tried in U.S. courts on al-Qaida-related charges since the Sept. 11 attacks.



http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terror-Money.html?hp&ex=1106197200&en=8172ad21274f7257&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[gratuitous]

1. Spectacular headlines trumpeting the arrest

Page A19 (or farther back) to quietly mention that the case is going to go away without so much as a whimper. Call it the "style over substance" administration.

[Plaid Adder]

2. "all but certain" the prosecutors won't put him on the stand?

OK, does this mean that he *survived* setting himself on fire?

I wouldn't put it past John Ashcroft to put an urn full of ashes on the stand, but I hope we haven't quite sunk to that point yet.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[billyoc]

3. Or at least a "sworn affidavit"

from the informant, who can't be revealed for "national security reasons".

:/

[troubleinwinter]

4. Successful Ashcroft prosecutions of "terror" suspects= 0

Yeah, the guy survived.