Witness in plot to kill Bush is dead

[NVMojo]

WTF???

WASHINGTON -- A suspected member of al-Qaida who prosecutors say once talked with Ahmed Omar Abu Ali about assassinating President Bush was killed by Saudi authorities in a shootout 17 months ago, the Justice Department disclosed yesterday.

The disclosure that a potential witness in the case is no longer alive could complicate the prosecution of Abu Ali on terrorism charges.

An indictment against the assassination suspect was unsealed in Virginia on Tuesday.

It came as prosecutors called Abu Ali a danger to society and urged that he be held without bail.

more...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/213389_plot24.html

[liberal N proud]

1. It won't stop this regime from prosecuting him

or holding him indefinitely!

[IndianaGreen]

2. A dead witness whose confession was obtained through torture

is no witness at all. This entire case reeks of a show trial.

[woosh]

17. is that

kropotkin in your title image?

[bloodyjack]

28. Dude!!! It's Marx

[Warren Stupidity]

3. how convenient.

This is all maneuver by the DOJ to avoid a court challenge to their practice of outsourcing torture, as they did in this case.

Plea bargain forthcoming.

[Pab Sungenis]

6. How conVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENient!

[TexGal NotBushGal]

27. I had the exact same thought

[ET Awful]

4. If there really was a plot.

Which I doubt. If there actually was, they've known about it for a while, and would have used it as publicity long ago.

The timing is too convenient (it comes in perfect time to distract from the tapes story and the Gannon story).

[The Zanti Regent]

5. Joey Stalin would be proud of his boy, Bush!

Substitute Jesus for Marx and I DARE you to tell me the difference between Stalin and Bush!

[benburch]

9. Stalin was smarter. nt

[sam sarrha]

11. Stalin had Syphilis of the Brain, Bush is a Wet Brain Alcoholic.. toss up..

[AnneD]

7. Smells like three day old fish to me

agree with this as being a distraction. Those Bush worshippers will zero in on this to the exclusion of all else.

[displacedtexan]

8. Having another Claude Rains Moment here...

I'm shocked!

Shocked, I tell you!

[NVMojo]

10. love your post! And yes, how shocking that it would come to this!!

[Pab Sungenis]

23. Round up the usual suspects!

Pay no attention to that male prostitute behind the curtain! LOOK! TERRA!!! DUCK AND COVER!!!

[0007]

12. Elstinko

[punpirate]

13. So, the guy is nabbed in Saudi Arabia...

... where he's tortured and detained without charges for 20 months, and while there, at least eighteen months ago, he says to another detainee that he'd like to kill Bush. If I'd been put in the same circumstances, I'd probably have some unfriendly thoughts about the man, as well.

Now, we find that the witness on whose possibly tainted testimony Ali was detained and charged, has been dead for seventeen months?

At almost any other time in the country's history, the judge would have thrown this case out, and then told prosecutors to never show up in his courtroom again with a similar case.

What I'm wondering is if the US told Saudi Arabia to pick him up, because he'd gone there to study.

[NVMojo]

14. just thinking this through ...I am ashamed of the leadership and voters

in this country....

[Igel]

24. The timeline makes a bit of sense.

He went there to study (I still haven't seen a date that he entered the country). In May 2003 the Saudis finally realized they had a bit of an Islamist problem, and were really active rounding up people and infiltrating networks all summer.

Personally, I think the Saudis had a good case against him threatening anybody Sa'udi they would have either just killed him or locked him up for a long, long time (in which killing him might just be the least painful option). They're notorious for not wanting to send fellow Sa'udis or Muslims into the clutches of Westerners.

[Orsino]

15. We still need witnesses to convict?

How quaint.

[acmavm]

16. This is one of those Gomer Pyle "S'prise s'prise" moments.

.

[displacedtexan]

18. That's even better than me Claude Rains Moment!

You rock!

Gotta Gomer pic?

[LiberalEsto]

19. Ali's relatives laughed their asses off

when a federal prosecutor in Alexandria, Virginia outlined the charges against him on Tuesday. This was in a front page story in yesterday's Washington Post.

The story says Ali is not directly charged with plotting an assassination attempt -- the charges against him involve conspiracy.


Next thing you know, all of us folks here at DU are going to be charged with conspiring to call B*sh a cowardly sociopath.

[NVMojo]

20. no kidding!!! I can see that happening to us!!!

He'll make us all "solent green"!!!!!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

21. This plus the torture charge doesn't make this case a winner....

...unless the results are already on the books similar to Stalin's "show trials".

[Judi Lynn]

22. No one gets close to this man

other than right-wingers who've been thoroughly investigated. He doesn't make public appearances of the traditional kind. He's hardly ever even seen a protestor. Where on earth would anyone go, to carry off murderous intentions?

What a colossal, insulting lie. It lends a sense of seriousness to a man everyone would just as soon forget.

I think the only people who are preoccupied with murder are the hate-driven, greedy scums in the _Bush administration.

[Igel]

25. Would the dead guy be this one?

"Security forces surrounded a group of suspected terrorists in an apartment in the city of Jizan on September 23, 2003. During a gun battle, one security officer was killed and four officers injured. Two suspects were arrested and one suspect was killed. The suspects were armed with machine guns and pistols and a large quantity of ammunition." http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/Fact_Sheets/TimelineTerrorism2.html

If it's just "around September", well, that includes a fair number of dead Sa'udis killed in shootouts with security forces. Well, at least some of them were Sa'udi. Along with Kuwaitis, Egyptians, Yemenis ...

[peace_prevails]

26. Abu Ghraib = Wish Your Were Dead, guantanamo = dead

For all we know this guy could be locked up in G-Bay which means he might as well be dead as far as his family and justice are concerned.