U.S. Details Charges Against Student Linked to Plot Against Bush

[Rose Siding]

snip>
The Justice Department said the student, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24, "represents one of the most dangerous terrorist threats that America faces in the perilous world after September 11, 2001: an Al Qaeda operative born and raised in the United States, trained and committed to carry out deadly attacks on American soil."

The department made the claims in opposing efforts by Mr. Abu Ali's lawyers to throw out his statements to Saudi interrogators. The defense lawyers maintain that his admissions came only after he was tortured and beaten repeatedly.

The department called the charges of torture a "fabrication.".......

Judge Gerald Bruce Lee of United States District Court also ruled Monday that the Justice Department would be allowed to offer depositions from two Saudi officials under highly unusual conditions.

The Saudi officials, who were involved in Mr. Abu Ali's interrogation, will be allowed to testify using pseudonyms via a live video feed from Saudi Arabia, with the courtroom in Alexandria closed to all but a handful of lawyers and court officials. The arrangements were necessary, Judge Lee said, because the Saudis "will not allow them to travel here to participate in judicial proceedings."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/politics/20terror.html

[Eric J in MN]

1. How is it consistent with the Constitutional right to

confront witnesses against you, to have people testifying against you under pseudonyms?

This reminds me of how before the first Iraq War, a girl who supposedly saw Iraqis ripping babies out of incubators testified before Congress without giving her name. She turned out to the daughter of a Kuwaiti official, and her story was lies.

[Rose Siding]

2. How about their excuse for not believing he was tortured-

When he was in Saudi custody and he talked to his parents on the phone, he told them he was ok! Maybe that just proves that someone was listening or that he didn't want them to worry.

I don't want to be defending him if he *did* so something wrong, but the govt's track record on these cases lately has been less than stellar.

And what's with our good buddies not even letting the 'interrogators' come to the US?

So far, the case just looks hinky.

[Eric J in MN]

3. If you make a phone call from a Saudi prison

in which you say everything is ok, then they must be treating you great.

After all, if you were being tortured, you would announce that over the phone from prison (end sarcasm).

[UpInArms]

5. Hill and Knowlton - Craig Fuller

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p25s02-cogn.html

excerpt:

The Kuwait government had to find a way to "sell the war" to the American public, who were interested, but not deeply involved. So under the auspices of a group called Citizen for a Free Kuwait, which was really the Kuwait government in exile (the group received almost $12 million from the Kuwaiti government, and only $17,000 from others, according to author John R. MacArthur) the American PR firm Hill & Knowlton was hired for $10.7 million to devise a campaign to win American support for the war. Craig Fuller, the firm's president and COO, had been then-President George Bush's chief of staff when the senior Bush has served as vice president under Ronald Reagan. The move made a lot of sense – after all, access to power is everything in Washington and the Hill & Knowlton people had lots of that.

...more...

[MnFats]

4. Judge Bruce Lee! Cartman voice: "That is so megacool!" kick ass!

OK.
Judge Gerald Bruce Lee doesn't quite make it.
sorry.
i will try to be normal now.

[ret5hd]

6. could the real reason the saudis will not allow them to travel here...

be that they could be subject to arrest once on u.s. soil?