Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/rantburg/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !

Home Front: WoT

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gets Guantanamo hearing

2007-03-13

U.S. military officials have held initial hearings for three terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, including the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the United States, the Pentagon said on Monday. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said a three-member panel examined the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at a closed hearing on Saturday at the U.S. military prison camp on Cuba. Mohammed is among 14 prisoners identified by U.S. authorities as "high-value" terrorism suspects and transferred to Guantanamo last September from secret CIA prisons abroad. The hearings to determine whether the suspects meet U.S. authorities' definition of an enemy combatant began on Friday, the Pentagon said. The cases of two suspects -- Ramzi bin al Shaibah, a Yemeni also accused of involvement in the September 11 attacks, and alleged senior al Qaeda figure Abu Faraj al Libi of Libya -- were examined on Friday, Whitman said. Whitman said not all the prisoners had chosen to participate in their hearings but he declined to give any more details. The Pentagon has said it will release an edited transcript of each hearing some days after it is held.

Link

Europe

Al Qaeda accused face 70,000 years in jail

2005-09-23

Spain's High Court is due to deliver its verdicts on Monday on 24 people accused of al Qaeda membership, including three who face more than 70,000 years in jail each if convicted of helping the September 11 hijackers. The verdicts will be a crucial test of the credibility of the multiple investigations of Islamist militants launched by Spanish magistrates and around Europe. The three-judge panel heard from more than 100 witnesses during a two-and-a-half month trial that ended in early July -- Europe's biggest trial of suspected Islamist militants. September 11-related prosecutions around the world have had little success. The central figure in the Madrid trial is Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, who is accused of being the leader of an al Qaeda cell in Spain. If convicted of helping the hijackers plan the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, he could face jail terms of 74,337 years -- 25 years for each of 2,973 people killed plus 12 years for leading a terrorist group. Yarkas and two others could be asked to pay a total of more than $1 billion (555 million pounds) in compensation to families of September 11 victims. Yarkas and the other defendants have protested their innocence, saying there is no basis for the charges. "It's a myth. No cell exists," Yarkas told the court. "All of us here are friends and neighbours ... and they have tried to invent a cell." Yarkas and Driss Chebli, another defendant, are accused of helping prepare a July 2001 meeting in Spain at which prosecutors say the September 11 attacks may have been planned. Investigators believe hijacker Mohamed Atta and Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, suspected coordinator of the US attacks, attended the meeting. Chebli also faces prison sentences totalling more than 74,000 years if convicted on all counts. The third defendant accused of a role in the September 11 attacks is Syrian-born real estate developer Ghasoub al Abrash Ghalyoun, who prosecutors say travelled to the United States in 1997 and filmed New York City landmarks such as the World Trade Centre, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. He is alleged to have passed on the videotape to al Qaeda. However, the video, played at the trial, bore all the hallmarks of standard holiday picture-taking, with pictures of friends that included the cue "Say cheese". The High Court freed Ghalyoun on bail in May, indicating the judges may be leaning towards acquitting him, legal sources said. Five other defendants were conditionally freed in June. However, two other defendants freed for health reasons, including Al Jazeera journalist Tayseer Alouni, were re-arrested last Friday. The court considered them a flight risk. Alouni and Jamal Hussein each face nine years in prison if convicted of belonging to a terrorist group. Alouni interviewed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden shortly after the September 11 attacks. Prosecutors accuse him of carrying money intended for al Qaeda members during visits to Afghanistan for his journalistic work. He denies the allegations. The case, which pre-dates the al Qaeda-linked Madrid train bombings of March 11, 2004 that killed 191 people, is one of several probes of Islamist militants launched by crusading Judge Baltasar Garzon. Another judge has accused more than 100 people of a role in the March 11 attacks.

Link

Europe

Spanish court set to rule on Yarkas and flunkies

2005-09-23

Spain's High Court is due to deliver its verdicts on Monday on 24 people accused of al Qaeda membership, including three who face more than 70,000 years in jail each if convicted of helping the September 11 hijackers. The verdicts will be a crucial test of the credibility of the multiple investigations of Islamist militants launched by Spanish magistrates and around Europe. The three-judge panel heard from more than 100 witnesses during a two-and-a-half month trial that ended in early July -- Europe's biggest trial of suspected Islamist militants. September 11-related prosecutions around the world have had little success. A Hamburg court sentenced Mounir El Motassadeq, a Moroccan, to seven years in prison last month, ruling he was a member of the group of radical Hamburg-based Arab students that provided help to three of the September 11 suicide pilots and was aware of their plans to use planes in an attack on the United States. But it found he knew too little of the details to be convicted of abetting mass murder. Abdelghani Mzoudi was tried in Hamburg on the same charges as Motassadeq but acquitted in February 2004. The central figure in the Madrid trial is Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, who is accused of being the leader of an al Qaeda cell in Spain. If convicted of helping the hijackers plan the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, he could face jail terms of 74,337 years -- 25 years for each of 2,973 people killed plus 12 years for leading a terrorist group. Yarkas and two others could be asked to pay a total of more than $1 billion (555 million pounds) in compensation to families of September 11 victims. Yarkas and the other defendants have protested their innocence, saying there is no basis for the charges. "It's a myth. No cell exists," Yarkas told the court. "All of us here are friends and neighbours ... and they have tried to invent a cell." Yarkas and Driss Chebli, another defendant, are accused of helping prepare a July 2001 meeting in Spain at which prosecutors say the September 11 attacks may have been planned. Investigators believe hijacker Mohamed Atta and Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, suspected coordinator of the U.S. attacks, attended the meeting. Chebli also faces prison sentences totalling more than 74,000 years if convicted on all counts. The third defendant accused of a role in the September 11 attacks is Syrian-born real estate developer Ghasoub al Abrash Ghalyoun, who prosecutors say travelled to the United States in 1997 and filmed New York City landmarks such as the World Trade Centre, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. He is alleged to have passed on the videotape to al Qaeda. However, the video, played at the trial, bore all the hallmarks of standard holiday picture-taking, with pictures of friends that included the cue "Say cheese". The High Court freed Ghalyoun on bail in May, indicating the judges may be leaning towards acquitting him, legal sources said. Five other defendants were conditionally freed in June. However, two other defendants freed for health reasons, including Al Jazeera journalist Tayseer Alouni, were re-arrested last Friday. The court considered them a flight risk. Alouni and Jamal Hussein each face nine years in prison if convicted of belonging to a terrorist group. Alouni interviewed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden shortly after the September 11 attacks. Prosecutors accuse him of carrying money intended for al Qaeda members during visits to Afghanistan for his journalistic work. He denies the allegations.

Link

Europe

Witness saw Imad Yarkas with Atta and Binalshibh

2005-06-13

The suspected leader of al Qaeda in Spain traveled with Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta aboard the Barcelona metro in the summer of 2001, a witness has testified. The testimony last week was the first to directly link lead defendant Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas with Atta, the Egyptian believed to have piloted the first hijacked jetliner into the World Trade Center. Syrian Barakat Yarkas is one of 24 men on trial for belonging to al Qaeda and one of three charged with mass murder for helping plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Atta traveled in Spain from July 9 to 16 of 2001 for what investigators believe was a final planning session with Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, currently in U.S. custody. "I am completely, absolutely sure I saw them, without a doubt, the three of them," the witness said, referring to Barakat Yarkas, Atta and bin al-Shaibah, in a video of his testimony reviewed by Reuters on Monday. The witness, a university professor, appeared in court on Wednesday. The prosecutor had not met the witness until that morning and his testimony was unexpected. The court ordered his identity be withheld for his protection. The professor said he saw Atta, Barakat Yarkas and Ramzi bin al-Shaibah on the Barcelona metro in June 2001. The three men raised suspicion because they were wearing brand new matching black leather jackets during hot weather, and the witness said he spent the next three metro stops studying them. In the days following Sept. 11, the witness said he recognized Atta's picture because the two had spent that metro ride staring at each other. "I discovered that he was looking at me, very intently. ... When I see someone looking at me aggressively, I keep staring back. The look he had was exactly the same as in the photograph," the man said. "I kept looking at him. We didn't like each other," the witness said.

Link

Europe

Al-Qaeda courier told to convey message

2005-05-21

An al Qaeda courier was sent to Afghanistan just before the September 11 attacks to convey the message "Eleven Nine", but did not know the significance of the numbers and was not part of the plot, a central figure in the conspiracy told U.S. interrogators. The assertion was made by captured al Qaeda figure Ramzi bin al-Shaibah and is contained in documents, obtained by Reuters, which were sent by the United States to Germany this month. The story's credibility will be tested next Tuesday when the documents are presented to a Hamburg court trying another September 11 suspect, Moroccan Mounir el Motassadeq. In the papers, sent by the U.S. Department of Justice and obtained by Reuters, bin al-Shaibah is quoted as saying another Hamburg-based Moroccan, Zakariya Essabar, was sent to Afghanistan as an unwitting messenger to tell al Qaeda leaders when the attacks on the United States would take place. Essabar, a Moroccan who like the others was based in Hamburg, was to deliver the message to a contact called Mukhtar. Bin al-Shaibah "asked Essabar to convey the message Eleven Nine to Mukhtar, but insisted that he did not tell Essabar what the message meant", the documents say. At another point in his questioning, bin al-Shaibah "described Zakariya Essabar as a close associate, quickly adding that Essabar did not have any foreknowledge of the events of 11 September", they say. But at yet another time, bin al-Shaibah -- in jail at an undisclosed location -- described how an aide to Osama bin Laden "instructed Essabar to return (from Afghanistan) to Germany and to obtain a U.S. visa so that Essabar could travel to the United States to take part in the planned attacks". Neither bin al-Shaibah nor Essabar was granted a U.S. visa. Washington declined on security grounds to grant the German court access to bin al-Shaibah. But the written summaries of his interrogation are crucial to the Hamburg case in which Motassadeq is on trial for the second time, accused of complicity in the attacks on New York and Washington which killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001. In material previously released by U.S. authorities to the court, bin al-Shaibah was quoted as saying that Motassadeq had nothing to do with the plot. He was merely one of a group of Arabs who "studied jihad" and "engaged in vitriolic anti-U.S. discussions" at the Hamburg home of Mohamed Atta, the man who crashed the first hijacked plane into the World Trade Centre. The prosecution is likely to seize on the contradictions in the new information to argue that bin al-Shaibah was lying about both Essabar and Motassadeq and simply trying to cover up for his friends. The U.S. letter notes bin al-Shaibah's "inconsistent statements" on Essabar. It also says he "may have been intentionally withholding information and employing counter- interrogation techniques". On the other hand, the new U.S. material, consisting of summarised information from bin al-Shaibah and another captured al Qaeda suspect, mentions Motassadeq only once by name and does not contain any new incriminatory evidence against him. The U.S. letter also said the FBI had no further material on Motassadeq and Washington could not supply any more information to the court.

Link

Europe

FBI links Madrid bombs to 911

2004-11-28

THE US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has established the clearest link yet between the March 11 Madrid train bombings and the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, a Spanish newspaper reported today. The FBI has told Spanish investigators that one of three men believed to have planned the September 11 attacks from Spain in the summer of 2001 also gave the order to carry out the Madrid blasts, ABC reported. The train bombings killed 191 people and wounded 1900 three days before a general election. In videotapes, the bombers claimed the attacks in the name of al-Qaeda in Europe and said they were in revenge for Spain sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. Investigators have long concluded that the September 11 attacks were partially planned in Spain in July 2001. Hijacker Mohammed Atta, believed to have piloted one of the airliners that crashed into New York's World Trade Center, visited Spain two months before the attacks and met two men. One was Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, who is being held by US authorities, while the other was unidentified. ABC said investigators now believe that third man was the one who in December 2003 activated the al-Qaeda cell that carried out the March 11 attacks, which Spaniards call "our September 11". ABC said investigators had narrowed his identity down to three candidates and believed he was a lieutenant of Mustafa Setmarian, increasingly considered to have been a leader of the Madrid train bombers and who may have held a leadership role for al-Qaeda in Europe. Setmarian, aged 45 and of Syrian origin, was already wanted as part of a separate investigation into Islamic militant activity in Spain and is the subject of a Spanish wanted notice issued through Interpol. The US State Department said on November 18 it was offering a $US5 million ($6.3 million) reward for information leading to the capture of Setmarian, also known as Mustafa Setmariam Nasar or Abu Musab al-Suri. It described him as an al-Qaeda member and former trainer at "terrorist camps" in Afghanistan. Some 30 people are in custody or under court supervision for the train bombings for which one minor has so far been convicted. Seven prime suspects are dead and two or three other suspected collaborators remain at large.

Link

Europe

Moroccan faces German retrial for 9/11 attacks

2004-08-09

A Moroccan man accused of helping to plot the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States goes on trial for the second time in Germany this week. But the retrial of Mounir el Motassadeq on conspiracy and terrorism charges, which starts on Tuesday, is already threatened by disagreements with the United States over evidence from a leading Al Qaeda figure currently in American custody. Motassadeq was the first person convicted in connection with the 2001 attacks and was sentenced to 15 years' jail in 2003. But he won an appeal in March this year and was freed the following month pending a new trial -- sparking anger in Washington, which called him "dangerous". Germany has been pressing the US to let judges question Ramzi bin al-Shaibah -- a leading Al Qaeda figure captured in Pakistan in 2002 who is thought to have masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks -- or to allow transcripts of his interrogation to be used at the retrial. Washington has so far resisted on security grounds. As well as evidence from bin al-Shaibah, Germany has asked for testimony, either directly or in writing, from another top Al Qaeda figure, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and suspected Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui, former CIA head George Tenet and FBI Special Agent Matthew Walsh, a court spokeswoman said. So far, however, the requests as well as a list of questions Germany would like put to bin al-Shaibah have gone unanswered. It is unclear whether a response will come before the end of the trial. "There has been no answer, we must wait and see what reaction comes from the United States," the spokeswoman said. Motassadeq's lawyer has said he would challenge any evidence from bin al-Shaibah on the grounds that it may have been gained through the use of torture. Hamburg became one of the main focuses of investigations into the Sept. 11 hijack attacks after it emerged that several of the plotters had lived in the northern port city. But prosecutors have faced mounting criticism after their failure to secure a conviction against Motassadeq or fellow-Moroccan Abdelghani Mzoudi, who was acquitted of similar charges in February and now faces an appeal by prosecutors. The two were part of a circle of Arab students living in Hamburg which included three of the Sept. 11 hijackers and bin al-Shaibah, who has boasted of his role in masterminding the strike on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm travelled to the US in April to request help from authorities there but has been heavily criticised for not pursuing the investigation against suspected Sept. 11 plotters vigorously enough. According to the influential news weekly Der Spiegel, the government has become increasingly concerned about the handling of the case and Interior Minister Otto Schily has pushed vigorously for tougher controls on militant suspects. Whatever the final result of both cases, the government considers both Motassadeq and Mzoudi pose a particular threat to Germany and has served deportation orders that would come into effect at the end of the criminal cases, subject to appeal.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Binny might have called off 9/11 if he knew Moussaoui had been jugged

2004-07-23

Top al-Qaeda planners of the September 11 hijackings might have cancelled the attack had they known that Zacarias Moussaoui - chosen by Osama bin Laden as one of the pilots - had been arrested, the United States commission investigating the attacks said today. The commission said news of Moussaoui's August 16, 2001, arrest did not reach bin Laden and top al-Qaeda planners like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before September 11. "According to (attack coordinator Ramzi bin al-Shaibah), had bin Laden and KSM learned prior to 9/11 that Moussaoui had been detained, they might have cancelled the operation," the report said, using KSM to refer to Mohammed. Moussaoui, a French citizen, is awaiting trial on conspiracy charges connected to the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. He was arrested on immigration charges after he raised suspicions at a flight school in Minnesota. In its final report, the panel called Moussaoui an "al-Qaeda mistake" and a "missed opportunity". The FBI has been criticised for failing to act quickly on suspicions about Moussaoui, which could have helped unravel the September 11 attacks. The panel gave the most detailed information to date of Moussaoui's importance in the plot. The commission's report said in the month before the attack Moussaoui was being primed to take part as a pilot, possibly to replace one of the pilots who was showing signs of wanting to pull out of the plot in the summer of 2001. Moussaoui denies involvement in the September 11 attacks but admits to being a member of al-Qaeda. The report said that though Mohammed did not approve of Moussaoui, he did not remove him from the operation because Moussaoui had been "selected and assigned by bin Laden himself."

Link

India-Pakistan

Bin Laden 'no longer runs al Qaeda'

2002-09-17

Western intelligence officers now believe that Osama bin Laden is either dead or no longer operating as a terror leader. The ease of the arrest of key al Qaeda operative Ramzi bin al-Shaibah in Karachi last week has led intelligence experts to conclude that al Qaeda's leadership is now badly disrupted and Bin Laden is no longer in charge. Bin al-Shaibah was interviewed over a satellite telephone by the al Jazeera television station in Dubai and within a day was captured by Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence troops backed and guided by the FBI. That doesn't bode well for the Bad Guys: pop your pointy little head up, and somebody takes it off. When even Karachi's too hot for them it's time to move on...

Link

Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/rantburg/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-9 More