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Thread: Military Prosecutors Set To Open Major 9/11 Case

  1. #41
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    Defense lawyers for 9/11 detainees seek to delay arraignments

    http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchas...inees-seek.php

    Andrew Gilmore at 12:36 PM ET

    [JURIST] Military defense lawyers for the five Guantanamo Bay detainees allegedly behind the Sept. 11 attacks [JURIST news archive] are attempting to delay their clients' arraignments, currently scheduled [JURIST report] for June 5. They allege the US government has interfered with the defendants' rights to counsel by refusing to provide facilities for the review of classified evidence or to grant security clearances to attorneys assisting in the defense. The lawyers also objected to the restrictions on discussion of their clients' cases with co-counsel, limitations on the review of the attorneys' own notes taken regarding the cases, and procedures to gain access to the defendants. Last Tuesday, the Miami Herald reported that death penalty charges against the Sept. 11 defendants were confirmed [JURIST report] by the Convening Authority for the military commissions. AP has more. Reuters has additional coverage.

    Military defense lawyers filed motions to dismiss charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other Sept. 11 defendants Friday, arguing that the charges against them were unduly influenced [JURIST report] by Air Force Reserve Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann. Early last week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] accused the US Department of Defense of stalling on security clearances [JURIST report; ACLU press release] for civilian lawyers seeking to assist in the defense of Guantanamo detainees. The US Supreme Court is expected to rule in June on the cases of Boumediene v. Bush [docket; merit briefs] and Al Odah v. United States [docket; merit briefs], determining whether Guantanamo detainees should be allowed to challenge their detentions in federal court.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  2. #42
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    Alleged 9/11 "20th hijacker" tried suicide: lawyer

    http://www.reuters.com/article/domes...32969320080520

    By Jane Sutton
    5/20/208

    GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - A Saudi citizen who allegedly intended to be the "20th hijacker" on September 11 tried to kill himself last month at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba after learning he faced charges that could carry the death penalty, his lawyer said on Monday.

    The prisoner, Mohammed al Qahtani, cut himself at least three times in early April, once deeply enough to produce "profuse bleeding" that required hospital treatment, said attorney Gitanjali Gutierrez.

    Qahtani apparently thought his execution was imminent and had a mental breakdown. "He lost all hope and really had a very direct psychological reaction to all of this," Gutierrez said.

    A spokeswoman for the detention center declined to comment, citing a policy against discussing specific conditions of individual detainees.

    Prosecutors filed charges against Qahtani in February, requesting the death penalty if he is convicted of conspiring with al Qaeda to crash hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

    The Pentagon official overseeing the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals dropped the charges on May 13 without giving a reason but reserved the right to file them again later.

    Gutierrez said she learned of the suicide attempt during an April visit to the prison camp at a U.S. naval base in Cuba. She said the military had just given clearance for her to publicly discuss notes taken during that visit.

    U.S. government officials said Qahtani had intended to join the 19 hijackers who commandeered four passenger planes and crashed them on September 11, but that an immigration agent denied him entry into the United States at a Florida airport.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  3. #43
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    FBI agents objected to military's 9/11 interrogations, audit finds
    A long-awaited Justice Department report says they questioned the legality and effectiveness of certain tactics.

    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,2796278.story

    By Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
    9:11 PM PDT, May 20, 2008

    WASHINGTON -- FBI agents who assisted with overseas interrogations of suspected terrorists after Sept. 11 often clashed with their military counterparts and refused to participate in the most aggressive intelligence-gathering methods because they doubted they were legal or effective, a long-awaited Justice Department audit found.

    At the same time, the report released Tuesday by Inspector Gen. Glenn A. Fine faults officials at FBI headquarters for failing to provide prompt guidance to agents in the field on what to do if they witnessed interrogations using snarling dogs, sexual ploys and other abusive techniques that violated long-standing FBI policy.

    The audit also found that, as early as 2002, agents were raising questions about whether the rough tactics were legal and whether evidence secured under the circumstances would stand up in court if the suspects were ever prosecuted. But Justice Department officials were mostly focused on whether the interrogations were yielding valuable intelligence rather than whether they violated any laws, the report says.

    Concerns about military interrogation tactics reached the White House as early as 2003, Fine reported, but they were apparently dismissed. Aides to former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft told Fine that Ashcroft in 2003 raised questions about the rough treatment of one detainee with Condoleezza Rice, who was then national security advisor. But Justice officials told investigators that those high-level talks also appeared to have no impact on curbing the aggressive tactics. Fine said Ashcroft declined to be interviewed as part of his investigation.

    The 370-page analysis, more than three years in the making, generally portrays the FBI as having taken a principled stand against abusive interrogations and torture. Though it describes FBI dealings with other agencies, it does not attempt to assess the conduct of CIA or military interrogators. Their efforts have been condemned by human rights groups and others since abuses at the Abu Ghraib military prison outside Baghdad were exposed in 2004.

    The report says the FBI deserved credit for deciding in 2002 to continue to follow its own strict interrogation policies. The FBI said it was "gratified" by the findings.

    The American Civil Liberties Union said the report showed that top FBI and Justice Department officials should have stepped in sooner to stop coercive questioning and that the leadership was more concerned with avoiding responsibility than with enforcing the law. A few months after FBI agents began raising concerns, the Justice Department secretly prepared a legal opinion that sanctioned harsh interrogation methods by the CIA.

    Other critics said the reservations expressed by the FBI foreshadowed legal difficulties the Pentagon is now facing as it prepares to try terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay military tribunal in Cuba.

    The report shows that harsh methods "were not working, would not work and would come back to haunt the United States as it moved from intelligence gathering to prosecution," said Jennifer Daskal, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch, a Washington-based advocacy group. "This is exactly what we are seeing now, with the efforts to prosecute the alleged terrorists in Guantanamo Bay fatally tainted by the possible use of evidence obtained through torture and other abuse."

    According to Fine, friction between the FBI and the CIA surfaced in the spring of 2002, when two FBI agents were assigned to help the CIA obtain information from alleged Al Qaeda operations chief Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in Pakistan in 2002. Zubaydah is one of three detainees the Bush administration has acknowledged subjecting to a type of simulated drowning known as waterboarding.

    The internal Justice auditors found no evidence that FBI agents witnessed or were aware of CIA interrogators using that technique. But other aggressive techniques the CIA was using gave the agents pause and raised concerns about the moral and legal culpability of observing interrogations that violated FBI policy. One FBI agent at the scene objected that techniques the CIA was using on Zubaydah amounted to "borderline torture," according to the Fine report.

    Friction between the FBI and the military surfaced in late 2002 over the handling of alleged Al Qaeda operative Mohammed Qahtani, who was being held at Guantanamo Bay.

    Fine said the FBI favored building rapport with the suspect over a long period so he might be persuaded to cooperate; the military insisted on a more aggressive tack. In one instance, that included attaching a leash to him and making him perform dog tricks.

    FBI concerns about those practices were flagged to top Justice Department officials. But senior officials there told Fine that concerns about the legality of the techniques or their impact on future prosecutions was never a focus. The overriding concern, he found, was whether techniques were effective at developing "actionable intelligence."

    The Pentagon, which is gearing up for the death penalty trials of several suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks, announced last week that it was dropping charges against Qahtani. The alleged "20th hijacker" had been designated for prosecution in February.

    "We found no evidence that the FBI's concerns influenced [Department of Defense] interrogation policies," the report says. Once it was established that military interrogators were permitted to use interrogation techniques not available to FBI agents, the agents stopped complaining as much.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  4. #44
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    Military judge denies motions to delay arraignment of 9/11 suspects

    http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/...t-11-Trial.php

    Military judge denies motions to delay arraignment of 9/11 suspects

    The Associated Press
    Friday, May 23, 2008
    GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba: A military judge on Thursday denied motions to delay the arraignments of five Guantanamo detainees suspected of mounting the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

    In his ruling, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann said the military commission found that the interests of justice in the complex legal case would be best served by completing the arraignments on June 5.

    "It is precisely because of the anticipated complexity of this case that it is important that the process get under way," Kohlmann said in the ruling, which was obtained by The Associated Press.

    Military lawyers had sought to postpone the first pretrial hearings for men charged with the 2001 attacks that killed almost 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, saying the government has made it impossible to defend them.

    The highly anticipated arraignments are scheduled for June 5 at the remote U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. is seeking the death penalty for all five defendants, including confessed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

    Defense lawyer and Army Maj. Jon Jackson, who represents Saudi detainee Mustafa al-Hawsawi, said he was disappointed by Kohlmann's ruling.

    "Mr. Hawsawi has been held for more than four years without a hearing or access to a lawyer. Now he is being rushed into the courtroom after only two meetings with me, his lead counsel," Jackson said.

    Jackson said the facilities for defense preparation at the isolated tropical base are "completely inadequate for this type of proceeding."

    In his ruling, Kohlmann said concerns expressed by the defense regarding their working spaces was not a matter that justified a delay.

    "It appears that progress is being made with regard to dealing with the logistic challenges associated with this case. It is likely that the lawyers' tasks in this case are going to be difficult in several regards," Kohlmann said.

    The arraignments will likely precede a Supreme Court ruling on the legitimacy of the first U.S. war-crimes trials since World War II. The court is expected to rule before June 30 whether the 270 men held at Guantanamo have access to regular U.S. courts, which could undermine the military trials.

    The Court declared a previous military tribunal system unconstitutional in 2006.

    __

    Associated Press Writer Andrew O. Selsky contributed to this report from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

  5. #45
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    Trial process to begin for accused 9-11 plotters

    http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Trial_p..._05242008.html

    Published: Saturday May 24, 2008

    In the first step towards trying the alleged plotters behind the devastating September 11, 2001 attacks, five men including the accused mastermind will be arraigned June 5 before a US military judge in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

    Nearly seven years after the attacks and at least five years after their capture, Pakistan-born Kuwaiti Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the purported key 9/11 planner, and four others will formally be charged with murder, terrorism and other war crimes, launching the process of trying them under special military commissions at the US naval prison at Guantanamo.

    All face possible death sentences, but the question of whether the trials will ever get underway and how long they could last still looms darkly over the process.

    To be arraigned alongside Mohammed are Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, a Saudi Arabian; Ramzi Binalshibh of Yemen; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Mohammed's nephew also from Kuwait; and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, of Saudi Arabia.

    The five were arrested between 2002 and 2003 and held for interrogation for several years in secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons outside the United States. In 2006 they were transferred to Guantanamo, but only in early May were they referred for trial by the convening authority of the military commissions set up to try US "war on terror" detainees.

    In the June 5 hearing judge Ralph Kohlmann, a US marines colonel, will formally read the charges against them and allow each to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty, or postpone the plea.

    The Pentagon expects some 60 journalists to be on hand for this relatively open proceeding, but issues involving the lawyers' tightly restricted access to the defendants already raises questions about the process.

    Until charges were first officially set in February, the detainees were unable to meet with lawyers, as the military had designated the men themselves with top secret classifications.

    Since then the combination of the official secrecy surrounding the government's cases and the logistics of travelling to Guantanamo have meant limited meetings with their military and civilian lawyers.

    Faced with such barriers defense lawyers had asked for a continuance, or postponement, of the arraignment, but on Thursday Judge Kohlmann rejected the request.

    "The commission recognizes that there are many logistic and legal issues that will need to be addressed in this case. It is precisely because of the anticipated complexity of this case, that it is important that the process get under way," he said.

    Of the five the be tried, Mohammed is the most prominent, having allegedly confessed to planning and organizing the 9/11 hijacking of four US commercial jets which crashed into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, and a rural field in Pennsylvania, killing 2,974 people, not including the 19 hijackers.

    His trial could become snagged on legal issues surrounding the CIA's admission that it subjected Mohammed to waterboarding, the interrogation technique simulating drowning that is widely considered torture.

    The hearing will take place in a purpose-built courtroom in Guantanamo, constructed in a way that will allow the judge to prevent unauthorized people from hearing any official secrets that may be disclosed in the trials.

    Even so, the whole process could grind to a halt at any time. The special military tribunals, set up just after the 9/11 attacks, have faced a series of legal challenges that saw them ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2006.

    They were then reestablished with a firmer legal footing by Congress last year.

    But a related case dealing with US law's applicability in Guantanamo that is expected to be decided by the Supreme Court in June could spark new challenges to the tribunals.

    Moreover, the trial process could be interrupted by a change in the White House. The three politicians seeking to replace President George W. Bush next January -- Republican John McCain and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- have all said they plan to shut down Guantanamo.

    "The government is very anxious to get these cases moving forward, possibly to present the next administration with a fait accompli," said Eugene Fidell, a military justice expert.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  6. #46
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    Mohammed prepares for 9/11 trial

    http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_New...11_trial/4946/

    Published: May 25, 2008 at 2:43 PM

    GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, May 25 (UPI) -- The case of the self-described leader of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States could shape the rules of the U.S. war on terrorism, his lawyer says.

    Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a U.S. educated engineer is held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has spent the last five years fielding questions from U.S. security forces and other officials, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.

    Navy Reserve Judge Advocate General Prescott Prince has been named to lead the defense team for Mohammed, who is charged with murder in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in the 2001 attacks.

    Prince is barred from disclosing details of what Mohammed has told him in their conversations. However, he did say he expects the case to go on for years and culminate in a landmark Supreme Court decision.

    "I think it's the constitutional case of our time," Prince told the newspaper. "Because in the 221st year of America, the question is whether the Constitution applies to the government."

    Prince called Mohammed a model client and the picture of decorum and politeness.

    "He does not come across as angry or bitter or hateful," Prince said.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  7. #47
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    Pentagon inviting media to Guantanamo 9/11 hearings

    http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Pentago..._05272008.html

    Published: Tuesday May 27, 2008

    The Pentagon said Tuesday it was sending invitations to news organizations to cover the arraignments of the five alleged September 11 co-conspirators in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

    Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said about "four or five dozen" journalists and technical personnel from domestic and international news organizations would be allowed onto the base for the June 5 arraignment.

    The reading of the charges is expected to mark the first public appearance of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, since his capture in Pakistan March 1, 2003.

    Mohammed and four others face capital charges of murder, terrorism and other war crimes. Charges against a sixth, the alleged "20th hijacker" Mohammed al-Qahtani, were dropped in April by the Pentagon official overseeing the process.

    Whitman said invitations were being sent to news organizations on Tuesday.

    "Our responsibility at the Defense Department here is to make sure we have sufficient US and international media there to be able to report on the proceedings, to make it as transparent as possible.

    "But obviously we can't open it up to everybody. There are logistical issues in terms of getting down to Guantanamo," he said.

    "We're trying to be robust in our approach. But at the same time we are trying to do it in a responsible way, inviting news organizations that in the totality will cover the world, basically."

    Only a handful of journalists will be allowed in the courtroom, confined to a glass enclosed booth where they can be shut off from hearing testimony on the judge's instructions.

    The other members of the media will be in a separate media center where they can watch the proceedings on a video screen and take notes.

    Audio recordings and pictures of the proceedings are barred. But a sketch artist will be in the courtroom.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  8. #48
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    Lawyers want 9/11 trial dismissed
    Lawyers say US rushing trial of 9/11 defendants to influence elections

    http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila..._05292008.html

    ANDREW O. SELSKY
    May 29, 2008 14:46 EST

    Defense lawyers accused the government of rushing the Sept. 11 defendants to trial at Guantanamo to influence the U.S. presidential elections, and asked the military judge to dismiss the case in a court filing obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

    The filing also includes documents showing that the former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo, who resigned in October over alleged political interference, was sanctioned by the military May 23 after testifying for the defense in a Guantanamo hearing.

    The former prosecutor, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, wrote that the action will discourage any other military members from providing information about the controversial war-crimes tribunals.

    Military lawyers for alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants revealed that prosecutors are seeking a Sept. 15 trial date "some seven weeks before the general election."

    The five men accused of mounting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed almost 3,000 people are to be arraigned June 5 at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — the most high-profile of the military commissions, as the war-crimes proceedings are called.

    "It is safe to say that there are senior officials in the military commission process who believe that there would be strategic political value to having these five men sitting in a death chamber on Nov. 4, 2008," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, one of the attorneys, referring to the date of the presidential elections.

    Davis recently testified that while he was chief prosecutor, "There was that consistent theme that if we don't get these (trials) rolling before the election, this thing is going to implode, and if you get the 9/11 guys charged it would be hard ... for whoever wins the White House to stop the process."

    The tribunals' legal adviser, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, denied there has been political pressure.

    "It has not existed at all," Hartmann told the AP on Wednesday. "I say that absolutely, without equivocation."

    But at an April 28 hearing for Osama bin Laden's former driver and bodyguard, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Davis testified that Hartmann pushed to pursue "sexy" cases over less dramatic ones.

    The military judge presiding over Hamdan's case subsequently ordered Hartmann's removal as legal adviser in that proceeding.

    Documents attached to the new filing showed the military acted against Davis less than a month after his testimony, saying he had served dishonorably and would be denied a medal for his more than two years as prosecutor.

    "You quit your position when you were needed because you did not want to be supervised by a superior officer with whom you had a difference of opinion," Col. Kelly Wheaton e-mailed Davis last Friday.

    Wheaton informed Davis that "no Defense decoration shall be awarded or presented to any Service Member whose entire service during or after the time of the distinguished act, achievement, or service has not been honorable."

    Davis wrote to a military defense attorney that he told Wheaton he had his sympathy if he was "unable to distinguish unlawful command influence from a personality conflict."

    Davis said he would no longer cooperate with the defense in Guantanamo cases because he feared further reprisals.

    "In the grand scheme of things, a medal is relatively insignificant," Davis wrote the military defense attorney. "There are greater matters — adverse action on my security clearance or a retirement grade determination, for example — with more far-reaching and lasting consequences."

    In their filing Wednesday to Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, the judge presiding over the Sept. 11 trial, the lawyers asked for Hartmann to be removed as legal adviser to war-crimes trials. Sixteen of the 260 men being held under indefinite detention at Guantanamo face trial after having been charged.

    It was signed by Navy Capt. Prescott Prince, lead military counsel for Mohammed; Navy Lt. Cmdr. James Hatcher, attorney for Waleed bin Attash, who investigators say selected and trained some of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers; Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, attorney for Ramzi Binalshibh, the alleged intermediary between the hijackers and al-Qaida; Mizer, attorney for Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, a nephew and alleged lieutenant of Mohammed; and Army Maj. Jon Jackson, representing Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, who allegedly helped finance the Sept. 11 attacks.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  9. #49
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    Army Judge Is Replaced for Trial of Detainee

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/wa...in&oref=slogin

    By WILLIAM GLABERSON
    Published: May 31, 2008

    The chief judge at Guantánamo replaced the military judge in one of the most closely watched war crimes cases on Thursday, creating a new controversy in the military commission system and the potential for new delays.

    The decision to replace the judge, Col. Peter E. Brownback III, came without explanation from the chief military judge, Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann. Judge Brownback has been presiding over pretrial proceedings in the prosecution of Omar Ahmed Khadr, a 21-year-old Canadian charged with the killing of an American serviceman in Afghanistan.

    Pentagon spokesmen said Judge Brownback, a retired Army judge who was recalled to hear Guantánamo cases in 2004, would return to retirement as a result of “a mutual decision” between the judge and the Army.

    But defense lawyers and critics of Guantánamo said there had been no warning of the change and suggested that he had been removed because of a recent ruling that was a rebuke to prosecutors.

    During a proceeding on May 8, Judge Brownback expressed irritation that military prosecutors had failed to turn over records of Mr. Khadr’s incarceration to defense lawyers. He threatened to stop pretrial proceedings if the records were not supplied by May 22. They met that deadline.

    At the time, Judge Brownback said he had been “badgered and beaten and bruised” by the chief military prosecutor in the case, Maj. Jeffrey D. Groharing, to move the case toward a trial quickly.

    Mr. Khadr’s military defense lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, on Friday called the replacement of the judge “very odd.”

    “The judge who was frustrating the government’s forward progress in the Khadr case,” Commander Kuebler said, “is suddenly gone.”

    A trial had been expected as soon as this summer.

    Major Groharing said on Friday that the prosecution had always acted ethically and “didn’t have anything to do with a new judge being assigned to this case.”

    Some of Judge Brownback’s rulings had been setbacks for Mr. Khadr, including a decision in April that rejected a central argument of the defense that Mr. Khadr, who was 15 when he was first detained, should not be prosecuted but granted protection as a child soldier.

    Jennifer Daskal, an observer for Human Rights Watch at Guantánamo, said the change of judges suggested “political meddling” in the process.

    In a terse e-mail message to a court clerk, Judge Kohlmann simply appointed a new judge, Col. Patrick Parrish.

    There are no listed telephone numbers for the chambers of Guantánamo judges and a spokesman for the Office of Military Commissions at the Pentagon, Capt. André Kok, said he could provide no way of reaching Judge Brownback.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  10. #50
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    Pakistani extremist sent funds to 9/11 team

    http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayA...ction=theworld

    2 June 2008

    WASHINGTON- Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali is alleged to have helped channel funds to the Al-Qaeda team which carried out the devastating attacks on September 11, 2001 on the United States.

    Ali is a nephew of another of the defendants, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused among other crimes of having masterminded the 2001 attacks. He is also a cousin of Ramzi Youssef, jailed in the US for a 1993 bomb attack on New York's World Trade Center.

    According to the US intelligence services, Ali was born in 1977 in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, whence his nickname 'Ammar the Baluchi'.

    Like his uncle, he was brought up in the Arab Gulf state of Kuwait before moving in 1998 to Dubai, where he became a computer programmer.

    Growing up as a radical, he is alleged to have taken part on his uncle's orders in the organization of the September 11, 2001 plot, sending money on several occasions to members of the network to fund their flying lessons in the United States.

    He tried to join up with the attackers. But in late August 2001, he was denied an entry visa for the United States because the US consulate in Dubai suspected he was planning to seek work in the United States.

    After the US offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan at the end of 2001, he took refuge, like Sheikh Mohammed in Pakistan.

    There he took part in plots to attack the US consulate in Karachi or western targets in Pakistan, which were not carried out.

    On April 29, 2003, he was captured during a police dragnet in Karachi, at the same time as Walid bin Attash, who is suspected of masterminding the October 2000 attack on the US destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.

    After their capture both men were handed over by the Pakistanis to the United States, and are believed to have spent several years in the Central Intelligence Agency's network of secret prisons around the world, before being transferred to the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

    In March 2007, during a initial hearing he denied any involvement in the attacks, saying he was a businessman who had transferred funds to help his acquaintances, according to a transcript published by the US military.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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