IJ Reilly
Dec 21, 2003, 02:27 PM
The Justice Dept. tally of more than 280 suspects detained for prosecution after Sept. 11 is inflated with dismissed and unrelated cases.
By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer
PITTSBURGH — In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Ali Alubeidy was in the cross hairs of the Justice Department, singled out as a potential terrorist by no less than U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft.
In fact, he was guilty — of paying off a corrupt bureaucrat to get a commercial driver's license, including a permit to transport hazardous materials. His sentence: three years' probation.
But the terrorism case against him never got off the ground. Prosecutors soon realized he was not a terrorist or involved in any terrorist organization, and even said so publicly.
To the Justice Department, however, Alubeidy, and a group of 19 other Middle Eastern men caught up in the driver's license scam, still count. They are included on a list of more than 280 cases that the department cites as evidence that it is winning the war on terrorism.
The growing list has been regularly highlighted by Ashcroft and other Justice Department officials in speeches and congressional testimony, and even by President Bush. In an address to federal law enforcement officials on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush referred to the "more than 260 suspected terrorists" that the government has hauled to court.
In October, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Christopher Wray, the Justice Department's criminal division chief, cited the growing number of charges resulting from terrorism probes — which then stood at 284 defendants — as evidence that the department has "enjoyed key successes" in the anti-terrorism war.
Last month, in a speech before a Justice Department liaison group for federal attorneys, Ashcroft cited terrorism-related criminal charges against 286 people, declaring "we have been successful."
But a Times review of a sampling of the cases behind the numbers, based in part on internal Justice documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, paints a more ambiguous picture.
[...]
In his speeches and testimony, Ashcroft has homed in on the most notorious cases, including that of Richard Reid, who was convicted of trying to blow up a Paris-to-Miami flight with explosive-packed shoes in December 2001, and members of suspected terrorist cells from Buffalo, N.Y., to Portland, Ore., where defendants have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for providing material support to Al Qaeda.
But the list obtained by The Times also includes two New Jersey men, operators of small grocery stores, who were convicted of accepting hundreds of boxes of stolen breakfast cereal, in a crime that occurred 16 months before the terrorist hijackings.
Also included is a Somali who was convicted in federal district court in Boston of operating an unlicensed money-transfer business, in which the judge rebuked prosecutors for trying to have him sentenced as a terrorist.
The Bush administration subsequently removed the Somali man's name from a list of suspected terrorism financiers, although he and a partner remain on the Justice Department's list of terrorism-related prosecutions.
Justice officials have said gauging the number of people who have been prosecuted as a result of terrorism-related investigations is a useful tool in analyzing the department's performance and informing the public, regardless of whether they turn out to be terrorists.
But critics say the approach misleads the public about the kind of threat that is being extinguished. Their suspicions were further fueled by a Syracuse University study this month showing that the median sentence for defendants in international terrorism cases won by the department is two weeks.
"The masses of Americans, they probably think, if Bush says they are suspected terrorists, they probably are. They are not going to question that," says Lee Markovitz, a Pittsburgh attorney who represented Alubeidy, the man put on probation for paying a bribe to get a driver's license.
"It's easy to be a suspected terrorist," Markovitz adds. More... (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pittsburgh21dec21,1,2211339.story)
By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer
PITTSBURGH — In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Ali Alubeidy was in the cross hairs of the Justice Department, singled out as a potential terrorist by no less than U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft.
In fact, he was guilty — of paying off a corrupt bureaucrat to get a commercial driver's license, including a permit to transport hazardous materials. His sentence: three years' probation.
But the terrorism case against him never got off the ground. Prosecutors soon realized he was not a terrorist or involved in any terrorist organization, and even said so publicly.
To the Justice Department, however, Alubeidy, and a group of 19 other Middle Eastern men caught up in the driver's license scam, still count. They are included on a list of more than 280 cases that the department cites as evidence that it is winning the war on terrorism.
The growing list has been regularly highlighted by Ashcroft and other Justice Department officials in speeches and congressional testimony, and even by President Bush. In an address to federal law enforcement officials on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush referred to the "more than 260 suspected terrorists" that the government has hauled to court.
In October, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Christopher Wray, the Justice Department's criminal division chief, cited the growing number of charges resulting from terrorism probes — which then stood at 284 defendants — as evidence that the department has "enjoyed key successes" in the anti-terrorism war.
Last month, in a speech before a Justice Department liaison group for federal attorneys, Ashcroft cited terrorism-related criminal charges against 286 people, declaring "we have been successful."
But a Times review of a sampling of the cases behind the numbers, based in part on internal Justice documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, paints a more ambiguous picture.
[...]
In his speeches and testimony, Ashcroft has homed in on the most notorious cases, including that of Richard Reid, who was convicted of trying to blow up a Paris-to-Miami flight with explosive-packed shoes in December 2001, and members of suspected terrorist cells from Buffalo, N.Y., to Portland, Ore., where defendants have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for providing material support to Al Qaeda.
But the list obtained by The Times also includes two New Jersey men, operators of small grocery stores, who were convicted of accepting hundreds of boxes of stolen breakfast cereal, in a crime that occurred 16 months before the terrorist hijackings.
Also included is a Somali who was convicted in federal district court in Boston of operating an unlicensed money-transfer business, in which the judge rebuked prosecutors for trying to have him sentenced as a terrorist.
The Bush administration subsequently removed the Somali man's name from a list of suspected terrorism financiers, although he and a partner remain on the Justice Department's list of terrorism-related prosecutions.
Justice officials have said gauging the number of people who have been prosecuted as a result of terrorism-related investigations is a useful tool in analyzing the department's performance and informing the public, regardless of whether they turn out to be terrorists.
But critics say the approach misleads the public about the kind of threat that is being extinguished. Their suspicions were further fueled by a Syracuse University study this month showing that the median sentence for defendants in international terrorism cases won by the department is two weeks.
"The masses of Americans, they probably think, if Bush says they are suspected terrorists, they probably are. They are not going to question that," says Lee Markovitz, a Pittsburgh attorney who represented Alubeidy, the man put on probation for paying a bribe to get a driver's license.
"It's easy to be a suspected terrorist," Markovitz adds. More... (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pittsburgh21dec21,1,2211339.story)
