AP: Administration Freed Terror Suspect

[DoYouEverWonder]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&e=3&u=/ap/20040603/ap_on_re_us/terror_suspect_deported

WASHINGTON - Nabil al-Marabh was No. 27 on the FBI's list of terror suspects after Sept. 11. He trained in Afghanistan's militant camps, sent money to a roommate convicted in a foiled plot to bomb a hotel and boasted to an informant about plans to blow up a fuel truck inside a New York tunnel, FBI documents allege. The Bush administration set him free ? to Syria ? even though prosecutors had sought to bring criminal cases against him and judges openly expressed concerns about possible terrorist ties.

Al-Marabh served an eight-month jail sentence and was sent in January to his native Syria, which is regarded by the United States as a sponsor of terrorism. The quiet disposition of his case stands in stark contrast to the language FBI agents used to describe the man.

<snip>

At one point in late 2002, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago drafted an indictment against al-Marabh on multiple counts of making false statements in his interviews with FBI agents. Justice headquarters declined prosecution. Fitzgerald declined through a spokesman to discuss the reasons.

<snip>

In Detroit, prosecutors developed evidence but weren't allowed to bring a case connecting al-Marabh to the terror cell there.

One of those prosecutors, longtime career Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino, recently sued Ashcroft, alleging the Justice Department improperly interfered with prosecuting terrorists. Justice says Convertino is under investigation for possibly withholding a piece of evidence from defense lawyers in the Detroit terror case.


BTW: Patrick Fitzgerald is now the Special Prosecutor in the Plame case.

[k in IA]

1. Sounds like a complete and total mess. This is what you get

when you stick a person with no respect for the law in as Attorney General. He only respects the law if he agrees with it, otherwise, anything goes. His interference in the decisions of career prosecutors regarding the death penalty and anything else he feels like just shows what an incompetent, religious gasbag he is.

We thought we were ride of him when he lost to a dead man. AARGGH

[many a good man]

2. Are you sure it wasn't some liberal activist judge?

Cognitive...dissonance...cracking....nothing makes sense any more.

/sarcasm

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. It was the Justice Dept

that intervened and let him go.

[central scrutinizer]

3. they also sent some Canadian to Syria

to languish for a year on some unspecified charges - I don't have a link or remember the name.

[fearnobush]

5. Perhaps, and only perhaps he was set free to plan for the

October surprise? Could there be an other MIHOP in the making?

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

6. Connections to the BFEE?

Could be.

[Moderator]

7. duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x597957