U.S. case against Muslim scholar is religious attack: defense

Wvec.com ^ | 04/18/2005 | By MATTHEW BARAKAT / Associated Press

[Gengis Khan]

U.S. case against Muslim scholar is religious attack: defense

04/18/2005

By MATTHEW BARAKAT / Associated Press

The government's prosecution of a prominent Islamic scholar accused of recruiting for the Taliban in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks is an assault on religious freedom, a defense lawyer said Monday during the trial's closing arguments.

"The government wants you to think Islam is your enemy," said Edward MacMahon, who represents Ali al-Timimi, 41, of Fairfax. "They want you to dislike him so much because of what he said that you'll ignore the lack of evidence."

Prosecutors, on the other hand, said al-Timimi is on trial not because of unpopular political or religious views but because he specifically urged his followers to take up arms against U.S. troops just five days after the 9-11 attacks, and because several of them traveled half way around the world with just that intent.

"When Tony Soprano says 'Go whack that guy,' it's not protected speech," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg, drawing a comparison between al-Timimi and the fictional mob boss.

Al-Timimi, a native-born U.S. citizen who has an international reputation in some Islamic circles, is facing a 10-count indictment that includes charges of soliciting others to levy war against the United States and attempting to aid the Taliban.

The jury began deliberations Monday afternoon after hearing two weeks of testimony. If convicted, al-Timimi faces up to life in prison.

The government contends that al-Timimi told his followers during a secret meeting on Sept. 16, 2001, that they were obliged as Muslims to defend the Taliban against a looming U.S. invasion.

Just days after that meeting, four of those in attendance flew to Pakistan and joined a militant group called Lashkar-e-Taiba. Three of the four testified at al-Timimi's trial that their goal had been to obtain military training at the Lashkar camp and then cross the border to Afghanistan and join the Taliban. It was al-Timimi who inspired them to do so, the men testified.

None of the men actually made it to Afghanistan.

Kromberg said at the trial's outset that al-Timimi enjoyed "rock star" status among his followers. On Monday he said al-Timimi knew that the men at the Sept. 16 meeting — many of whom had played paintball games in 2000 and 2001 as a means to train for holy war around the globe — would do as he instructed them.

"These guys couldn't figure out how to tie their shoelaces without al-Timimi," Kromberg said.

But MacMahon said that al-Timimi merely counseled the men to leave the United States because it might be difficult to practice their religion in America in a post-Sept. 11 environment.

The three men who testified against al-Timimi at trial, he said, are all lying because they struck plea bargains with the government and are hoping to get their sentences reduced in exchange for helping the government.

MacMahon said it was two other men, Yong Ki Kwon and Randall Royer, who were the ones recruiting paintball members to join Lashkar-e-Taiba. Kwon, for instance, admitted that he and Royer had met a LET recruiter in the spring of 2001 on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Kwon also acknowledged that Royer had previously trained in Pakistan with Lashkar and that he had frequently encouraged others to join LET well before Sept. 11 and well before the government alleges al-Timimi's criminal conduct.

MacMahon pointed out to jurors that Kwon — one of the four who allegedly traveled to Pakistan at al-Timimi's urging — had placed 25 phone calls to the other three in the three days before al-Timimi allegedly made his first exhortation on the Taliban's behalf.

The government's case, MacMahon said, is built on a misperception that Islam is a sinister religion and its practitioners deserve strict scrutiny.

"Are you appalled that the federal government is reading the Quran to you" at this trial? MacMahon asked the jurors. The prosecution of al-Timimi "is a fundamental assault on the liberties we all hold so dear. ... If you don't believe our freedoms are under attack by this prosecution, you haven't been sitting here."

Kromberg disputed the notion that the government was casting aspersions on all Muslims.

"Ali Timimi does not speak for all Muslims. Ali Timimi speaks for his sect of Salafi Muslims," Kromberg said, referring to a sect of the religion often equated to Wahhabism, a puritanical form of Islam practiced by many of the leading clerics in Saudi Arabia, where al-Timimi once studied.

[piasa]

Ali Al-Timimi, Fairfax, Va. Islamic lecturer, U.S. son of Iraqi immigrants

[piasa]

* Ali al Timimi : The Islamic scholar, Ali Al-Timimi, 39, has confirmed through a spokesman that he is the subject of a grand jury investigation. According to the indictment, "conspirator #1" (Timimi) is the "spiritual leader" of the men. After 9/11, the government said, he prodded the defendants to fight jihad, called the United States an enemy of Islam, and declared U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan legitimate targets. Through a spokesman, Timimi, of Fairfax, Va., denied the accusations. The son of Iraqi immigrants is a doctoral student and researcher at George Mason University, using mathematical models to study cancer.

As an Islamic scholar, Timimi espoused a strict interpretation of the Koran. In one undated speech available online, Timimi says: "Our enemy until the day of judgment is the Christians, what we call the westerners or Europeans" - a reference his spokesman says was to a spiritual and social struggle, not violence.

"He's fundamentally opposed to violence," said Todd Gallinger, a spokesman for Timimi's lawyer, Martin McMahon. "He feels like he's being targeted because he's exercised his First Amendment rights to religion and to speech."

At the core of the Virginia jihad case, meanwhile, is a curious mystery: How did such an eclectic group - including a technology whiz from Pakistan, a decorated Gulf War veteran and member of the National Rifle Association, a Korean immigrant, a son of a Yemeni diplomat, and a Catholic-turned-Muslim from Missouri whose mother had been a nun - get caught up in the same net?
----------- "Tracing the case of 'Virginia jihad' , Terror charges link Montco to Kashmir" by Jennifer Lin, Mark Fazlollah, Maria Panaritis and Jeff Shields, Philadelphia Enquirer, Fri, Jul. 25, 2003

[Adrastus]

Edward Macmahon makes me want to vomit. He is the sort of lawyer that is interested in one thing only: win and make the money that goes with it. He/they have no interest in justice, only the money. he is the epitome of every bad lawyer joke you have ever heard. May his tongue turn black and rot the next time he tells a lie....which should be about 10 seconds after he wakes up in the morning.

[Gengis Khan]

Do you guys have death sentence in the American legal system? Coz if you dont, it might be a good idea to get it back.

[piasa]

Ali al-Timimi bump:

To: aristeides; angkor; Grampa Dave; browardchad; Cindy; Ernest_at_the_Beach; seamole; backhoe; ...

Anybody know if that big mosque near the Falls Church shoooting is a radical mosque?

You are talking about the Dar AL Hijrah mosque at 3159 Row Place, Falls Church, VA. That would be the windmill shaped building 700 feet from the Home Depot where the FBI agent was murdered.

The mosque/islamic center is where this group of eleven were said to meet to hear lectures by an Islamic lecturer: Ali Al-Timimi,

The Michael's craft store that Muhammad/Malvo visited twice earlier in 2002 is also in the same shopping center, so in my opinion, M&M must have visited this mosque in January and August 2002. I would even bet they ESCAPED to this mosque after the murder...

And with the LEADER of this group of 11 jihadists ALSO being a black Gulf I war veteran, Washington State native, and Islamic convert, I have to assume they met at some point and knew each other.

It is well-known that the dominant Muslim theology in Northern Virginia is Saudi Wahhabism, from the Dar al-Hijra mosque in Falls Church, to the phony "charitable foundations" Herndon, to the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences in Leesburg.
-------47 posted on 06/29/2003 4:17:46 PM PDT by FL_engineer

[piasa]

Note that Muhammad/Malvo refers to the Beltway shooters case. Some call them "snipers" but that's crediting them with too much.

[Gengis Khan]

" If convicted, al-Timimi faces up to life in prison. "

....is that the best you can do to him?..... I mean do you have "fake encounters" in your country?

[Cindy]

ON THE NET...

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/005697.php

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/regional/s_322506.html

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1381260/posts

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/532

http://news.lp.findlaw.com/ap/o/51/04-05-2005/afda000e1b638b3c.html

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:WGoAUoypwcwJ:www.usdoj.gov/usao/vae/ArchivePress/SeptemberPDFArchive/04/TimimiPR092304.pdf+%22al-Timimi%22&hl=en

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22al-Timimi%22&hl=en&lr=&filter=0

[piasa]

Yes, there is a death penalty. It comes with almost limitless appeals and all the lawyers a guy can desire, and so, it means there is considerable time and enormous costs passed on to the taxpayer before the buggers get executed. I'd prefer to go the low-cost way and deport, letting their home countries take care of them in their own creative ways. Or better yet, we could simply lose them some 45,000 feet over the Atlantic ocean and report a cargo door malfuntion. {Oops- he must have slipped!}

[Gengis Khan]

Or like all other jobs, you can outsource the trial to India.......we have a special affinity for members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

[piasa]

I'm no lawyer. That's the best that can be done to him under the charges he's been slapped with at the time that article was published. That doesn't mean those are the only charges, or the most serious ones, though. In most terror cases the first charges used to hold the accused in custody are minor ones that are easily proven. Such charges may increase the amount of bail to the point the accused must remain in jail until trial, or convince a judge the accused individual is a 'flight risk' that must be held to prevent escape until trial. That gives the officials the option to expand the charges later as their investigation proceeds, provided they can dig up sufficient additional evidence and witnesses to charge the individual with a capital offense.

Timimi kept his hands free of blood and let underlings do his bidding- that makes it harder to nail him for a capital crime.

You'd think treason charges would be in order but the way the Constitution was set up, trying someone for treason is a very difficult task and few prosecutors will go that route. In our system it's sometimes easier to put an evil man in prison and keep him there if he's charged with some lesser crime than it is to try for the death penalty and risk appeal. for example, Al Capone the gangster was responsible for killing a lot of people but it wasn't a murder charge that ended his career- it was income tax evasion, I believe.

As for Timimi, there may yet be more charges coming if he can be tied to a successful murder conspiracy such as the "beltway shooter" murders.

[piasa]

I wouldn't mind sending him over to India's loving arms. It's preferable to the guy sitting in a US prison and propagandizing, playing the role of a recruiter as so many have done.

[piasa]

The mosque where al-Timimi lectured to his associates in the "virginia jihad" cases is the same mosque where the September 11, 2001 hijackers found their contact who helped them obtain fake identification documents and licenses. There may yet be more charges lined up against Timimi on that conspiracy case, too. We just don't know yet.

There is a great web site you might be interested in for following the progress of various terrorist trials. It's called FINDLAW. Another is COURT TV

[Future Useless Eater]

thanks for the ping piasa!

Jihad Ringleader bump! (Ali Al-Timimi)
...and FOLLOWUP to this 2003 Falls Church Jihad story:

U.S. Officials Arrest 8 in `Virginia Jihad Network' (Update3)

piasa, I ALSO liked your idea of sending him to India on a plane with loose door hinges!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!