Man said to be linked to hijackers pleads guilty in Greensboro to voter fraud

GREENSBORO -- A Pakistani man federal officials have said is linked to hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks pleaded guilty today to voter fraud.

Imtiaz Ahmed Siddiqui entered the plea in a 15-minute federal court hearing in which no mention was made of the allegation that he may be acquainted with terrorists.

Siddiqui, 31, answering questions in halting English, admitted he claimed to be a U.S. citizen when he filled out a voter registration form in Durham in August, though he is actually a Pakistani citizen.

"Yes, I am," he said when U.S. District Judge James Beaty Jr., asked if he was guilty.

The U.S. District Court in Greensboro has jurisdiction over federal cases in Durham.

"He acknowledged he made a mistake by signing the form," defense lawyer Dan Boyce said after the hearing. "He is not a terrorist. He does not have any terrorist ties."

Sentencing was scheduled for March 14. Siddiqui faces maximum penalties of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Siddiqui was arrested Sept. 22 in Grand Rapids, Mich., where he had moved to take a new job, by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the FBI. He was indicted Oct. 30 on voter fraud charges by a federal grand jury in Greensboro.

An FBI affidavit alleged Siddiqui had been in touch with one hijacker involved in the crash in Pennsylvania, his court-appointed Michigan lawyer said. The affidavit alleges Siddiqui visited an Internet travel site at the same time as the hijacker, and they may have communicated.

Boyce said it was a coincidence that his client was on the Web site at the same time as a hijacker.

Siddiqui has a bond hearing scheduled for Friday afternoon in Winston-Salem. Boyce said in court papers that his client should be released because the FBI has no evidence to back up its claim.

More on Gore's effort to deny U.S. soldiers the vote:

From the U.K. telegraph 11/28/2000

Gored

[U.K. Paper says voters rejected Gore because of his stand on military voters ...]

FOR all his defiant words, and his apparent refusal to concede, it is hard to see how Al Gore can come back after his latest setback in Florida.

Three weeks after polling day, he is still behind George W Bush - despite four recounts, a certification of the results by state officials and numerous appeals to the courts. Ironically, Mr Gore's most recent reversal flowed from last week's decision by the Florida Supreme Court, which is dominated by Democratic appointees. Most attention focused on the rebuke administered to Katherine Harris, the Republican Secretary of State for Florida, which extended the deadline for certification. But, significantly, this was not long enough to give the contested counties sufficient time to conduct a full hand recount, thus prompting Miami-Dade to abandon its efforts. The Florida court's judicial hyper-activism, which in characteristically prescriptive fashion trammelled the discretion of state election officials, thus worked to the Republicans' advantage.

Indeed, the grounds on which the Florida Supreme Court could reverse itself, or the bases on which the US Supreme Court could overturn its decision, are not readily discernible. The legal threshold for such dramatic intervention is very high indeed. And recent federal precedents, such as Roe v Alabama in 1995, suggest that counting rules cannot be changed in midstream. In this instance, a narrow Republican lead in the race for the job of Chief Justice of Alabama was overturned by the state Supreme Court, which accepted Democratic arguments that unattested absentee votes were traditionally counted. This was then challenged by the Republicans on the grounds that there was no such precedent for this practice. The 11th Federal Circuit Court - which also covers Florida - reinstated the original result on the grounds that counting of the absentee votes had violated voters' equal protection rights. The lessons for those who want to include the "dimpled chads" are obvious.

But it is in the court of public opinion where Mr Gore's case now looks most shaky - the latest Washington Post-ABC poll indicated that 60 per cent of Americans sampled believed he should concede. He has been particularly weakened by the efforts of Democratic operatives to exclude overseas ballots of military personnel. There has not been so vigorous an attempt to exclude the votes of servicemen since 1944, when old-time Republicans and southern machines sought to frustrate Franklin Roosevelt's attempt to pass a federal law allowing soldiers to vote regardless of state rules: a sign of how the values of the Democratic Party have changed in the intervening half century plus. The manner in which Mr Gore's team has conducted itself since election day makes it hard to see how their standard bearer could unify the country, even if he is successful in achieving his ambition. His desperation suggests that he knows that the Democratic Party will not give him another chance four years hence

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