Man linked to al-Qaida wants to void plea deal

The man who admitted that he scouted the Brooklyn Bridge for al-Qaida lives in a federal maximum-security cell in Florence, Colo.

But Iyman Faris has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let him take back the agreement he signed in 2003 in which he pleaded guilty to helping the terrorists.

The court asked the government to respond to Faris’ appeal and will decide March 18 whether to hear it. In the meantime, new details about Faris and his dealings with the government have been revealed in court documents and through interviews with his lawyers. Faris is not permitted interviews.

His current attorney, David B. Smith, of Alexandria, Va., said Faris has helped in the war on terror. Faris told the government about an al-Qaida agent they hadn’t known about. And, Smith said, he tipped the U.S. government to Nuradin Abdi, the Somali immigrant accused of plotting to blow up a Columbus shopping mall.

For that, Smith said he thinks the government should at least cut time off Faris’ 20-year sentence.

But the government says Faris lied repeatedly, didn’t always cooperate and should not be trying to withdraw his plea. In addition, Faris has a history of shouldering arms for Muslim causes and readily talked about his days fighting in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Bosnia.

The government "thinks he’s guilty because he looks so dangerous," Smith said. "It’s not because they had a good case against him but because he’s potentially an extremely dangerous person."

Although Faris fingered Abdi, he probably won’t be called to testify against him, Abdi’s attorney, Mahir T. Sherif, has said.

One reason, Smith said, is that "my guy’s version of events doesn’t quite mesh with the government’s."

Faris told him that Abdi wanted to "shoot up a mall — like with a gun," Smith said. "Abdi wanted to teach the government a lesson for invading Iraq."

Smith said Faris described Abdi as "hot-headed and capable of doing something crazy." But Faris thought he’d talked Abdi out of it, telling him the plan "wasn’t good for the Islamic cause."

When the government filed papers to detain Abdi, Faris was listed as a co-conspirator. But Faris has not been charged.

In spring 2003, before he named Abdi and pleaded guilty to helping al-Qaida, Faris named a longtime friend who worked with Sept. 11 architect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Smith said.

Faris had been told that, if he provided valuable information, the government would try to get him a sentence of as little as 10 years.

The man Faris told on is identified in court papers only as Maqsood. Maqsood could "get things done" for al-Qaida, Faris told the government, and had introduced Faris to Mohammed and Osama bin Laden.

The government promised that his cooperation would be kept secret. To protect Faris’ family in Pakistan and avoid tipping off al-Qaida, a judge sealed Faris’ plea and all the information related to him.

But Faris’ first lawyer, J. Frederick Sinclair, and Smith say that some official in Washington, leaked Faris’ story. In June 2003, Newsweek magazine told of Faris, an Ohio truck driver who was involved in plots to down the Brooklyn Bridge, derail a passenger train and drive a truckload of explosives beneath a passenger plane as it sat on the ground. The story, attributed to an unnamed government source, said Faris had disappeared.

The Department of Justice said it had to calm the public’s fears because of the article. Over Sinclair’s objections, the seal was lifted.

At a news conference, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft said Faris had admitted scouting the bridge and helping al-Qaida and was cooperating with the government.

"Whether it was the Department of Justice or the Department of Defense, or another agency leaked the information, I have no idea," he said.

"But at that point, Faris felt betrayed. He was then put in security isolation because he was no longer a regular prisoner."

Faris seemed depressed. "All those were factors" in his decision to stop talking, Sinclair said.

Before the leak, the government had a good chance of capturing Maqsood in Pakistan, Smith said, but it "wrote off the effort for the sake of a press conference."

The government fears Faris, Smith said. "I understand why he gives people the willies."

Government documents say Faris was born Rauf Mohammed in Pakistani Kashmir on June 4, 1969. In 1986, Maqsood recruited him, and he trained and fought with fellow Muslims against forces from India. Both countries claim the disputed Kashmir territory.

While still a teenager, Faris went to Afghanistan, where he fought in the mountains against the invading Soviets. In one battle, Faris told Smith, his group of fighters captured 35 Soviet soldiers and executed them.

In 1992, he and two friends used false papers to pass through Turkey into Croatia and Bosnia. Faris said they were trying to get to Western Europe to find jobs. But they stayed in Bosnia and fought with the Muslims against the Serbs.

In Afghanistan and Bosnia, Faris was on the sides the United States was supporting.

Iyman Al-Ali, a friend who fought beside Faris in Bosnia, sold Faris his passport because Faris wanted to travel to the United States and the two looked alike. Dressed in Middle Eastern clothes, Faris flew to New York in March 1994 and passed easily through customs. He flew to Detroit and drove to Columbus, a city friends had told him was affordable.

He got a Social Security card and a driver’s license and began life as Iyman Faris.

Faris married an American in 1995 and became a U.S. citizen. They divorced in 2000. By that time, he had become a truck driver with a license to haul hazardous materials.

The FBI was looking at Faris as early as 2001. His ex-wife, Geneva Bowling, said agents asked her if she knew why he was in Pakistan.

"He left after our divorce, and I didn’t think he was going to come back," she said last week. "I wonder what sent up the red flag on him then."

Faris had been in Pakistan for a month in 1999. He also was there from May 2000 to May 2001 and from October 2001 to April 2002.

Maqsood took Faris to meet Mohammed during the latter two trips, and Faris agreed to gather information. Mohammed wanted to know if ultralight planes could be used for escapes and whether cutting torches could be used to sever the cables on the Brooklyn Bridge. He also wanted Faris to get torches and equipment that could derail trains by bending the tracks.

Mohammed "was very into Hollywood," Smith said. "He got the idea of severing the cables from a Godzilla movie. He only wanted to derail a train if it sent the train over a cliff."

Smith said Faris told investigators early in their conversations that he wanted to write a book about al-Qaida and was "just playing along."

The government said Faris made the book claim only when he began trying to take back his guilty plea. But Smith said the plea agreement has a provision that any money Faris earns from a book must be turned over to the U.S. government.

Faris’ name came up again in another FBI investigation. On March 19, 2003, two agents approached Faris in Cincinnati and briefly interviewed him. On March 20, they met again and Faris allowed them to search his apartment on Riverview Drive in Columbus. Later that day, the FBI learned that Mohammed, who had been captured in Pakistan, had fingered Faris.

Faris agreed to meet FBI agents at the Embassy Suites hotel in Dublin that night. Within two hours, he confessed that Mohammed had asked him to scout the Brooklyn Bridge, the government says.

Faris agreed to go to FBI headquarters in Quantico, Va. From March 21 to May 1, when he secretly pleaded guilty to helping al-Qaida, Faris had almost daily meetings with agents.

The government said Faris "virtually had room service." On April 9, agents even let his girlfriend from Columbus visit him.

"He was treated very well and the sessions were very cordial between Mr. Faris and the agents," a government brief says.

But two agents sat outside his rooms, Smith said. Faris was allowed out to take a walk only at night, and agents were always with him.

"He repeatedly asked for a lawyer," Smith said. "And the FBI told him, ‘You’re not going to jail, you don’t need a lawyer.’ So he continued to talk to them for a couple of weeks. Until he demanded a lawyer."

Smith said the government threatened to send Faris to Guantanamo Bay if he didn’t plead guilty and promised him as few as 7½ years in prison if he did. The government denies it ever threatened to send him to the military base on Cuba.

"The government had threatened to take him to Guantanamo as an enemy combatant," Sinclair said, "but I didn’t really take that seriously."

He and an assistant U.S. attorney from Virginia met with Faris two or three times and discussed returning to Columbus for a trial versus the plea offer.

Smith says they quickly worked out a deal. But Sinclair said, "I was urging him to go back to Columbus and try the case." Faris would have faced 30 years to life in prison if convicted at trial. But he would have been able to challenge whether his statements were voluntary, Sinclair said.

Smith said he thinks the government couldn’t use any of Faris’ statements at trial. They were gathered in violation of Miranda and Sixth Amendment rights, he said.

"My view is, the government couldn’t possibly have convicted him" without his statements.

In an appeals brief, the government says it was "able to corroborate significant portions of the evidence used against Faris." It then lays out the facts that Faris had agreed were true when he pleaded guilty:

• He and Maqsood went to Karachi, Pakistan, to get extensions on several airline tickets to be used by al-Qaida members traveling to Yemen. "We all knew what was going on, and you don’t ask questions," he told investigators.

Faris told agents that on his way to Buffalo, N.Y., with a delivery, he looked at the Brooklyn Bridge and concluded that the plan to cut the cables wouldn’t work. He sent a message by way of a Baltimore contact: "The weather is too hot."

Sinclair said the FBI’s report on interviews with Faris shows that he would say one thing one day, deny it the next and confirm it on the third day. "Because of that report, I think there was a factual basis to withdraw the plea."

He and Smith both say Faris’ story about scouting the Brooklyn Bridge is false. Faris told investigators he looked at the bridge on a trip from Columbus to Buffalo, but it would have been hundreds of miles out of his way. When asked for details, Faris said he checked out the bridge when he drove across it. But 18-wheelers such as the one he drove have been banned from the bridge for years.

Faris doesn’t deny that he sent a message to Mohammed saying "the weather is too hot." But he said he saw the bridge only on TV.

"The government says they have corroboration. but they could only prove he went to New York to deliver candles," Smith said.

Paul J. McNulty is the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. His office worked out the plea agreement with Faris. In a statement he released Friday, McNulty said, "Neither the Department of Justice nor the court would allow Mr. Faris to plead guilty if we believed the charges against him were not true."

Faris declines to leave his cell because he finds it degrading to be strip-searched going and coming, Smith said.

Sinclair said that when Faris spoke of Mohammed and bin Laden, he may have been "just blowing smoke."

But "the government feels strongly," he said, "and probably to this day believes he has a lot more information."

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The man who admitted that he scouted the Brooklyn Bridge for al-Qaida But Iyman Faris has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let him take back the agreement he signed in 2003 in which he pleaded guilty to helping the terrorists...

The government "thinks he’s guilty because he looks so dangerous," Smith said. "It’s not because they had a good case against him but because he’s potentially an extremely dangerous person."..

Notice the attorneys serious disconnect with reality.. "law school ethics" is an oxymoron. Ding Dong took a plea agreement...end of story.

The plea agreement would be with the U.S. Attorney in a U.S. District Court with a judge and his legal counsel not the feebs.

Feeb-gathered evidence, though.

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