| Why Al-Arian Walked |  |
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 9, 2005
Posted on 12/09/2005 4:56:26 AM PST by SJackson
My friend, Michael Eisenstadt, dedicated his life, among other things, to seeing terrorist leader Sami Al-Arian face justice.
In September, Mike, spokesman for Tampa's Jewish community, died of lung cancer. While his passing is a source of great sadness, I'm glad Mike didn't get to see Al-Arian's acquittal, Tuesday.
It was a sad day in America, but not one that was unexpected. At least by me. Everyone predicted that the jury would throw the book at the man who was a founder of terrorist group Islamic Jihad, and ran its worldwide headquarters from his University of South Florida offices.
But not me.
I followed the trial and predicted all along (here and here) that Sami Al-Arian and his three co-defendants would walk. Why? Because our Justice Department, while desperate for victories, is really not serious about the War on Terror. In fact, more important to Gonzalez and Company (and before that, Ashcroft and Company) is outreach to radical Islamic individuals and groups that support terrorists like Al-Arian and prosecution of anything they perceive as "hate crimes" against those Muslims.
One need only look at the Justice Department record of fighting terrorism in court. It's a complete failure.
It's not just this case, blown big-time by Assistant U.S. Attorney Cherie Krigsman, but a host of other high profile case that were either flat-out lost or botched beyond belief.
Take the Sami Omar Al-Hussayen. A Saudi graduate student living in Boise, Idaho, he used his computer expertise to set up websites for Islamic terrorist groups and help them recruit members and financial donors. The evidence was pretty clear. One of the sites urged followers to use planes as weapons, flying them into American buildings. And that was BEFORE 9/11. And did I mention, he was here illegally?
Yet, the Justice Department--with all resources at its disposal--managed to lose. Al-Hussayen was acquitted.
Then, there is the Detroit Al-Qaeda terror cell trial. It was the first major jury terror trial after 9/11. The four men he was trying lived in Detroit house they shared with Nabil Al-Marabh, a Bin Laden associate who was among the FBI's 25 most wanted. They had over 100 extremist jihadi tapes urging the murder of Americans, Christians, and Jews. They also took videotape of major American sites and tourist attractions with girls singing Al-Qaeda songs in the background of the tapes. They had diagrams of American and Israeli F-16 and AWACS planes and their order of take-off from the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.
Sounds like a slam-dunk, right? Well, not exactly.
Prosecutor Richard Convertino's superiors at the Justice Department repeatedly, deliberately put obstacles in his way at every turn. His own boss, then-U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Collins, didn't want Convertino to win this case, let alone pursue it. The men had ties to Detroit's Islamic community, whom the ambitious Collins was aggressively courting, ad absurdum.
The accused terrorists received thousands of dollars in federal job training money from a major Detroit Arab welfare agency, dominated by Muslims. The "job training" consisted of commercial driving lessons and attempts to get hazardous materials hauling certificates--exactly what an Al-Qaeda operative wanting to blow things up would have on his Ramadan gift wish list. Collins could not afford to see these men convicted because it would embarrass the Islamic community and--especially--himself.
So when Convertino won terror convictions against the Detroit terror cell, Collins and the Justice Department higher-ups, like then-Assistant Attorney General James Comey and Justice Department official Barry Sabin set to get the convictions overturned. They began a witch-hunt investigation and searched Convertino's office, looking for ways to get his successful verdict against terrorists overturned. They also set out to destroy Convertino's reputation in a campaign of whispers in cooperation with the case's judge, Gerald Rosen and a fabricating Detroit News reporter.
Since then, Detroit's new U.S. Attorney, Stephen Murphy III, has made it his priority to prosecute not terrorism, but trumped up "hate crimes" against Detroit area Muslims.
Remember, this is OUR Justice Department. But it seems like someone else's. Someone who prays at an extremist mosque and wants to destroy America.
Then, there is Cherie Krigsman, the "prosecutor" in the Al-Arian trial. She could have taken a few lessons from Convertino. He had as much evidence as she did in her trial. But he knew how to trim the fat from the meat. Krigsman took over five months to put on her case--five months in which she threw in every piece of evidence no matter how weak, causing jurors' eyes to repeatedly glaze over. A Tampa TV reporter I know told me that he and other reporters were so bored, they stayed awake by betting on which juror would fall asleep next.
Clearly Krigsman was out of touch with the jury and didn't know what she was doing. She had strong evidence, including a videotape of Al-Arian at the Cleveland Mosque--at which he was proudly identified as the chief of "armed operations" for Islamic Jihad and he and the Cleveland Mosque imam, Fawaz Abu Damra, call for violent jihad and death to America, Christians, and Jews. She had evidence of money transfers, a letter to Kuwait in which Al-Arian speaks of a merger with "the brothers in HAMAS" which is almost complete, a speech in which Al-Arian calls for a river of gushing blood. Krigsman's case should have taken a month to put on, but instead she took more than five--confusing the jury with a myriad of weak evidence that ended up overwhelming the strong stuff.
Then, there is the judge. Federal Judge James S. Moody, a Clinton appointee, is the Dancing Judge Ito of terror trials. Caught up in the glamour of intense media coverage, he used the trial to showcase his bad nightclub-style comedy act, just like Judge Rosen in the Detroit terror trial. When a female attorney objected to the inclusion of a certain male juror, he joked that he would get the attorney his phone number after the trial. When Krigsman wrapped up cross-examination on a witness, saying "And finally," Moody interrupted with, "You're teasing us, right?" Not the kind of guy you want overseeing a serious terror trial.
If anything is an argument for treating terrorists as a national security problem, instead of a legal one in the courts, this is it. But the judge, jury, and prosecutors are exemplary of America's psyche, today. We've fallen asleep again, forgotten 9/11, and don't take Islamic terrorism very seriously.
Contrast that with the brave men of yesteryear. Sixty years ago, the Nuremberg trials of Germany's most heinous war criminals began. "The were evil men, and what they did was our task to expose," American Nuremberg prosecutor Whitney Harris, now 93, remembers. "And we did get the evidence and we were able to do so." Twelve of the 21 men on trial were sentenced to death, six received tough prison terms, and only three were acquitted.
Back then, most Americans knew what we were fighting, had the resolve to do it, and we beat the Nazis. Today, we're just too busy with XBox 360 to notice--or give a damn.
I thought there were still charges pending against Al-Arian?
ping
Really, what can be said about this travesty?
What will it take?
Al Arian is not out of the woods yet, there are still charges pending. Remember they got Al Capone on tax evasion and he died of syphillis during his prison sentence.
He was acquitted on eight of the charges, and on the other 9, the jury was hung, so he is still able to be prosecuted again, in a new trial, on those.
come on, lets face the million pound elephant sitting on our flat heads, shall we? it is the us govt that is guilty of crimes against its citizens for letting this terrorist go free, nothing more and nothing less.
Most of the machinery of the feral gummint has been in the hands of America-hating activist "Democratic" party hacks for decades and the situation was made way worse during the eight years the Cli'ton Crime Family was at the controls.
The Bush administraion has overlooked or has kept on thousands of Cli'ton appointees, not one of whom would put America's interests ahead of those of the Cli'tons' dog.
I don't think that's it. I think it has to do with strong friendships and pecuniary relationships between Americans in high places and the enemy.
oh, puleese...
Dubya shoulda done what the Ol'Spermanater did...fire all the AGs and replace them with his own...
More two faced crap from our government. Talk tough in public and act like a bunch of sissie appeasers behind the scenes.
..........................................
yes, you may say please while al quedas navy prowls the worlds oceans. look for the patterns, they dont lie.
It might just be a case of ordinary, everyday prosecutor incompetence. I am serving today as a member of a panel that has been put together to instruct young prosecutors on how to put together a winning case. One of the things I will discuss with them is the concept, "less is more." A successful prosecution gets straight to the point as efficiently and powerfully as possible and keeps the jurors' attention from straying into byways and alleys. It appears here that the prosecutor took the jury on a five month turtle crawl through every back alley and cul-de-sac in a very dull city.
"the us govt that is guilty of crimes against its citizens"
oh, puleese....
Just look at the trial of Hillary's finance director for her 2000 senatorial campaign. By the end of the trial the assistant U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case stated to the jury that none of what the finance director was alleged to have done done benefited Hillary's campaign, completely undercutting the government's case. It would really be nice to see Libby treateed the same way.
i can lead a horse to water, but i cant make you drink, good luck with your denial, and that aint no river.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.