Free Republic

<p>October 29, 2003 -- ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Iyman Faris, an Ohio truck driver who now denies casing the Brooklyn Bridge to see if it could be destroyed, was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison for providing support to al Qaeda. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema handed down the maximum sentence possible after rejecting a request by Faris, 34, and his lawyer to withdraw the guilty plea he had entered May 1.</p>

'A Secret, Double Life' Alleged in Case of Ohioan Who Admitted Aiding Terrorists By Andrew Welsh-Huggins Associated Press Writer Published: Sep 23, 2003 COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Geneva Bowling started buying gas at H&M Auto because of its low prices. She kept going back because of the handsome, Pakistani-born cashier. Soon, she and Iyman Faris were dating, going out to eat at Middle Eastern restaurants or watching action movies. She noticed Faris bonded with her then 10-year-old son, Mike. The marriage lasted five years before arguments over money and housework led to an amicable divorce in April 2000. Bowling says...

Captured al-Qa'eda man was FBI spy By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 23/06/2003) The American al-Qa'eda operative unmasked last week as having planned to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge was first detained in March, and has been used by the FBI for months as a double agent, it was reported yesterday. Iyman Faris US authorities waited until last week to announce a plea bargain struck with Iyman Faris, a Pakistani-born lorry driver ordered to scout out terror targets, including the New York landmark. They did not say that Faris, who was also ordered to study ultralight aircraft, and the possibility...

<p>An al Qaeda sleeper agent "wrapped in his cloak of American citizenship" has secretly pleaded guilty to aiding Osama bin Laden by scouting out bridges and railroads for destruction in New York and Washington, Attorney General John Ashcroft said yesterday.</p>

Lawyers for John Walker Lindh, the American who fought with the Taliban, claim he was systematically brutalised and threatened with 'torture and death' after US troops seized him. The claims come as his lawyers prepare to argue that he was a soldier of the Taliban, not an anti-US terrorist. At the centre of his defence will be his claim that the witness statement he provided to his FBI interrogators was given under duress and in the hope of ending his mistreatment. Lindh is being tried in an ordinary court and will not face the death penalty, unlike foreign prisoners, who...