Should N.Y. Terror Suspects Get Bail?
— -- Defense: 6 N.Y. Terror Suspects Pose No Threat
B U F F A L O, N.Y., Oct. 3 — Mere possession of cassette tapes andpapers defending suicide attacks is not sufficient to deny bail tosix men suspected of comprising an al Qaeda-trained terror cell,defense lawyers argued today.
Last week, assistant U.S. Attorney William Hochul Jr. filed anaffidavit that said the tapes and papers recovered from the homesof defendants Sahim Alwan, Yasein Taher and Yahya Goba contain"highly incendiary" language referring to suicide missions andholy war.
As the bail hearing continued, defense lawyers for the sixLackawanna men of Yemeni descent argued the claim was weak, and notenough to keep them in jail without bail.
U.S. Magistrate H. Kenneth Schroeder said the discussion ofsuicide attacks "gets us back to the heart of the matter."
The judge said for purposes of discussion that the tapes anddocuments about suicide attacks "would not be a factor all byitself" for deciding whether to grant bail or to keep the menlocked up. The judge has said he plans to rule on bail next week.
"It's a leap to take these tapes and argue theirdangerousness," said Marianne Mariano, Goba's lawyer.
She said three cassettes described by the government were madein the early to mid-'90s and were available in a bookstoreassociated with the Lackawanna mosque. On the tapes, she said,"there is nothing that is anti-American, that incites or advocatesviolence against America."
Mariano argued that one of those tapes included what thegovernment described as sounds from a battlefield. She said that itis not uncommon for Arabic tapes to use gunfire in the background,likening it to the "Star-Spangled" Banner or a 21-gun salute. Shecalled the government's case "a desperate attempt" to try todetain the six men.
Rodney Personius, representing Taher, who prosecutors contendpossessed papers advocating martyrdom, said the documents weretaken out of context and selectively cited.
One of the documents included a section defining martyrdom thatlooked at the effectiveness of suicide attacks by Palestinians andChechen rebels.
"It's a position paper on this issue and it's written by areligious perspective," Personius said, adding it was a scholarlydocument.
He said "the mere possession" of these documents "should notbe enough to satisfy the government's burden."
Schroeder had planned to rule on the bail issue today, butpostponed his decision to give defense attorneys a chance tocounter the legal papers Hochul submitted last week.
The men, all in their 20s, are charged with providing materialsupport to foreign terrorists. If convicted, they could get up to15 years in jail and fines of up to $250,000.
In documents submitted last week, prosecutor Michael Battleargued that the absence of a U.S. extradition treaty with Yemen wasone reason why the men should be denied bail.
In separate documents, defense lawyers argued that the men poseno danger or flight risk. Families in Lackawanna, five miles southof Buffalo, have pledged more than $2 million worth of property toguarantee their presence at a trial.
The six, who lived just blocks from each other in Lackawanna,were arrested following the Sept. 11 anniversary. Two othersuspected cell members are believed to be in hiding in Yemen.Authorities say they believe one of them, Kamal Derwish, is theringleader.
At their arraignments last month, the judge entered innocentpleas on behalf of Alwan, 29, Faysal Galab, 26, Shafal Mosed, 24,Taher, 24, Goba, 25, and Mukhtar al-Bakri, 22.
All six say they went to Pakistan in the spring of 2001 topursue religious training. But Alwan and al-Bakri said the groupalso attended a military training camp in Afghanistan run by Osamabin Laden's al Qaeda network, according to their lawyers.
During their visit, Osama bin Laden appeared at the camp a fewmonths before the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Prosecutors said binLaden declared that there "is going to be a fight againstAmericans."
— The Associated Press
N.J. Poet Laureate Defends Poem Implying Israel Knew About 9/11N E W A R K, N.J., Oct. 3 — The state's poet laureate defended a poem hewrote implying that Israel knew of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacksin advance, and rebuffed the demand of Gov. James McGreevey that heresign and apologize.
Amiri Baraka asserted that the meaning of his poem, "SomebodyBlew Up America," has been distorted.
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