Alleged Terrorist May Get Tribunal
— -- Binalshibh May Be Tried Before Military Tribunal
W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 17 — Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the biggest prizes inthe U.S.-led war on terror, could be the first alleged terroristtried before a military tribunal, after interrogators try to learnall they can from the alleged al Qaeda lieutenant.
Officials said the decision on how to try Binalshibh, one of themost important captures since the Sept. 11 attacks, ultimatelyrests with President Bush.
Senior government officials, who spoke on condition ofanonymity, said the first priority is determining how muchinformation the United States can learn from Binalshibh aboutplanned attacks and the operations of Osama bin Laden's network.
"The primary and first goal is to get valuable intelligencefrom him and prevent further attacks," a senior intelligenceofficial said.
Any information extracted from Binalshibh could be used againstother terror defendants, and could also be used against Binalshibhhimself if he is tried before a military tribunal, lawyers said.
That information would probably be excluded from a traditionalcriminal trial, lawyers said. Similarly, a television news tape inwhich a man identified as Binalshibh freely boasts of involvementin the Sept. 11 attacks would probably be admissible at a tribunal.
"This is not a guy a lot of people are going to sit back andworry they got an innocent man," said Robert Turner, associatedirector of the Center for National Security Law at the Universityof Virginia.
Legal experts said Binalshibh fits the administration's criteriafor use of military tribunals: He is not a U.S. citizen, he wascaptured abroad, and he is allegedly a member of al Qaeda.
"He certainly fits the bill," said Neal Sonnett, a Miamicriminal defense lawyer who was an early critic of administrationplans to strip traditional legal protections from defendants triedbefore tribunals.
"If they are going to utilize military commissions to try anyof these folks, based on what we've heard about him he seems to bea likely candidate."
So far, there is no indication that any alleged terrorist hasbeen tried by a military tribunal, whose proceedings can be keptmuch more secret than ordinary courts. Some lawyers said theadministration may be waiting for a big enough fish.
Though not a member of Osama bin Laden's top leadership,Binalshibh is believed to have been a long-serving and determinedal Qaeda operative. He allegedly had a role in the USS Cole bombingand last year's terror attacks, and was a member of the al Qaedacell in Hamburg, Germany, which U.S. and German investigatorsbelieve planned and carried out the jetliner attacks.
Binalshibh may have intended to be the 20th suicide hijacker,but he failed repeatedly to enter the United States. He wascaptured in Pakistan last week and is now in U.S. custody.
His history heightens the public relations value of makingBinalshibh the first alleged terrorist tried before a tribunal,said Scott L. Silliman, director of Duke University's Center onLaw, Ethics and National Security.
"The administration needs to come out with a militarycommission to justify the political capital it invested withCongress and the public," said Silliman, who also was critical ofplans for tribunals when they were announced last fall.
Some of the initial criticism was tempered when theadministration issued detailed rules for tribunals in March thatwould give defendants many traditional legal rights. Defendantsstill do not have full constitutional protection, and the standardsof evidence are looser before a tribunal than before a traditionalcriminal court.
The U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is the mostlikely place to hold and interrogate Binalshibh, lawyers said.
At Guantanamo, Binalshibh could be interrogated for a longerperiod and with far fewer protections than if he were held insidethe United States. Bringing Binalshibh onto U.S. shores would makehim eligible for prosecution in the federal court system, but alsocould afford him constitutional and legal protections thegovernment would prefer to withhold, lawyers said.
—The Associated Press
U.S. Officials Identify Two Bin Laden Lieutenants
W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 17 — U.S. counterterrorism officials haveidentified two key lieutenants of Osama bin Laden — including analleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks — as the most activeplotters of several al Qaeda attacks during the past year.
While many top al Qaeda leaders went into hiding after Sept. 11,Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri have taken thelead in arranging new attacks with cells in the field, U.S.officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Mohammed, a Sept. 11 organizer who has risen to be one of binLaden's top planners, and al-Nashiri, al Qaeda's Persian Gulfoperations chief, are among roughly two dozen key lieutenants beingsought by the CIA, FBI and military in a worldwide manhunt.
While last week's capture of Ramzi Binalshibh in Pakistan mayshed light on both the Sept. 11 attacks and ongoing al Qaeda plots,U.S. officials say he was not a leader but an aide to Mohammed.Officials hope that by tracking down the leaders they can disruptterrorist plots and the multiple cells under their command.
Mohammed, a Kuwait-born Pakistani national, has been linked tothe April 11 suicide truck bombing of the Djerba synagogue inTunisia. At least 19 tourists, mostly Germans, were killed.
The suspected bomber, Nizar Naouar, spoke by phone with Mohammedabout three hours before the attack, German officials said. BinLaden's son Saad, seen as a rising star in al Qaeda, is alsosuspected of ties to the plot.
The Tunisia attack marked al Qaeda's first successful strikesince Sept. 11. The suicide bombing of the U.S. consulate inKarachi in June is also believed to be an al Qaeda operation, butwho commanded it has not been determined.
Mohammed, who is on the FBI's most-wanted terrorists list, hasbeen charged in connection with plots in the Philippines to bombtrans-Pacific airliners and crash a plane into CIA headquarters.Those were broken up in 1995. He is believed to be related to RamziYousef, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 World TradeCenter bombing.
"He's the most significant operational player out there rightnow," said a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, speakingrecently on the condition of anonymity.
U.S. counterterrorism officials believed Mohammed was in theAfghanistan-Pakistan region as recently as June.
The capture of Binalshibh, a Yemeni and planner in the Sept. 11attacks, probably has set Mohammed on the run, said VinceCannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism official.
"Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is probably in touch with all thecells, through other lieutenants," he said. "[Binalshibh] willknow where he is — or at least, where he was."
Al-Nashiri is more of a mystery. A Saudi who is also known asUmar Mohammed al-Harazi and Abu Bilal al-Makki, he is considered astep below Mohammed in al Qaeda's hierarchy.
He seems to have a particular hatred for the U.S. Navy, and issuspected of links to plots on four naval targets during the lastthree years.
Most recently, he has been tied to a failed al Qaeda plot tobomb U.S. and British warships crossing the Strait of Gibraltar,U.S. officials have said. Three Saudis were arrested in Morocco inJune in connection with that plot.
He is also suspected of being behind plans to bomb the 5th FleetHeadquarters in Bahrain, a plot revealed in January by a formeral Qaeda training camp commander captured by Pakistan after fleeingAfghanistan.
The 5th Fleet has responsibility for the Persian Gulf andprovides ships for the operations of U.S. Central Command, which isrunning the war effort in Afghanistan. It also supports theenforcement of the no-fly zone over southern Iraq, the U.N.economic embargo against Iraq and the monitoring of sea trafficfrom the Arabian Sea to the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.
The fleet headquarters went on high alert this week in response tonew threats tied to the Sept. 11 anniversary. It's unclear whetheral-Nashiri is linked to the alert.
Al-Nashiri is believed to be a mastermind of the October 2000bombing of the destroyer USS Cole, which was hit by a small boatfull of explosives at the port in Aden, Yemen.
He is similarly thought to be behind the attempt to bomb the USSThe Sullivans nine months earlier at Aden, which failed when thesuicide boat, overloaded with explosives, sank. U.S.counterterrorism officials also suspect he is tied to the 1998bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Officials have said al-Nashiri gave telephone orders to thebombers from the United Arab Emirates.
U.S. officials believe he was in Ghazni, Afghanistan, around thetime the war began last October. He is thought to have moved toPakistan when the Taliban fell.
A third top bin Laden lieutenant, Abu Zubaydah, remained activein plotting terrorist attacks after Sept. 11, but he was capturedin March in a joint U.S.-Pakistani raid in Faisalabad, Pakistan.
One of Zubaydah's associates, Omar al-Farouq, was al Qaeda'schief of operations in Southeast Asia before he was captured andturned over to U.S. authorities. His warnings led in part to theSept. 10 worldwide terrorism alert.
—The Associated Press
Terror Hearings to Mention Pre-9/11 Clues
W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 17 — U.S. intelligence agencies had picked up reports of threats about attacks planned for inside the United States and of using airplanes as weapons during the summer before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but had been more focused on the possibility of an attack overseas, a congressional source said today.
But there was no information that specified date, time, place and method of attack that would have pointed to the attacks on New York and Washington, the source familiar with a congressional inquiry into intelligence failures told reporters.
"What you're going to find is that there was reporting on domestic attacks in the U.S. even though a lot of people were much more focused on overseas," the source said.
"You're going to see specific reporting about aircraft as weapons and what the intelligence community had on aircraft as weapons prior to 9/11," the congressional source said referring to information that will be revealed on Wednesday at the first open hearing of the joint congressional inquiry.
—Reuters
Report: Cantor Fitzgerald Says Terror Victims Fund Is Unfair
N E W Y O R K, Sept. 17 — Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm that lost two-thirdsof its employees in the World Trade Center attack, has concludedthat the federal compensation fund for the terror victims is unfairand violates several laws, according to a published report.
The bond broker, which lost 658 of the 1,050 people employed atits headquarters on Sept. 11, 2001, is expected to submit a reportto the federal government this week, The New York Times reportedtoday.
The report contains numerous objections to the way the paymentsare being calculated, and claims that the fund has placed anartificial cap on awards to highly paid employees like those atCantor, the Times said.
It argues that capping payments violates the legislation thatcreated the fund, which was part of the airline bailout bill passedby Congress after the terrorist attacks.
The report also argues that basing lost income on after-taxprojections is illegal under New York State law, and that presumedpayments of $250,000 for pain and suffering are "woefullyinadequate," the Times said.
When reached by the Times, Kenneth Feinberg, the fund's specialmaster, said he had not seen the report and could not comment onit.
"I look forward with great interest to receiving it," he toldthe Times. "I will review it with great care, because anythingthat will help me in the difficult task of computing awards inindividual cases, I welcome." Still, Feinberg reiterated his previous statements that "therewill be no change in the final rules and regulations."
The fund's awards are based on a formula that includes earningpotential and a non-economic payout for pain and suffering of$250,000. Another $100,000 is added for a spouse or each dependentchild, and life insurance and workers compensation payments arededucted.
Families who chose to participate in the fund must relinquishthe right to sue the airlines and other entities.
Cantor Fitzgerald's formula for calculating awards for itsrelief fund uses gross income and higher estimates of futureearnings than those used by the government, the Times said.
—The Associated Press
Pakistani Accused of Threatening to Kill Bush Mistakenly Freed
W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 17 — Jailers mistakenly freed a student fromPakistan who threatened to kill President Bush a week after theSept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to a published report.
The student, Khushal Khan, and three other inmates weremistakenly freed last month, but Khan and one of the others laterturned themselves in, The Washington Post reported in today's editions.
The District of Columbia jail was supposed to take Khan tofederal authorities for a deportation hearing, the newspaper said.
Khan was on a student visa, studying for a master's degree inengineering at George Washington University, when he allegedlywrote a threatening e-mail to Bush.
The jail records office has been blamed in the mistaken releaseof at least nine inmates this year, including the four last month.
Khan and another of the inmates turned themselves in after theywere discharged between Aug. 19 and Aug. 25, the Post said. Oneother who was serving six months for domestic abuse wasapprehended. The fourth, wanted for violating her release after adrug conviction, remains at large.
—The Associated Press