Georgetown Security Law Brief

Opinion: The appeal of the courts

03/26/13: Foreign Policy published an article by Phillip Carter and Deborah Pearlstein arguing we've already figured out how to win the legal war on terrorism. The Justice Department in fact has a far better record than the Defense Department in prosecuting and convicting terrorist suspects. Surveillance abroad by military and intelligence agencies, strong allied cooperation, coupled with US prosecution and incarceration -- has now been used successfully in a range of cases. This blended, postwar approach works precisely because the military plays a supporting, not a leading, role. A number of foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies are far more likely to cooperate with their American intelligence and law enforcement counterparts than they are with the US military. This was true in the Abu Ghaith case for Turkey and Jordan, two key allies in the counterterrorism effort against al Qaeda, both of which cooperated with US intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The same was true in the Harun case, in which Italian authorities gave the suspect to the United States upon assurances he would be prosecuted in civilian court -- and not transferred to Guantánamo Bay or charged before a military commission. Let's be clear: This is not a call for a law-enforcement-only approach. It is not a rejection of military force (including the power to detain) when a public case can be made that force is necessary to US national security and in keeping with our obligations under domestic and international law. The time has come for the United States to transition from its current war footing to a long-term, sustainable counterterrorism strategy

US jails Chinese engineer for exporting trade secrets

03/26/13:  The BBC reports a US court has sentenced a Chinese national to more than five years in prison for illegally exporting military trade secrets to China. Liu Sixing, who formerly worked in US company L-3 Communications, was accused of taking information on US missile, rocket and drone technology to China. He was convicted of exporting military information, possessing stolen trade secrets, and lying to the authorities. Liu says he did not break the law, or intend to pass secrets to China. Liu Sixing, who was also known as Steve Liu, worked in L-3 Communications' space and navigation unit in New Jersey from 2009-2010 as a senior engineer. Prosecutors say he stole thousands of computer files in 2010, and took them to China on his personal computer, where he gave presentations about the technology he was working on to universities and conferences linked to the Chinese government. Prosecutors say he transported the files, which included information on the performance and design of guidance systems for missiles, rockets and unmanned drones, in the hope that it would help him gain future employment in China. Technical military data covered by US export regulations cannot be taken out of the country without a license.

Terrorist has cooperated with US since secret guilty plea in 2011

03/26/13:  The New York Times reports a Somali terrorist with ties to Al Qaeda whose capture and interrogation aboard a United States naval ship in 2011 fueled debate about the Obama administration’s counterterrorism tactics secretly pleaded guilty in Manhattan and has been cooperating with the authorities, court documents released on Monday show. The terrorist, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, served as a military commander with the Shabab in Somalia and worked as a liaison with Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, including brokering a deal for the Shabab to buy weapons directly from the Qaeda group, the government has said. The newly unsealed court papers show Mr. Warsame pleaded guilty in a closed court proceeding in Manhattan in December 2011, about five months after he was brought to New York. After the plea, he met weekly with the government for hours at a time, disclosing intelligence information about his Shabab and Qaeda co-conspirators, who included “high-level international terrorist operatives,” prosecutors said in one highly redacted letter dated March 2012. In the letter, the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, asked a federal judge to keep Mr. Warsame’s plea confidential, noting that his information had opened new lines of investigation and developed new targets for the government. Since it was announced in July 2011, the Warsame case has been seen as a test of the administration’s approach in the use of the military and civilian court systems and its desire not to send a new prisoner to the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Mr. Warsame, a Somali in his mid-20s, commanded hundreds of fighters in battle in Somalia, and in 2009 and was sent by senior Shabab leaders to Yemen to train with the Qaeda group there, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or AQAP, a prosecutor, Benjamin Naftalis, said in a 2011 document

Zimbabwe High Court orders release of human rights lawyer

03/25/13: The Miami Herald reports Zimbabwe’s High Court Monday ordered the immediate release of a prominent human rights lawyer detained for eight days for obstructing justice.  Court officials said Beatrice Mtetwa was asked to post a $500 bail and her release papers will be prepared Monday.  High Court Judge Joseph Musakwa ruled that Mtetwa was following professional legal procedures when she demanded to see a search warrant from police at the offices of four officials in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s party.  Those officials are accused of illegally compiling information on high level corruption and will appeal for bail later Monday.  Mtetwa and the four officials deny any wrongdoing.  Lawyers’ groups have cited the arrests as intimidation against opponents of President Robert Mugabe by loyalist police and officials ahead of elections around July.

DR Congo's Bosco Ntaganda in ICC custody

03/22/13:  The BBC reports Congolese war crimes suspect Bosco Ntaganda has left Rwanda and is on the way to The Hague in the custody of the International Criminal Court. Gen Ntaganda, a key figure in the conflict in eastern DR Congo, surrendered to the US embassy in Kigali on Monday. The ICC has charged him with 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which Gen Ntaganda denies. A date for his first appearance before judges is expected to be set soon. Gen Ntaganda is the first suspect to surrender himself voluntarily to the ICC's custody. Known as "The Terminator", Gen Ntaganda has fought for a number of rebel groups as well as the Congolese army. Most recently, he was believed to be one of the leaders of the M23 rebel movement, which has been fighting government troops in the east. He is accused of seven counts of war crimes and three counts of crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Ituri, DR Congo, between 2002-2003. The charges include enlisting child soldiers, murder, rape and sexual slavery.The DR Congo government has said that Gen Ntaganda, who comes from the Tutsi ethnic group, crossed into Rwanda on Saturday after he and some of his followers were defeated by a rival faction of the M23 group. Eastern DR Congo has long suffered from high levels of violence linked to ethnic rivalries and competition for the control of mineral resources.

Italy-India row: Rome to send marines back for trial

03/22/13:  The BBC reports two Italian marines accused of murdering two Indian fishermen, in a case that has sparked a diplomatic row, are to be sent back to Delhi for trial. The Indian government had allowed them to return to Italy to vote in last month's election. But when they failed to return, India's Supreme Court ruled Italy's ambassador was barred from leaving the country. The Italian government said it had received assurances about the men's treatment and their human rights. The marines, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, are accused of shooting the fishermen off the Kerala coast in February 2012. The marines had been guarding an Italian oil tanker and said they mistook the fishermen for pirates. The marines, who had been out on bail awaiting trial, were allowed to fly back to Italy for the February 2013 general election on condition that they returned to stand trial by 22 March. Italian ambassador Daniele Mancini gave his personal assurance that they would return within four weeks. But then Rome decided that they would not fly back to Delhi, arguing that India was violating international law by putting them on trial, as the shooting had taken place in international waters.

Judge denies Fort Hood shooting suspect’s attempt to plead guilty

03/21/13:  The Washington Times reports the Fort Hood soldier charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the 2009 military post rampage cannot plead guilty, a judge ruled Wednesday. The Associated Press reports that Maj. Nidal Hasan’s attorneys said he wanted to plead guilty. He’s barred, however, by Army rules. Military judges can’t take guilty pleas from defendants who face the death penalty, AP says. So attorneys tried to get the judge to accept a guilty plea for 13 counts of unpremeditated murder — to no avail, AP reports. Col. Tara Osborn said he can’t plead guilty to anything — premeditated or unpremeditated — because that “would be the functional equivalent of pleading guilty to a capital offense,” she said, as quoted by AP.

Team on the way to collect Congo war crimes suspect

03/21/13:  The New York Times reports American officials on Wednesday said that a team from the International Criminal Court  was on its way to Rwanda to collect a war crimes suspect who had turned himself in to the American Embassy and that they were hoping Rwanda would cooperate. Rwanda has indicated that it would not interfere with the transfer of the suspect, Bosco Ntaganda, a rebel commander nicknamed the Terminator, to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, where he has been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. On Monday, Mr. Ntaganda, who has been accused of massacring villagers and recruiting child soldiers in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, showed up unexpectedly at the American Embassy in Rwanda and surrendered. On Wednesday, Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson reiterated that the United States now needed Rwanda’s cooperation to get Mr. Ntaganda to The Hague. Rwanda— and the United States, for that matter — are not members of the International Criminal Court, and Rwanda’s foreign minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, said this week, according to the SAPA news agency, “The I.C.C. is a political court, and we have never believed in its jurisdiction.” But she pledged to work with the United States and in other interviews, including one published by Bloomberg, Ms. Mushikiwabo reinforced the position, saying “The U.S. is a partner state, and we commit to give them any support they want."

Court says South Korean Dictator, father of current President, violated Constitution

03/21/13:  The New York Times reports three emergency decrees issued in the 1970s by South Korea’s dictator at the time, Park Chung-hee, were unconstitutional, the nation’s Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday, in a landmark verdict on the legacy of the current president’s father. The ruling, which followed three years of deliberations, was closely watched in South Korea, which remains deeply divided over Mr. Park, whose eldest daughter, Park Geun-hye, was sworn in as president last month. Mr. Park, a former major general who led South Korea’s economic rise from the ashes of the 1950-53 Korean War and who died in 1979, remains the country’s most popular former president, but he is also the object of considerable hatred because of his regime’s brutality. To many of his detractors, the decrees that the court ruled unconstitutional — Emergency Decrees 1, 2 and 9 — symbolized his iron-fisted 18-year rule. Among other things, they outlawed criticism of his government, political protest rallies and the spreading of rumors deemed unhealthy by the government, as well as any reporting on such activities by the press. Those accused of violating the restrictions could be arrested without warrants and court-martialed. Thousands of students and other dissidents were arrested and in many cases tortured, according to victims, human rights groups and investigations by later, democratically elected governments.

 

Hezbollah courier guilty of role in Cyprus terror plot

03/21/13:  The New York Times reports in a decision that could have significant repercussions for Hezbollah’s operations in Europe, a court in Cyprus on Thursday found a man guilty of participating in a plot to attack Israeli tourists on vacation in Cyprus, part of a conspiracy similar to a deadly bombing last July in Bulgaria. The court found the man, Hossam Taleb Yaacoub, a dual Swedish-Lebanese citizen, guilty on five of the eight charges against him, including participation in a criminal organization. The three others were conspiracy charges, which the ruling said were already covered under the other counts. Mr. Yaacoub will be sentenced at a separate hearing.  Mr. Yaacoub admitted in court last month that he was a member of Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group, and that he was trained in the use of weapons and dispatched around Europe on missions as a courier and scout for the organization. The court rejected his assertion that he had no idea why his handlers had asked him to monitor the arrival times of flights from Israel and to track locations of Israeli tourists in Cyprus. The conviction is likely to give further impetus to efforts to have the group designated a terrorist organization by the European Union. Experts say that in the legalistic, bureaucratic world of Brussels, a court conviction holds significantly more weight than a declaration by a government or an intelligence report.

 

ICC welcomes Bosco 'Terminator' Ntaganda's surrender

03/19/13:  The BBC reports the International Criminal Court (ICC) has welcomed Congolese rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda's surrender to stand trial on war crimes charges. Known as "The Terminator", Gen Ntaganda surrendered on Monday to the US embassy in Rwanda after seven years on the run. The ICC said it was in contact with the relevant authorities to arrange for his immediate transfer to The Hague. He denies committing atrocities during the long-running conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DR Congo government says Gen Ntaganda crossed into Rwanda on Saturday with the help of Rwanda forces.

Chinese contractor at NASA makes court appearance

03/19/13:  CNN reports a Chinese aerospace contractor, who one senior lawmaker suspects is a spy, made his first appearance in federal court on Monday. Bo Jiang worked at NASA's Langley's Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and was seized over the weekend as he boarded a flight to Beijing at Dulles airport outside Washington. Jiang was charged with making false statements to U.S. authorities by failing to disclose all of the electronic devices he was carrying on his one-way flight. He was jailed following his appearance in federal court in Norfolk. U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Virginia, said Jiang recently arranged travel after the lawmaker went public with his concerns about NASA security. Wolf told reporters Monday that he believes Jiang had access to highly sensitive documents, including source codes for high-tech imaging used in missiles, unmanned aerospace equipment and other technology desired by the Chinese government. Wolf, who oversees congressional funding of several agencies, believes Jiang was spying.

Iran indicts 18 over killing of nuclear scientists

03/18/13: The Miami Herald reports Iran’s judiciary has indicted eighteen suspects on charges of involvement in the killing of nuclear scientists.  Since 2010, at least five Iranian nuclear scientists, including a manager at the Natanz enrichment facility, have been killed.  Tehran has accused Israel’s Mossad, the CIA, and Britain’s MI6 of being behind the assassinations; Washington and London have denied the allegations, while Tel Aviv has not commented.  Iranian state media said Sunday that authorities have issued indictments against the eighteen suspects, who will be tried in the coming months.  In 2012, Iran hanged a man for the 2010 killing of a nuclear physicist.

Kenya President-elect Kenyatta seeks dismissal of ICC charges

03/18/13: BBC News reports the International Criminal Court in The Hague is set to hold a special hearing to review its case against Kenya’s President-elect, Uhuru Kenyatta.  He denies accusations of instigating violence after the disputed 2007 election.  The hearing comes a week after charges were dropped against Kenyatta’s co-accused, Francis Muthaura.  Kenyatta says the charges against him are now compromised, but ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda says she has additional evidence against him.  Last week Bensouda said the case against Muthaura had been dropped as some witnesses were too scared to testify, while another had recanted his statement.  At Kenyatta’s hearing today, lawyers will urge the judges to send the case back to the pre-trial chamber for judges to assess what remains of the evidence, and decide whether it is sufficient to go to trial.

Airplane bomber set for March 20 prison release

03/18/13: The Miami Herald reports Mohammed Rashed, who pled guilty to an airplane bombing that killed a Japanese teenager in 1982, will be released from a US prison Wednesday due to his cooperation with other antiterrorism investigations.  The release does more than spring loose a convicted terrorist. It also could deprive the government of a star witness in the event that Abu Ibrahim, a Palestinian master bomb-maker who authorities say orchestrated Rashed’s attack and similar strikes around the world, is ever captured.  A former top lieutenant, Rashed could implicate Ibrahim as the architect of the attack and help establish his identity if prosecutors ever could bring him to the US to face justice.  Once freed, Rashed may not continue cooperating, though the Justice Department says it has enough other evidence for a conviction.

California: Judge Strikes Down Law on National Security Letters

03/16/13:  The New York Times reports a federal judge on Friday struck down a law that allows the Federal Bureau of Investigation to secretly seize subscriber information from Internet companies and other communications service providers without a court warrant. The ruling, by Judge Susan Illston of Federal District Court in San Francisco, struck down the law because it forbids companies from disclosing that they had received such an order, called a National Security Letter, making the statute “impermissibly overbroad” under the First Amendment, she wrote. She also struck down a statute on legal challenges by recipients of the security letters, but stayed her ruling to allow the government to appeal.

CIA must end silence on drone targeted killings, Appeals court says

03/15/13:  Wired's Threat Level reports a federal appeals court reinstated a lawsuit seeking Central Intelligence Agency documents outlining its drone targeted killing program, ruling Friday that the agency’s refusal to acknowledge the program and whether records exist about it contradicts public statements by top government officials, including President Barack Obama. The case concerns a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union in which the CIA has been refusing to confirm or deny the covert military use of drones to kill suspected terrorists overseas, despite Obama’s and even a former CIA director’s admission of the agency’s targeted killing program. With Friday’s decision, the ACLU’s case returns to a federal court, where a district judge had sided with the agency’s so-called "Glomar"response which allowed the CIA to neither confirm nor deny the existence of responsive records because doing so would expose national security secrets. The FOIA litigation dates to 2010, when the ACLU sued in federal court seeking records concerning the legal basis for carrying out targeted drone killings; any restrictions on those who may be targeted; any civilian casualties; any geographic limits on the program; the number of targeted killings that the agency has carried out; and the training, supervision, oversight, or discipline of drone operators. Last year, the same appeals court upheld the National Security Agency’s decision, citing Glomar, to withhold from the public documents confirming or denying any relationship it has with Google concerning encryption or cybersecurity.

India airports on alert over Italy ambassador Mancini

03/15/13:  The BBC reports Airports across India have been told to stop Italian ambassador Daniele Mancini if he tries to leave the country, a home ministry official told the BBC. The advisory follows a Supreme Court order to Mr Mancini not to leave India after Rome's refusal to return two marines charged with the murder of two fishermen in Kerala last year. The court had allowed the marines to go home to vote in last month's elections. Mr Mancini had personally assured the court the marines would return on time. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned that "there will be consequences" unless Italy returned the marines. In unusually strong language, the prime minister said that Italy's refusal to send back the marines was "unacceptable". Rome's decision has come as a major embarrassment for the Indian government and opposition parties have been demanding their immediate return.

Three admit to terror charges in the UK

03/15/13: The BBC reports three British men have pleaded guilty to preparing for terrorism acts overseas. One of the men used to be a police community support officer and another was a recent convert to Islam. Richard Dart, Jahangir Alom and Imran Mahmood all pleaded guilty at a hearing at the Old Bailey ahead of their expected trial. They were arrested in London weeks before the Olympic Games in July 2012. They will be sentenced later. The three men were charged last year with engaging in preparation for acts of terrorism by travelling to Pakistan for training between July 2010 and July 2012 and by "advising and counselling" acts of terrorism by providing information about how to go to the country for the same purpose. The precise activities of the men have not been disclosed in court ahead of sentencing, but the BBC understands that the operation involved security services in both the UK and Pakistan. Mahmood had been the first to travel to Pakistan where security chiefs feared he was receiving training with jihadists near the border with Afghanistan. In the summer of July 2011, the Pakistani authorities detained him before deporting him to the UK. Dart and Alom had arrived in Pakistan the same summer. All three men were arrested shortly before the Olympics amid intelligence that Dart and Alom wanted to use Mahmood's contacts to return to Pakistan.

 

ICC drops case against Kenyan suspect

03/12/13:  The New York Times reports a lawyer for Kenyan president-elect Uhuru Kenyatta said Monday the International Criminal Court prosecution of his client for allegedly orchestrating post-election violence five years ago is "utterly flawed" after prosecutors dropped their case against his co-accused for lack of evidence. However, it remains unclear exactly what effect the dropping of charges against top Kenyan civil servant Francis Muthaura will have on Kenyatta's trial, which is scheduled to start in July. The shock decision to drop the case against Muthaura was an unprecedented admission of failure by prosecutors and the first time in the 10-year-old court's history that prosecutors have withdrawn charges against a suspect so close to trial. Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said her hand was forced after witnesses died, were killed or bribed and Kenyan authorities failed to live up to their pledges to cooperate. Kenyatta's lawyer Steven Kay urged prosecutors to reconsider their prosecution of the man elected president in Kenyan elections a week ago despite the international charges hanging over him.

Italian marines will not be returned to India for trial

03/12/13:  The New York Times reports two Italian marines facing murder charges in India will not be returned there for trial, the Italian Foreign Ministry said Monday. The Italians, who were part of an antipiracy military security team, are accused of fatally shooting two Indian fishermen who they believed were pirates in February 2012. India allowed the marines to travel to Italy last month to vote in national elections, and they were scheduled to return to India. But the ministry said in a statement that India’s decision to try the pair in India would violate their rights, in particular the principle of immunity for foreign state actors. The long fight over the marines’ fate has strained ties between India and Italy.

Hungary approves disputed Constitutional amendment

03/12/13:  The Miami Herald reports Hungarian lawmakers on Monday overwhelmingly approved a long amendment to the constitution which critics say threatens certain democratic checks and balances. After smaller protests during the day, several thousand people gathered in the evening near the offices of President Janos Ader, asking him to veto the amendment. The bill enshrines in the Fundamental Law, as the new constitution is called, a number of policies that were previously been struck down as unconstitutional by the country's highest court. The vote drew swift reaction from European institutions, which along with the United States and many Hungarian legal experts and civic groups, say it puts too much unchecked power in government hands. Among the government policies struck down by the Constitutional Court over the past months and now added to the Fundamental Law are the possibility for local authorities to fine or jail homeless people living in public areas, a ban on political campaign ads on commercial radio and TV, and a contract obliging university students who accept state scholarships to work in Hungary for years after graduation. The amendment also prevents the president or the court from reviewing changes to the Fundamental Law other than for procedural errors and practically wipes out 20 years of jurisprudence by banning the court to refer to rulings or reasoning given while the previous constitution - originally a Stalin-era document nearly fully re-written in 1989 as communism ended in Hungary - was in force.
 

DC Circuit seeks reply on Government's petition for rehearing in war crimes case

03/11/13: SCOTUSBlog reports the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday afternoon asked lawyers for a foreign national convicted of war crimes at Guantánamo Bay to answer the Obama Administration’s plea for a new look by that court at the powers of the military commissions to try terrorist suspects.  The order does not assure that the court will pursue that issue further, but at least it raises the prospect that it could, as a prelude to a likely Supreme Court appeal.  On Tuesday, the Administration asked for en banc review the validity of the convictions of Yemeni national Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul.  At the center of the controversy is a ruling by the court last October in a different case that military commissions cannot try offenses that took place before they were designated as war crimes by the Military Commissions Act of 2006.  The DC Circuit held the Act didn’t reach such offenses, concluding that otherwise a serious issue would arise under the Constitution’s Ex Post Facto Clause.  The government counters the offenses previously existed and were simply codified by Congress, and has asked the DC Circuit en banc to revisit its previous ruling.  In 2006, four members of the Supreme Court held in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the crime at issue - conspiracy - was not an internationally accepted war crime, but there was no majority holding on the issue.

Republicans blast New York trial for al-Qaeda spokesman

03/10/13: The Hill reports the Obama Administration’s decision to try former al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a relative of Osama bin Laden, in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York has sparked criticism from Republicans, who say he should be held at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp and tried by a military tribunal, not an Article III court.  “Gitmo, a naval vessel, Guam, anywhere other than New York, and anything other than a civilian trial,” said Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).  Gowdy said a military tribunal would offer distinct advantages over a civilian jury trial, namely that military courts are made up of military officers and don’t require unanimous jury verdicts for conviction, although trials of terrorists have had much more success in regular federal courts than military ones.

Court curbs laptop searches at US border

03/09/13:  The Washington Times reports a federal appeals court on Friday said the Border Patrol cannot confiscate or download every laptop or electronic device brought into the US, ruling that people have an expectation their data are private and that the government must have “reasonable suspicion” before it starts to snoop. In a broad ruling, the court also said merely putting password protection on information is not enough to trigger the government’s “reasonable suspicion” to conduct a more intrusive search — but can be taken into account along with other factors. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals judges said it was a “watershed care” that gets at what kinds of limits the government must observe when it comes to technology and privacy. Privacy advocates cheered the decision, saying that the government had previously believed it had the right to copy all electronic data of anyone crossing into the US.

Bin Laden 'aide' Sulaiman Abu Ghaith pleads not guilty

03/09/13:  The BBC reports the man described as a spokesman for Osama Bin Laden has pleaded not guilty in New York to charges he helped plot the 9/11 attacks on the US. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, 47, was turned over to US officials in Jordan within the last week after being deported from Turkey, authorities have said. A Kuwaiti preacher, Mr Abu Ghaith is Bin Laden's son-in-law, officials said. The Obama administration's decision to try him in civilian court has been criticised by Republicans. They say Mr Abu Ghaith should be sent to the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to face a military tribunal. Bin Laden was killed in a May 2011 raid on his hideout in Pakistan by a team of US commandos.

Bin Laden spokesman due in NY court on plot charge

03/08/13:  The Miami Herald reports a senior al-Qaida leader and son-in-law of Osama bin Laden is due in court to face a charge he plotted against Americans in his role as the terror network's top propagandist who lauded the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and warned there would be more. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who was born in Kuwait and was a member of bin Laden's inner circle, was captured in Jordan over the past week, authorities said. Abu Ghaith was to appear Friday morning in federal court in Manhattan to enter a plea to one count of conspiracy to kill Americans. There was no immediate response to phone and email messages left with his attorney. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the capture of the international fugitive on Thursday, saying "no amount of distance or time will weaken our resolve to bring America's enemies to justice." The case marks a legal victory for President Barack Obama's administration, which has long sought to charge senior al-Qaida suspects in American federal courts instead of military tribunals at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But it runs counter to demands by Republicans in Congress who do not want high-threat terror suspects brought into the United States. The Department of Justice said Abu Ghaith was the spokesman for al-Qaida, working alongside bin Laden and current leader Ayman al-Zawahri, since at least May 2001. Abu Ghaith is a former mosque preacher and teacher.

 

Trial of courier tied to terror plots ends, putting pressure on Hezbollah

03/08/13:  The New York Times reports for days after his arrest by the Cypriot police, Hossam Taleb Yaacoub kept to the cover story he had spent years building: He was a Lebanese businessman looking for import opportunities, not an operative for the Shiite militant group Hezbollah scouting potential targets for terrorism.   Under sustained interrogation, his story began to wobble. He admitted he had checked the arrival times for a flight from Israel but said it was only because a fellow merchant had asked him to, paying him $500 up front and promising $500 more when he got back to Beirut. Finally, early on July 14, nearly a week after he was arrested, Mr. Yaacoub admitted that he was in Cyprus working for Hezbollah. The group had recruited him in 2007, when a man named Reda called him to a meeting at the Hezbollah bureau in Beirut that deals with student affairs .Mr. Yaacoub’s trial, on charges he participated in a Hezbollah plot to strike at Israeli tourists in Cyprus, ended Thursday with written summations and the prosecution and defense sparring over contradictions between his testimony and statements he made in police depositions, some elements of which he now denies.

Justice Kennedy notes power shift to high court

03/07/13:  The Miami Herald reports Justice Anthony Kennedy says he is concerned that the US Supreme Court is increasingly the venue for deciding politically charged issues such as gay marriage, health care and immigration. The 76-year-old associate justice said Wednesday that major policies in a democracy should not depend "on what nine unelected people from a narrow legal background have to say." Rather, he said, it is important for political leaders to show the world that democracy works through compromise. Kennedy, a former Sacramento law professor, was in California's state capital to attend the dedication of a federal courthouse library bearing his name. He often has been the swing vote on the high court's split decisions.

US arrests man in Oregon over Pakistan suicide bombing

03/07/13:  The BBC reports FBI agents in the US have arrested a man in Oregon over a deadly suicide bombing in the Pakistani city of Lahore in 2009. Reaz Qadir Khan, a naturalised US citizen, denies one charge of giving "material support" to one of three men who carried out the attack on the intelligence HQ in Lahore. He pleaded not guilty at his court appearance in the city of Portland. t least 30 people were killed and about 300 injured in the bomb attack. Mr Khan was remanded in custody pending a detention hearing scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. If convicted, he faces a potential sentence of life in prison. He is accused of providing advice and financial help to Ali Jaleel, one of the three people who carried out the attack in Lahore. US Attorney Amanda Marshall said that Mr Jaleel died in the attack but had taken responsibility for the bombing in a video released by al-Qaeda. Mr Khan's lawyer, Larry Matasar, declined to discuss the case in detail.

Feds demand dismissal of dragnet-surveillance challenge

03/07/13:  Wired's Threat Level reports citing week-old Supreme Court precedent, the President Barack Obama administration told a federal judge Wednesday that it should quash a federal lawsuit accusing the government of secretly siphoning Americans’ electronic communications to the National Security Agency without warrants. The San Francisco federal court legal filing was in response to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White’s written question to the government asking what to make of the high court’s Feb. 26 decision halting a legal challenge to a once-secret warrantless surveillance project that gobbles up Americans’ electronic communications — a program that Congress eventually legalized in 2008 and again in 2012. In that case, known as Clapper, the justices ruled 5-4 that the American Civil Liberties Union, journalists and human-rights groups that sued to nullify the FISA Amendments Act had no legal standing to sue.

Miami imam found guilty in supporting Pakistani Taliban

03/05/13:  The New York Times reports the imam of a small mosque in a working-class neighborhood here was found guilty in federal court on Monday of providing thousands of dollars of support to the Pakistani Taliban. Capping a two-month trial, the imam, Hafiz Khan, 77, an American citizen who came to the United States in 1994, was found guilty by a jury of two counts of conspiracy and two counts of providing material support to terrorists. Each count faces a maximum 15-year prison sentence. Federal prosecutors said Mr. Khan and, to a lesser extent, other relatives, not only embraced the Taliban’s mission but also helped finance it. Mr. Khan, they said, sent an estimated $50,000 to the Pakistani Taliban, which is allied with Al Qaeda and is responsible for attacks against the Pakistani police and military targets. Prosecutors built their case around hundreds of FBI recordings of Mr. Khan’s telephone conversations. In those calls, he praised Taliban attacks, including those against United States military personnel and the failed 2010 attempt  to detonate a bomb in Times Square. He also discussed the thousands of dollars he was funneling to Pakistan. Prosecutors also relied on bank records and a confidential informant.

Turkey PM Erdogan rules out amnesty for Kurd rebels

03/04/13: The blog Space War reports Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ruled out on Sunday a general amnesty for Kurdish rebels amid renewed peace talks between the country’s secret services and jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan.  “We are not entitled to pardon murderers. We will not interfere in such a thing,” Erdogan said.  Turkey’s spy agency resumed negotiations with Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Ocalan late last year with an ultimate goal of disarming the rebel movement, which is branded as a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.  Ocalan has been serving a life sentence at Imrali prison on an island off Istanbul since his capture in Nairobi in 1999.  Erdogan says he is determined to settle the Kurdish conflict and will guarantee safe passage for rebels wishing to leave the country.

Libyan man offers to settle UK rendition case

03/04/13: BBC News reports a Libyan man suing the British government for its alleged role in his 2004 rendition to Libya has offered to settle the case.  Abdul Hakim Belhaj is also suing former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and a retired MI6 officer.  Belhaj says he wants an apology, an admission of guilt, and nominal damages of one pound ($1.50) from each.  The British government has said it is cooperating with investigations into UK involvement in ex-Libyan detainees’ mistreatment.  Belhaj, who began legal action last year, says he and his wife were detained by US intelligence officers at Bangkok Airport in March 2004.  He was allegedly tortured for several days while his wife Fatima Bouchar, who was five months pregnant, was chained to a wall at a secret prison at the airport.

Mubarak retrial set for April 13

03/03/13: Al Jazeera reports Egypt’s highest appeals court has set a date for the retrial of former president Hosni Mubarak, who is serving a life sentence for his role in the deaths of protesters in 2011.  Mubarak, former interior minister Habib al-Adly, and six top security chiefs will be retried on April 13 over the hundreds of killings during the 2011 uprising which ousted him from power.  The Court of Cassation ordered a retrial in January for Mubarak, 84, who had appealed against his life sentence.  On June 2, 2012, Mubarak and Adly were sentenced to life in prison for failing to prevent the deaths of more than 800 protesters during the 18-day uprising that began on January 25, 2011.  The six security chiefs on trial in the same case were acquitted.

Manning to face more serious charges in leak

03/02/13:  The New York Times reports military prosecutors announced on Friday that they had decided to try Pfc. Bradley Manning on the most serious charges they have brought against him and seek a sentence that could be life without parole, despite his voluntary guilty plea to 10 lesser charges that carry a maximum total sentence of 20 years.  Private Manning admitted in court on Thursday that he had provided about 700,000 government documents to WikiLeaks, the antisecrecy group, in the most extensive leak of confidential and classified material in American history. But he pleaded guilty to the lesser charges in what is known as a “naked plea” — one made without the usual agreement with prosecutors to cap the potential sentence in return. After the plea, prosecutors and their boss, the commanding general of the Washington Military District, had the option of settling for the 10 charges to which he had admitted his guilt and proceeding directly to sentencing. Instead, they said they would continue with plans for a court-martial beginning June 3, with 141 prosecution witnesses scheduled to testify. Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military law at Yale, said the prosecutors’ decision suggested that they believed that his admissions, as extensive as they were, did not capture the full seriousness of his crimes or guarantee an adequate sentence. Most important, he said, the government wants to deter others from taking advantage of the Internet and portable storage devices to follow his example and leak government secrets on a grand scale.

Ireland: Suspect in terrorism case faces extradition to US

03/01/13:  The New York Times reports the US government has petitioned the Irish High Court to extradite an Algerian man living in Ireland on terrorism charges relating to a plot to assassinate a Swedish artist, officials said Thursday. The US alleges that the man, Ali Charaf Damache, planned to set up terrorist training camps and kill several Europeans, including a Swedish artist, Lars Vilks, whose sketch of the Prophet Muhammad’s head on a dog, published in 2007, had enraged the Islamic world. On Wednesday, Mr. Damache pleaded guilty in the Waterford Circuit Court to making a menacing phone call to an American peace activist, a charge for which he was arrested and detained in 2010. The judge sentenced him to time served and released him, but Mr. Damache was immediately rearrested on the American extradition warrant. Mr. Damache arrived in Ireland in 2000 and married an Irish woman in 2002. The relationship ended in 2008 and he then married an American citizen, Jamie Paulin Ramirez. Ms. Ramirez has pleaded guilty in the United States to charges of conspiring with Colleen LaRose, also known as Jihad Jane, to support and train terrorists.

Dutch court jails Rwandan woman for incitement to genocide

03/01/13:  Reuters reports a Dutch court sentenced a Rwandan-born woman to six years and eight months in jail on Friday for inciting genocide two decades ago. Judges said 66-year-old Yvonne Besabya, now a Dutch citizen, had stoked hatred against her ethnic Tutsi neighbors before Rwanda's 1994 genocide in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. The conviction, which was secured under universal jurisdiction - the principle that countries have the right to try the most heinous crimes wherever they were committed - was the first for genocide in a Dutch court since World War Two. District court judges said Besabya, the wealthy Hutu wife of a Rwandan lawmaker, had used her influence to incite her Hutu neighbors to violence against Tutsis. The court acquitted Besabya of all other charges, including perpetrating genocide, murder and war crimes. The Rwandan genocide has increasingly become the focus of court cases in Europe, despite the existence of a dedicated U.N. tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania that has tried those suspected of masterminding the killings.

Bangladesh war crimes verdict sparks more violence

03/01/13:  The BBC reports fresh violence has erupted in northern Bangladesh one day after a senior Islamist party leader was sentenced to death by a special war crimes tribunal. Delwar Hossain Sayeedi was found guilty on Thursday of charges including murder, rape and torture during the war of independence in 1971. At least 35 people were killed as deadly clashes swept the country after the verdict was announced. Sayeedi's Jamaat-e-Islami party says the tribunal is biased against it. The party was opposed to Bangladeshi independence but denies any role in war crimes committed by pro-Pakistan militias. Official estimates say more than three million people were killed in the war. Thursday's violence saw confrontations between the police and Jamaat supporters across the country. But on Friday clashes broke out in the district of Gaibandha between supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami party and members of the governing Awami League, one of whom was killed, police say. Recent weeks have seen a series of large and angry protests by anti-Jamaat protesters demanding the execution of Islamist leaders sentenced by the tribunal.

Bradley Manning admits giving trove of military data to WikiLeaks

03/01/13:  The New York Times reports Pfc. Bradley Manning on Thursday confessed in open court to providing vast archives of military and diplomatic files to the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks, saying that he released the information to help enlighten the public about “what happens and why it happens” and to “spark a debate about foreign policy.” Appearing before a military judge for more than an hour, Private Manning read a statement recounting how he joined the military, became an intelligence analyst in Iraq, decided that certain files should become known to the American public to prompt a wider debate about foreign policy, downloaded them from a secure computer network and then ultimately uploaded them to WikiLeaks. Before reading the statement, Private Manning pleaded guilty to 10 criminal counts in connection with the huge amount of material he leaked, which included videos of airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan in which civilians were killed, logs of military incident reports, assessment files of detainees, and a quarter-million cables from American diplomats stationed around the world. The guilty pleas exposed him to up to 20 years in prison.

Momcilo Perisic: Yugoslav army chief conviction overturned

02/28/13:  The BBC reports a Serbian general sentenced to 27 years for crimes against humanity has been released on appeal. Momcilo Perisic, who commanded the Yugoslav army during the wars in Bosnia and Croatia, was found guilty after a trial in 2011. Judges in the Hague said Mr Perisic had not directed ethnic Serb forces in Bosnia to use military aid sent from Belgrade for the commission of crimes. They ordered him to be released with immediate effect. Judges in his appeal also ruled that he had not been in a position to discipline soldiers for shelling the Croatian capital, Zagreb. In the 2011 trial he was convicted of aiding and abetting crimes, but acquitted of a direct role in the Srebrenica massacre. Mr Perisic had always insisted that he was not aware of or responsible for atrocities.

5 Somalis convicted of piracy in USS Ashland case

02/28/13:  The Miami Herald reports five Somali men were convicted of piracy Wednesday for the 2010 attack on the USS Ashland off the coast of Africa. A sixth man who claimed to be the group's leader had already pleaded guilty to lesser charges and testified that they thought they were attacking a merchant ship when one of his crew members fired an AK-47 at the Ashland. Prosecutors said the men intended to board the ship and hold it for ransom, a common practice in Somalia. But before that could happen, the Virginia-based amphibious dock landing ship returned fire with a 25mm cannon, killing one man and setting the pirates' skiff on fire. Defense attorneys had argued to the federal jury that the men were returning to Somalia after ferrying refugees to Yemen when they came across the ship in the Gulf of Aden. They said an AK-47 was fired in the Ashland's direction to get its attention so it could help them after they were wandering around lost at sea.

Supreme Court rejects challenge to surveillance law

02/26/13:  The New York Times reports in a 5-to-4 decision that broke along ideological lines, the Supreme Court on Tuesday turned back a challenge to a federal law that authorized intercepting international communications involving Americans. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said that the journalists, lawyers and human rights advocates who challenged the constitutionality of the law could not show they had been harmed by it and so lacked standing to sue. Their fear that they would be subject to surveillance in the future was too speculative to establish standing, he wrote. The decision, Clapper v. Amnesty International, No. 11-1025, probably means the Supreme Court will never rule on the constitutionality of the law, a 2008 measure that broadened the government’s power to eavesdrop on international communications. The law, an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, was passed after the 2005 disclosure of the Bush administration’s secret program to wiretap international communications of people inside the United States without obtaining court warrants. The electronic spying, intended to help pursue terrorists, began after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The 2008 law was challenged by Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups and individuals, including journalists and lawyers who represent prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The plaintiffs said the law violated their rights under the Fourth Amendment by allowing the government to intercept their international telephone calls and e-mails. In 2011, a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled for the plaintiffs on the threshold question of whether they had standing.

British government seeks to limit disclosure in Litvinenko case

02/26/13:  The New York Times reports the British government sought on Tuesday to limit the information it would disclose at a planned inquest into the death of Alexander V. Litvineko, a former officer in the KGB who succumbed to radiation poisoning in London more than six years ago. The coroner hearing the case said that itmay now be postponed. “Due to the complexity of the investigation which necessarily precedes the hearings,” Sir Robert Owen, the coroner, said, “it may not be possible to adhere” to the the planned May 1 start date for the hearings.

Dutch court rejects terror suspect's injunction

02/26/13:  The Miami Herald reports a court has rejected a Dutch-Pakistani terror suspect's final attempt to use the Dutch legal system to block his extradition to the United States, where he is wanted for allegedly plotting a suicide attack on an American military base in Afghanistan. A judge in The Hague on Tuesday rejected an injunction by the suspect, identified only as Sabir K. under Dutch privacy laws. The Dutch Supreme Court and Justice Minister approved the extradition last year. The suspects's lawyer, Andre Seebregts, says he has already filed a request with the European Court of Human Rights to block the extradition. Sabir K. was arrested in Pakistan in 2010 and expelled to the Netherlands in 2011. A Dutch summary of his U.S. indictment says he worked with al-Qaida from 2004-2010.

Four Somalis in US found guilty of supporting terrorists back home

02/23/13:  CNN reports a Somali terror leader implored his fellow countryman in California to send money 'to finance jihad," triggering a chain of events that ended with four convictions. US government agents recorded dozens of such calls a few years ago, according to the Department of Justice. And on Friday, a jury found four Somali nationals guilty of supporting terrorism in their native country. The verdict came after prosecutors played the recordings to jurors in a San Diego federal court during weeks of trial. The four, who included an imam and a cab driver, had raised $10,000 and wired it to the Islamist terrorist group Al-Shabaab, according to the original indictment. Cab driver Basaaly Saeed Moalin had many phone conversations with former Al-Shabaab leader Aden Hashi Ayrow, before a U.S. missile strike ended the latter's life in May 2008. Investigators from the FBI, Homeland Security and a San Diego anti-terror agency recorded dozens of them. Federal prosecutors filed charges in November 2011. The group pleaded not guilty. But the recordings convinced the jurors otherwise.

Case ends against ex-Blackwater officials

02/22/13:  The New York Times reports the federal government’s three-year prosecution of five former officials of Blackwater Worldwide virtually collapsed on Thursday after charges against three of the officials were dismissed and the other two agreed to plead guilty to reduced misdemeanor charges with no jail time. Judge Louise W. Flanagan of Federal District Court in North Carolina dismissed all charges against two of the officials, Andrew Howell, Blackwater’s former general counsel, and Ana Bundy, a former vice president; prosecutors agreed to drop charges against a third, Ronald Slezak, a former weapons manager. The two other officials, Gary Jackson, a former president of Blackwater, and William Matthews, a former executive vice president, agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge related to records keeping. They will each receive three years of probation and four months of home confinement, and pay fines of $5,000. In 2010, the Justice Department charged the five officials with weapons violations and making false statements.

Judge grants access to secret Guantanamo camp

02/21/13:  NPR reports the judge presiding over the Sept. 11 war crimes tribunal is allowing defense lawyers their first chance to see the secret section of the Guantanamo Bay prison where the accused are held. Army Col. James Pohl granted the defense teams less access to Camp 7 than requested. Lawyers for the five prisoners facing a military tribunal for their roles in the Sept. 11 attacks wanted to spend 48 hours inside the camp. They also wanted multiple visits. Pohl ruled that three members of each team can visit once, for no more than 12 continuous hours. He barred them from interviewing guards. Attorney James Connell called Wednesday's ruling a good start. Camp 7 is so shrouded in secrecy that even its location on the U.S. base in Cuba is classified.

UK men guilty of mass bomb plot

02/21/13:  The BBC reports three would-be suicide bombers who plotted to carry out an attack to rival the 7 July and 9/11 atrocities have been found guilty of terrorism charges. Irfan Naseer, 31, Irfan Khalid, 27, and Ashik Ali, 27, from Birmingham, were found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court of being "central figures" in the plan. Jurors were told they planned to set off up to eight bombs in rucksacks, using timers to detonate the charges. The trio were arrested in 2011 amid fears an attack was imminent. Detectives believe it is the most significant terror plot to be uncovered since the 2006 conspiracy to blow up transatlantic airliners using bombs disguised as soft drinks. The three men were found guilty of 12 counts of preparing for acts of terrorism between December 2010 and their arrest in September the following year.

Polish prosecutors to drop charges in CIA jail inquiry-report

02/19/13:  Reuters reports Polish prosecutors have decided to drop charges against the country's former intelligence chief made during an investigation into allegations the CIA was allowed to run a secret prison in Poland for al Qaeda suspects, a newspaper said on Tuesday.  Despite reports by the European Parliament and the Council of Europe stating Poland hosted a CIA detention centre, Polish officials have repeatedly denied there was ever any such base on their soil.  The government called for an investigation into allegations the country was involved in a CIA operation a decade ago to transport suspected al Qaeda members to foreign facilities where they could be interrogated without the safeguards set out under U.S. law.