Fresh Evidence Cited Vs 'Lackawanna 6'
Some of the Buffalo-area men accused of being part of an al Qaeda sleeper cell had tapes and documents in their homes that called for suicide operations against Islam's "enemies," federal prosecutors contended in court papers filed late Friday, according to the Saturday editions of The Washington Post.
"Martyrdom or self-sacrifice operations are those performed by one or more people against enemies far outstripping them in numbers and equipment," the Post quotes a document as saying.
Prosecutors contend the document was recovered in a Sept. 25 search of the Hamburg, N.Y, apartment used by Yasein Taher.
"The form this usually takes nowadays is to wire up one's body, or a vehicle or suitcase with explosives, and then to enter into a conglomeration of the enemy, or in their vital facilities, and to detonate in an appropriate place there in order to cause the maximum losses in enemy ranks," the document continued.
The government is seeking to hold without bail the five arrested earlier this month in the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna, N.Y., on charges they provided support to terrorists. A sixth man accused of being part of the cell is in U.S. custody in Bahrian.
The six, all U.S. citizens of Yemeni descent in their 20s, lived just blocks from each other in Lackawanna.
The detainees deny any al Qaeda membership.
Two other suspected cell members, identified as Jaber Elbaneh and Kamal Derwish, are believed to be in hiding in Yemen. Authorities say they think Derwish is the ringleader.
U.S. Magistrate H. Kenneth Schroeder Jr., who last week held three days of hearings on the men's detention and asked for additional information, has indicated he will rule by Thursday.
Two of the men arrested in Lackawanna, Sahim Alwan and Yahya Goba, had audiotapes in their apartments that called for Jihad and martyrdom, court papers claim. One of Alwan's tapes contains a lecture by a radical Islamic cleric who calls for "fighting the West and invading Europe and America with Islam," according to the government's affidavit in support of continued detention for the men, the Post reports.
Additionally, according to the Post, the government said the detainee in Bahrain, Mukhtar Al-Bakri, has told the FBI that when he and the others were in an al Qaeda training camp in the summer of 2001, Osama bin Laden "told them in unequivocal terms that there 'is going to be a fight against Americans.' " Al-Bakri further told the FBI, according to the government, that he was being trained for the purpose of fighting Americans, the Post says.
Until now, the government has released little information about the links it maintains the suspects have to al Qaeda, the Post points out. Prosecutors have said the men received weapons training at a camp in Afghanistan, and have cited a cryptic e-mail Al-Bakri sent this summer from Bahrain to his co-defendants in Lackawanna. In it he wrote that the "next meal will be very big, no one will be able to withstand it," according to the Post.
The government also said searches of the men's homes had turned up weapons and false identification and credit cards, the Post reports. A registered pistol and a rifle were recovered from a residence in New York used by Al-Bakri, prosecutors said. One of the men, Shafal Mosed, had two different Social Security cards in his possession, the government said, along with 11 credit cards bearing six different names, the Post says.
In the court papers, prosecutors argued that the six should be denied bail because the U.S. lacks an extradition treaty with Yemen.
"Given that the defendants have strong familial ties to Yemen, the defendants are provided an easy opportunity and incentive to go where they are free of the jurisdiction of this court," U.S. Attorney Michael Battle said in court papers Friday.
In separate documents, defense lawyers argued that the men pose no danger or flight risk, with families in Lackawanna, five miles south of Buffalo, willing to pledge property to guarantee their presence at trial.
All six, who are Muslims, say they went to Pakistan in the spring of 2001 to pursue religious training.
However, al-Bakri and Alwan said the six also attended a military training camp in Afghanistan run by al Qaeda, according to their lawyers. Both gave statements to the FBI, the basis for the federal charges of supporting a foreign terrorist organization.
But attorneys for the other four, Faysal Galab, Taher, Mosed, and Goba dispute that their clients ever went to Afghanistan and dispute the other men's credibility.
Also, they say that "al-Bakri acknowledged to the FBI that, when he was at the camp, he was a member of al Qaeda."
John Molloy, al-Bakri's lawyer, said his client didn't accept any of what he was told in Afghanistan. "There was no showing in the government's proffer that Mr. Al-Bakri bought into any of the propaganda or was willing or able to put any of the training offered into practice."
James Harrington, attorney for Alwan, said his client acknowledged getting some instruction in the use of a Kalashnokov rifle at the camp, but never fired live ammunition. "Mr. Alwan stated that he realized immediately that he did not belong at the camp and wanted to leave it," said Harrington.
But prosecutors questioned why the six would go there at all, then quietly return to their lives in the U.S. While Alwan left the camp after about 10 days, prosecutors allege the others stayed five to six weeks.