Prosecutors Are Expected to Seek Dismissal of Charges Against Bin Laden

The move should formally close a case against the leader of Al Qaeda that began in Federal District Court in Manhattan with an indictment on June 10, 1998, and expanded over the years with later versions, adding some two dozen defendants.

A recent version of the indictment was most recently used against Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to be tried in the civilian system. Among those still charged in the indictment is Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s second in command.

The first indictment against Bin Laden ran eight pages and charged him with conspiracy to attack United States defense installations.

But if the original indictment seems almost forgotten in the post-9/11 era and the debates over civilian versus military justice, it is still offered by early investigators as proof that the authorities had grasped the threat Bin Laden posed and could have gone after him much earlier.

“It shows that in spite of whatever everyone says, there were people in the government who knew about Bin Laden prior to 9/11 and were prepared to do something about it,” said Daniel J. Coleman, who in 1996 was the first F.B.I. agent detailed to the Central Intelligence Agency in the investigation of Bin Laden.

“There was a lack of political will to do anything,” said Mr. Coleman, who is retired.

The indictment detailed Al Qaeda’s history and Bin Laden’s role as its leader. It charged that his operatives had trained and assisted Somali tribesmen in an ambush in 1993 that killed 18 American soldiers in Mogadishu.

Later indictments charged a broad conspiracy that also included the bombings on Aug. 7, 1998, of two American Embassies in East Africa that killed 224 people and the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in 2000.

The original indictment, kept secret at first, came at a time when the C.I.A. was considering a plan to capture Bin Laden and turn him over for trial, either in the United States or in an Arab country, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. Those plans were not carried out, but the law enforcement investigation continued.

“There was no question from our perspective that at the time of the June 1998 indictment, the objective was to bring Bin Laden back for trial,” said Mary Jo White, the United States attorney in Manhattan at the time.

Ms. White said there was always a risk he would have been killed in an attempted capture. But if Bin Laden had been captured, she added, “our expectation was that he would be tried.”

Another former agent, Jack Cloonan, likened the case to that of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the former Panamanian leader who was flown to Miami and tried after he was ousted in the invasion of Panama in 1989.

Mr. Cloonan said that there were even discussions about how Bin Laden would be read his rights, adding that agents had envisioned Bin Laden standing in court in shackles and “an orange jumpsuit.”

The string of indictments resulted in a series of trial convictions and guilty pleas. The evidence in the early investigations offered a primer on Bin Laden and his organization. “It was essential to understanding Al Qaeda,” said Ali H. Soufan, a retired F.B.I. agent who was the case agent on the Cole investigation.

Mr. Coleman said he had learned of Bin Laden’s death after his son, a former Army Ranger who had been part of the initial American operations in Afghanistan after 9/11, called Sunday night and said he had heard the president would be speaking.

“It seemed really fitting,” Mr. Coleman said, “that they dumped him in the same ocean” where the Cole was attacked. “The deaths of those young men and women were never avenged,” he added. “There was no military response for an act of war.”

Mr. Coleman and other F.B.I. agents and prosecutors involved in the early Bin Laden investigation hailed the operation that led to his death.

“We started the fight; the military ended it,” Michael Anticev, an F.B.I. agent, said. “Everybody’s proud.”

Mr. Coleman said he hoped other defendants in the Bin Laden case would be brought?to Manhattan for trial.?But, he added,?Bin Laden’s actions dictated that he no longer deserved even treatment like a criminal. “It had gone too far,” he said.

 

Prosecutors Are Expected to Seek Dismissal of Charges Against Bin Laden

The move should formally close a case against the leader of Al Qaeda that began in Federal District Court in Manhattan with an indictment on June 10, 1998, and expanded over the years with later versions, adding some two dozen defendants.

A recent version of the indictment was most recently used against Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to be tried in the civilian system. Among those still charged in the indictment is Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s second in command.

The first indictment against Bin Laden ran eight pages and charged him with conspiracy to attack United States defense installations.

But if the original indictment seems almost forgotten in the post-9/11 era and the debates over civilian versus military justice, it is still offered by early investigators as proof that the authorities had grasped the threat Bin Laden posed and could have gone after him much earlier.

“It shows that in spite of whatever everyone says, there were people in the government who knew about Bin Laden prior to 9/11 and were prepared to do something about it,” said Daniel J. Coleman, who in 1996 was the first F.B.I. agent detailed to the Central Intelligence Agency in the investigation of Bin Laden.

“There was a lack of political will to do anything,” said Mr. Coleman, who is retired.

The indictment detailed Al Qaeda’s history and Bin Laden’s role as its leader. It charged that his operatives had trained and assisted Somali tribesmen in an ambush in 1993 that killed 18 American soldiers in Mogadishu.

Later indictments charged a broad conspiracy that also included the bombings on Aug. 7, 1998, of two American Embassies in East Africa that killed 224 people and the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in 2000.

The original indictment, kept secret at first, came at a time when the C.I.A. was considering a plan to capture Bin Laden and turn him over for trial, either in the United States or in an Arab country, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. Those plans were not carried out, but the law enforcement investigation continued.

“There was no question from our perspective that at the time of the June 1998 indictment, the objective was to bring Bin Laden back for trial,” said Mary Jo White, the United States attorney in Manhattan at the time.

Ms. White said there was always a risk he would have been killed in an attempted capture. But if Bin Laden had been captured, she added, “our expectation was that he would be tried.”

Another former agent, Jack Cloonan, likened the case to that of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the former Panamanian leader who was flown to Miami and tried after he was ousted in the invasion of Panama in 1989.

Mr. Cloonan said that there were even discussions about how Bin Laden would be read his rights, adding that agents had envisioned Bin Laden standing in court in shackles and “an orange jumpsuit.”

The string of indictments resulted in a series of trial convictions and guilty pleas. The evidence in the early investigations offered a primer on Bin Laden and his organization. “It was essential to understanding Al Qaeda,” said Ali H. Soufan, a retired F.B.I. agent who was the case agent on the Cole investigation.

Mr. Coleman said he had learned of Bin Laden’s death after his son, a former Army Ranger who had been part of the initial American operations in Afghanistan after 9/11, called Sunday night and said he had heard the president would be speaking.

“It seemed really fitting,” Mr. Coleman said, “that they dumped him in the same ocean” where the Cole was attacked. “The deaths of those young men and women were never avenged,” he added. “There was no military response for an act of war.”

Mr. Coleman and other F.B.I. agents and prosecutors involved in the early Bin Laden investigation hailed the operation that led to his death.

“We started the fight; the military ended it,” Michael Anticev, an F.B.I. agent, said. “Everybody’s proud.”

Mr. Coleman said he hoped other defendants in the Bin Laden case would be brought?to Manhattan for trial.?But, he added,?Bin Laden’s actions dictated that he no longer deserved even treatment like a criminal. “It had gone too far,” he said.

 

Ethiopia Declines to Respond to US Rights Charges

Peter Heinlein | Addis Ababa ?April 24, 2011

Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Hailemariam Desalegn, right (file photo)

Ethiopia has ended its practice of formally responding to the annual U.S. human rights report, as it has done the past two years. A statement said the government views the Congressionally-mandated report with contempt, and has no plans to answer the charges.

The most recent State Department report paints a troubling picture of human rights conditions in Ethiopia.

It depicts a state with a widespread system of paid informants reporting on people’s activities, where criminal courts are subject to significant political intervention and influence, and where non-governmental organizations say hundreds of political prisoners are being held. ?
The 56-page report documents restrictions on academic and press freedoms, including intimidation and detention of journalists, jamming foreign broadcasts, blocking internet websites, and prohibiting political activity on college campuses. ?

It also implicitly questions the existence of a multi-party democracy, noting that the ruling party and its affiliates won almost every one of 3.4 million local council seats in 2008 elections and all but two seats in parliament in 2010.

The report quotes what it calls multiple credible sources saying party membership is an important factor in obtaining university admissions, employment opportunities, food aid and other benefits controlled by the government.

Additionally, it notes that a new law regulating non-governmental organizations has sidelined two prominent domestic human rights defender groups, including the only one doing actual investigations and reporting on alleged abuses.

Ethiopia’s reaction to the report, which covered abuses reported in 2010, was furious. A foreign ministry statement charged that 80% of the material was a rehash of groundless and unverifiable allegations from dubious sources contained in previous reports. It said the rest was mostly a few new lies, added to the old ones, and questioned whether the U.S. government’s motive was simply to tarnish Ethiopia’s image.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn dismissed the document as a meaningless “cut and paste” exercise.

"We said this is a methodology failure. So if the United States is worried about the human rights challenge, then it should be critically evaluated. So if it is ‘cut and paste,’ then it doesn’t give any meaning to anyone. So we said, if it continues like this, it has nothing to do with changing and improving the human rights situation in Ethiopia."

In response to the two previous State Department reports, in 2008 and 2009, Ethiopia published a rebuttal challenging the accuracy of the charges. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi called the pamphlets a sign Ethiopia takes the U.S. criticisms seriously, unlike reports from groups such as Human Rights Watch, which the government categorically dismisses.

But Foreign Minister Hailemariam says the latest U.S. report does not merit a response, and would be treated with what was called "the contempt it deserves."

"The last two years we have engaged ourselves with the authorities of the United States and discussed several meetings on the human rights situation in Ethiopia. We thought we had convinced each other on many of the issues…? If this is not considered at all, then there is no need to accept this report as something that can help us.? So that’s why we dismissed the report totally because it is based on unfounded allegations which are baseless."

Hailemariam made clear, however, that the report would not affect what he called the "cordial relationship" between Addis Ababa and Washington. He said, "we dismiss the report, we have not dismissed the United States."

Ethiopia remains an important U.S. partner in the volatile Horn of Africa region. The United States is Ethiopia’s largest bilateral aid donor, with assistance totaling roughly $1 billion a year.

[All VOA blogs...]

oing Green
Watch Rebecca Ward's report on the BP?Gulf oil spill - one year later.

 

Ex-Blackwater Guards Face Renewed Charges

Criminal charges against the former employees of Blackwater Worldwide had been dismissed in December 2009 by a federal judge in Washington, who criticized the Justice Department for its handling of the case and ruled that prosecutors had relied on tainted evidence.

The three-judge appeals panel disagreed with that decision, and sent the case back on Friday, ordering Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of Federal District Court to review the evidence against each defendant individually.

“We find that the district court’s findings depend on an erroneous view of the law,” the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled. The appeals judges called on the lower court to determine “as to each defendant, what evidence — if any — the government presented against him that was tainted as to him,” and whether that was enough to justify throwing out the charges.

The former guards affected by the ruling are Evan S. Liberty of Rochester, N.H.; Donald W. Ball of West Valley City, Utah; and Dustin L. Heard of Knoxville, Tenn., all of whom had served with the Marines before joining Blackwater; and Paul A. Slough from Keller, Tex., who had been in the Army.

A fifth guard had also been indicted, but the charges against him were dropped by the Justice Department before Judge Urbina dismissed the case.

The appeals court ruling was a victory for the Justice Department, which had been bruised by Judge Urbina’s ruling taking it to task for an overzealous prosecution.

“We’re pleased with the ruling and assessing the next steps,” the department spokesman, Dean Boyd, said Friday. Defense lawyers involved in the case did not respond to requests for comment.

The shootings, in the middle of traffic in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, left at least 17 Iraqi civilians dead and set off an anti-American political firestorm in Iraq and an international debate over the role of private security contractors in modern war zones. The Blackwater guards were accused of firing wildly and indiscriminately from their convoy into other cars and at Iraqi civilians. The guards defended their actions, saying they were responding to fire from insurgents.

The Nisour Square shootings became a watershed event in the Iraq war, and led the Iraqi government to demand greater sovereignty and control over foreign contractors operating in the country. The Baghdad government later demanded and won the right to subject foreign contractors to Iraqi law, while the United States government grudgingly began to impose greater curbs on the freewheeling activities of the personnel guarding American diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The earlier dismissal of the charges against the guards, who were indicted in 2008, was met with angry protests in Iraq, while Friday’s action pleased some in Baghdad.

“This new decision has brought optimism and happiness back to me,” said Talib Mutlak, who was injured in the Nisour Square shooting. “This is a victory for the blood of martyrs and injured people who were affected by Blackwater.”

Blackwater itself never truly recovered from the shooting. It quickly became the subject of numerous Congressional and federal investigations and lawsuits for a broad range of activities in Iraq and elsewhere.

Among other troubles, five former Blackwater executives, including the company’s onetime president, were indicted on federal weapons and obstruction charges, two other former guards were charged with murder in connection with a shooting in Afghanistan, and the Justice Department opened an inquiry into whether Blackwater sought to bribe Iraqi officials in order to keep doing business in Iraq after the Nisour Square shooting.

After the shooting, Blackwater changed its name to Xe Services, and then late last year the company’s founder, Erik Prince, sold the business. He has left the United States and moved his family to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Omar al-Jawoshy contributed reporting from Baghdad.

 

Roommate Faces Hate-Crime Charges in Rutgers Case

The roommate, Dharun Ravi, and another student were initially charged with invasion of privacy. In accusing Mr. Ravi of acting with antigay motives, the indictment exposes him to a potential sentence of at least 5 to 10 years in prison if convicted, as opposed to the probation that would probably have resulted if Mr. Ravi were convicted only on the earlier counts.

The grand jury also charged Mr. Ravi, 19, with a cover-up. The Middlesex County prosecutor’s office said he had deleted a Twitter post that alerted others to watch a second encounter Mr. Clementi planned with the man — identified in the indictment only as “M.B.” — and replaced it with a post “intended to mislead the investigation.” Prosecutors said Mr. Ravi had also tried to persuade witnesses not to testify.

The investigation that led to the 15-count indictment proceeded quietly over several months, as Mr. Clementi’s suicide focused national attention on the victimization of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth. Public figures including Ellen DeGeneres and President Obama spoke out about the tragedy; New Jersey legislators enacted the nation’s toughest law against bullying; and there were calls from many quarters for prosecutors to bring the bias charges.

Legal scholars said the case would be closely watched and could have ripple effects. “Charging this as a bias crime may send a message to prosecutors who are dealing with similar cases in other states about the particularly damaging consequences of this kind of crime,” said Suzanne B. Goldberg, director of the Columbia Law School Center for Gender and Sexuality Law.

After discovering that his roommate had spied on him, the authorities said, Mr. Clementi, an aspiring violinist from Ridgewood, N.J., jumped from the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22.

Prosecutors said Wednesday that the events that led to the bias-intimidation charges dated from Aug. 6, the day Mr. Ravi learned the name of his future roommate — identified in the indictment as “T.C.,” since invasion of privacy is designated a sexual offense. Later that month, Mr. Ravi used his Twitter account to announce he had found out his roommate was gay.

“The grand jury charged that the invasion of privacy and attempt to invade the privacy of T.C. and M.B. were intended to intimidate them because of their sexual orientation,” prosecutors said in a statement.

Mr. Ravi’s co-defendant, Molly Wei, who lived in the same dormitory and was also charged with invasion of privacy, was not indicted. The prosecutor, Bruce J. Kaplan, said in a statement that the case against her remained active but would not be presented to a grand jury “at this time,” suggesting that she could testify against Mr. Ravi.

Prosecutors say Mr. Ravi live-streamed the encounter on Sept. 19.

A Twitter message that day from Mr. Ravi summed up the sequence of events: “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”

Mr. Ravi was also charged with additional counts of attempted invasion of privacy for trying to carry out a similar live transmission two days later. That attempt was thwarted after Mr. Clementi found the camera aimed at his bed.

The prosecutor’s office said Mr. Ravi, who remains free on $25,000 bail, would be arraigned in coming days, but no date had been set. Mr. Ravi and Ms. Wei withdrew from Rutgers last fall; their lawyers did not respond to phone messages seeking comment.

Mr. Clementi’s parents, Joseph and Jane Clementi, who said last month in a statement that they were not seeking “harsh punishment” for the defendants, responded to the new charges with their most forceful words to date.

“The grand jury indictment spells out cold and calculated acts against our son Tyler by his former college roommate,” they said in a new statement. “If these facts are true, as they appear to be, then it is important for our criminal justice system to establish clear accountability under the law.”

Their lawyer, Paul Mainardi, emphasized that the charges did not relate to the death. “The point is that it shouldn’t take a suicide for charges like this to be brought,” Mr. Mainardi said.

New Jersey’s attorney general, Paula T. Dow, called the indictment “an important step in this heartbreaking case.” Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, a gay-rights advocacy group, said “potential bullies will now think harder before demolishing another student’s life.”

On the Busch campus at Rutgers, where Mr. Ravi and Mr. Clementi had lived, students offered differing views of the bias charges. “There was no sex tape; it was more like he just peeked into the room,” Enrico Cabreto, 19, a freshman, said. “He’s only being indicted because of all the publicity.”

Daniel Granda, 18, also a freshman, disagreed. “He didn’t make him jump, but by doing what he did, he set the stage for what happened next,” he said.

Nate Schweber contributed reporting.

 

Well: Sexism Charges Divide Surgeons’ Organization

 

A Valentine’s Day editorial in the official newspaper of the American College of Surgeons has set off a firestorm of controversy that has divided the largest professional organization of surgeons in the country and raised questions about the current leadership and its attitudes toward women and gay and lesbian members.

The editorial, written by Dr. Lazar J. Greenfield, an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Michigan School of Medicine and president-elect of the American College of Surgeons, extols the mood-enhancing effects of semen on women. It begins with a reference to the mating behaviors of fruit flies, then goes on to discuss studies on the menstrual cycles of heterosexual and lesbian women who live together. Citing the research of evolutionary psychologists at the State University of New York, it describes how female college students who had been exposed to semen were less depressed than their peers who had not, concluding: “So there’s a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there’s a better gift for that day than chocolates.”

This month, in response to complaints, the editorial was retracted and pulled from the group’s Web site, and Dr. Greenfield was asked to step down from his position as editor in chief of the surgeon’s newspaper. But criticisms continue to mount.

“I was aghast,” said Dr. Colleen Brophy, a professor of surgery at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, and a member of the organization for over 20 years. Dr. Brophy, who served as chairwoman of its surgical research committee, publicly resigned from the College on Thursday. “I’ve gone back and reviewed the science, and it’s erroneous,” she said. “But I’m resigning from the college not so much because of the editorial but because of the leadership’s response to it.”

The organization has more than 75,000 members (I am one). Roughly 10 percent are women. There are five women on the organization’s 22-member governing board; this month, they issued a letter requesting that Dr. Greenfield step down as president-elect. The entire board is set to vote on the issue on Sunday.

Dr. Greenfield has not issued a formal statement and could not be reached for comment, but in an e-mail to his colleagues in response to the criticism, he wrote that his editorial “was considered by the Women in Surgery Committee and the Association of Women Surgeons as demeaning to women. Despite my apologies, they brought the issue to the Board of Regents.”

Dr. L. D. Britt, the current president of the organization and chairman of surgery at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, also did not respond to requests for comment. But at a surgical meeting this month, he invoked the experience of “oppressed” South Africans who chose “reconciliation,” adding, “If someone is truly apologetic, we have to consider that.”

While women now make up almost half of all entering medical school classes in the United States, fewer than a third choose to go into surgery, in part because of a perceived male bias, negative attitudes of surgeons and a lack of female mentors. Once in practice, studies have shown, well over half of all women surgeons report feeling demeaned, and nearly a third say they have been the objects of inappropriate sexist remarks or advances.

Dr. Greenfield has had what many believe is an exemplary career not only as a surgeon but also as a longtime mentor and advocate of women in surgery. He is the editor of one of the major textbooks of surgery and the inventor of the Greenfield Filter, a device that has been used in hundreds of thousands of patients to prevent life-threatening blood clots from entering the lung. And Dr. Greenfield has been a mentor to countless surgeons, many of them women, while serving as chairman of surgery first at Virginia Commonwealth University and then at the University of Michigan.

“He has always been above reproach,” said Dr. Mary T. Hawn, an associate professor of surgery at the University of Alabama School of Medicine in Birmingham, who worked as a medical student, surgeon-in-training and faculty member under Dr. Greenfield. “Our understanding was that he went out of his way to recruit women on the trainee and faculty level.”

Dr. Diane M. Simeone, a professor of surgery at the University of Michigan who was a co-author of a recent article on barriers faced by women in academic surgery, agrees. “There still is a lot of gender bias in surgery, and I have seen it myself on multiple fronts,” she said. “That was never evident from Dr. Greenfield. I think it’s important to know that this is one event and to weigh it against a long career where he has always been completely above board and a role model for supporting women in surgery.”

It is less clear what attitudes Dr. Greenfield or other leaders of the organization have toward the college’s gay and lesbian members. “I think race and religion have made a lot more progress in the college than women, and particularly gay women or men,” Dr. Brophy said. “This is probably the first time I’ve ever seen the word ‘lesbian’ used in a piece or associated with the college. Ever.”

For some, the controversy is less a matter of Dr. Greenfield’s fate as president-elect and more a reflection of what some see as a deep disconnect between the old guard and its respect of hierarchy and professional omerta, and a newer generation of surgeons and leaders who embrace a culture of transparency in the age of the Internet.

Many surgeons chose not to comment on the matter, for fear of professional repercussions, but one said, “It’s frankly been heartbreaking for all of us.”

“There are all these men and women out there who are afraid to say something,” said Dr. Barbara Lee Bass, chairwoman of surgery at the Methodist Hospital in Houston, who recently served on the college’s governing board. “It reveals that there is still this intimidation and fearfulness, and that’s what troubles me most.”

“I’m not sure some of the old guard see this as the watershed moment it is,” she continued. Referring to the college’s role as a standard bearer for surgeons and an advocacy organization for patient care and patient safety, she added: “It’s not so much about Dr. Greenfield anymore. It’s about the spine of our organization and the principles by which the organization governs itself.”