DAR AL HARB - U.S.A. - VIRGINIA: LEGAL JIHAD IN THE 4TH CIRCUIT APPEALS COURT

Editorial: Fighting legal jihad one case at a time

WASHINGTON - The latest battle in what counterterrorism experts call “legal jihad” is now raging in Richmond’s 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ali al-Marri, then a 37-year-old Qatari here on a student visa, was arrested in Peoria, Ill., as a material witness a month after Sept. 11 and has since been held as an “enemy combatant.” One of his attorneys said Friday that the government’s case is based on “hearsay” from allegedly tortured terror suspects.

Not quite. Joint Intelligence Task Force director Jeffrey Rapp testified that factual evidence against al-Marri, “corroborated by multiple intelligence sources,” includes these facts:

» Al-Marri received training in the use of poisons at Osama bin Laden’s Afghanistan terrorist training camp between 1996 and 1998.

» He met with Sept. 11 mastermind Kalid Shaykh Muhammed in the summer of 2001, when al-Marri was directed to enter the U.S. as a sleeper agent to hack into the U.S. financial system and disrupt bank records.

» He met in Dubai in August 2001 with al-Qaida financier Mustafa Al-Hawsawi, who gave al-Marri $3,000 to buy a laptop computer on which FBI agents found bookmarked information about chemical weapons and computer hacking, “proxy” software, more than 1,000 stolen credit card numbers and an animated plane flying at the World Trade Center.

» He had calling cards used to contact a number in the United Arab Emirates linked to Al-Hawsawi.

Al-Marri denies entering the U.S. to commit hostile acts, but declined numerous opportunities to rebut this evidence — even though the Hamdi ruling noted that the Constitution permits “a presumption in favor of the government’s evidence” in initial stages of declaring an “enemy combatant.”

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Pertinent Links:

1) Editorial: Fighting legal jihad one case at a time