Islamofascists

Guantanamo, Islamofascists, Lawfare, War on Terror

Ex-Guantanamo detainees on trial in Morocco for terrorism

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Breaking news, Fri, May. 11, 2007, in the Miami Herald:

SALE, Morocco — (AP) — Two men once held as captives at the U.S. prison camps in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and 20 other suspects faced charges Friday of allegedly recruiting people to train abroad and carry out terrorist attacks in Morocco, in a trial that has dragged on for over a year.
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Suspects Brahim Benchekroun and Mahomed Mazouz were held at the remote U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba from 2002 until August 2004, when they were repatriated to Morocco along with three other detainees. The pair were hit with terrorist charges upon return but released soon after on probation. They were acquitted of the charges in January.

Meantime, Benchekroun and Mazouz had been rearrested in November 2005 on fresh charges of helping form a terrorist cell allegedly recruiting people to undergo paramilitary training abroad and then carry out attacks in Morocco.

Moroccan authorities say the group had relations with terrorists active on the borders of Iraq. The suspects also include alleged ringleader Khalid Azig, a Moroccan, and Mohamed Reha and his uncle, Mohamed Zemmouri, two Belgians of Moroccan origin.

Morocco has arrested thousands of alleged terrorists since suicide bombings in 2003 killed 45 people in Casablanca. Casablanca was hit by a new spate of suicide bombings in March and April as police ran to ground a cell that killed themselves with explosive belts to avoid capture.

I seem to recall that the Geneva Conventions says enemy combatants can be held for the duration of the conflict. Stupid me! I forgot that the Democrats in Congress say there no longer is a War on Terror so that must be the reason we let these two terrorists combatants suspects ago.

Fort Dix 6, Guantanamo, Islamofascists, Lawfare

Fort Dix 6 legal spin begins in media: echoes of Gitmo

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As Debra Burlingame has pointed out, hundreds of American lawyers and their high-powered PR machines (such as this one) have created “image makeovers for suspected al Qaeda financiers, foot soldiers, weapons trainers and bomb makers.” Not to be outdone, the lawyers for the Fort Dix 6 are already putting the mainstream media to work. Constitutional lawyer and syndicated talk-radio host Mark Levin pointed this heavily slanted Associated Press article out last night on his show:

He railed against the United States, helped scout out military installations for attack, offered to introduce his comrades to an arms dealer, and gave them a list of weapons he could procure, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. These were not the actions of a terrorist, but of a paid FBI informant who helped bring down an alleged plot by six Muslim men to massacre U.S. soldiers at New Jersey’s Fort Dix. And those actions have raised questions of whether the government crossed the line and pushed the six men down a path they would not have otherwise followed.

It is an argument — entrapment — that has been made in other terrorism cases, and one that has failed miserably in this post-Sept. 11 era. One defense attorney on the case, Troy Archie, said no decision has been made on whether to argue entrapment, but based on the FBI’s own account, “the guys sort of led them on.” Rocco Cipparone, a lawyer for another one of the defendants, said he will take a hard look at “the role of paid informants and how aggressive they were in potentially prodding or moving things along.”

The Fort Dix Six were arrested earlier this week after a 15-month FBI investigation that relied heavily on two paid informants who secretly recorded meetings and telephone conversations in which the suspects talked of killing “in the name of Allah.”

The AP waited until well down in the article before they provided a little balance:

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie defended the government’s handling of the case. He and the FBI portrayed the defendants as Muslim fanatics who were nearly ready to strike. They were arrested Monday night during what the FBI said was an attempt to buy AK-47 machine guns, M-16s and other weapons.

Former FBI agent Kevin Barrows said prosecutors appeared to have done things right. “They corroborated with surveillance, and they had a gun buy set up,” Barrows said. “That further solidified the case, as opposed to it just being a tape of somebody saying, `Yeah, I want to buy guns.’ They worked this for a long time and the evidence seems really, really solid.”

You can hear the 7 minute audio of Mark Levin’s commentary here.

A little later, I called in and spoke with my friend Mark. Like those defending the ghouls at Gitmo, the lawyers for the Fort Dix 6 are making a case in the press — without evidence — and their sound bites will not stand up in a court of law.