Morrocan Man Sentenced on Terror Charges, AP/Yahoo, 08/19/2005
German court convicts 9/11 suspect, UPI/WorldPeaceHerald, 08/19/2005
This is an interesting case of Munir Motassadeq, a Moroccan-born German
man who's accused of assisting the 9/11 hijackers. It brings up a lot
of issues from how the US interacts with foreign courts, in this case
German, to how the US's concerns for information secrecy might have
freed this guy and on to the efficacy, in general, of the legal
system's prosecution of terrorism. I follow a bunch of this
stuff, but I comment
very little, unfortunately.
For example, Motassadeq was convicted of 'assisted
murder' in 02/2003 and given 15 years - a sentence which was overturned
by appeal and he was freed. Freed? I'd have thought the US
would've wanted this guy, at the very least, in Gitmo pronto, but free
he was for about a year. Another Moroccan, Abdelghani Mzoudi, a friend of
Motassadeq, was acquitted in a seperate trial (with identical charges) in 02/004.
Free. The prosecutor's request for appeal for Mzoudi was thrown
out.
There were various reports of the levels of political
pressure and non-pressure to have Motassadeq retried, as he has been, as well
as accusations (by the German prosecutors) that the US wasn't being
forthcoming enough to convict Motassadeq. International
cooperation on terrorism, people, please? Kuno Boese, a terrorism
expert at a Berlin university said "That's good. We can't be the
laughing stock of our EU neighbors any longer."
Found guilty of belonging to a terrorist cell, Motassadeq was found
innocent of over 3,000 counts of being an accessory to murder. Whether
there's an appeal, how this case affects Germany's legal
system and other legal implications for prosecuting terrorism are still
open questions.
Spain is currently trying 24 Syrian-born Spanish men accused of being Al Qaeda members (
It's Liberty vs. Security in Spanish Terror Trial,
LA Times, 08/10/2005), 3 of whom are accused of assisting in 9/11, with
a verdict to appear in September. Some info and key people in
this trial: Pedro Rubira, Spain's lead prosecutor; Jacinto Gil, a
defense attorney; investigating judge Baltasar Garzon; key defendant,
Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, alleged head of the Spanish Al Qaeda cell,
'Soldiers of Allah'; co-defendant Driss Chebli - Barakat & Chebli
are accused of arranging a 07/16/2001 planning meeting w/ Mohd Atta in
Spain and having taken video tape of the WTC; co-defendant Taysir
Alouni, an Al Jazeera reporter. Spain has a max of 40 years prison time
for terrorist activites and no death penalty - the prosecutors are
seeking sentences totalling tens of thousands of years.
Further, last month the EU put into effect a Europe-wide arrest warrant
for Al Qaeda suspects. Good, right? Germany found it
unconstitutional and let Mamoun Darkanzali, a Syrian-born German, go
free from the extradition Spain sought for the trial mentioned above. (
EU: Commission says Europe-Wide Arrest Warrant Still Valid,
AKI, 07/18/2005) Darkanzali was accused of being a member of a
terrorist cell and "providing logistics support and financing the
network,
including the purchase of a cargo vessel that he and two others bought
in December 1993 for its leader Osama bin Laden." Free.
For me, I think the realization of how Relativism’s influence has
seeped into our collective unconscious and caused logic-rot started
with my study of Feminism. In college, we men were taught that our deepest feelings
were shameful, so shameful, that even the appearance of looking at a
woman was tantamount to rape and, at the very least, an offense that’d
get you referred to the ombudsman. If I could equate unspoken thoughts
with the worst horror imaginable, it actually “felt” logical.
Today, these issues are in play on the slippery waterslide slope in the waterpark that is Relativism:
- Even the appearance of torture is equivalent to torture (people
out of touch with the grey areas of the Geneva Convention, standard
interrogation practices, etc.)
- Even the appearance of pursuing nuclear technology is equivalent
to nuclear weaponry (anachronistic Cold Warriors, lifetime Axis of Evil subscription
holders, people unfamiliar with the concept of Atoms for Peace or the
inevitability of progress)
- Even the appearance of disengagement is ethnic cleansing (Rachel
Neuwirth, Joseph Farah and other Zionists opposing the pullout in Gaza)
NEW YORK/LONDON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Bombs used by four suicide attackers
to kill 52 people in London were made from simple ingredients such as
hair bleach, and three of them were probably set off by cellphones, New
York's police chief said. (
London Bombers Used Everyday Materials, Reuters)
There's a theory that the London bombers of July 7 weren't suicide
bombers but dupes - they were blown up. (
Police debate if London Plotters were Suicide Bombers, or Dupes, NYT 07/26) The theory stems from the
lack of classical suicide bomber MO's - leaving a note/video, not
having any return traces (the guys had a car parked as well as return
train tickets purchased). Now that cellphones are implicated as
the timing device, it seems to give credence to the theory that they
were blown up not by a time of their choosing, but on someone else's
schedule. There's also a bit of flak between the NYC police
department and London's PD, since the info about the constitution of
the bombs and the cellphones were revealed in confidence by London to
NYC.