Ashcroft Gestapo Tactics Under Fire
by Edward Spannaus
Aug. 1 (EIRNS)As the record of violations of the rights of U.S. citizens and immigrants by Attorney General John Ashcroft under the so-called USA-Patriot anti-terrorism law, is piling upand is now the subject of a major lawsuit just filed in Detroitthe story is also coming out as to how Ashcroft is using the threat of declaring a suspect an "enemy combatant" and throwing him into the black hole of endless military custody, to coerce defendants to plead guilty to charges which the government might not be able to prove in court.
Although the U.S. government has but two U.S. citizens locked up and being held incommunicado, in denial of all Constitutional rights, in military prisons as "enemy combatants" under President Bush's Military Order issued Nov. 13, 2001, the corrupt benefit which Ashcroft derives from this is much broader, as shown by some recent cases.
The use of threats of draconian punishment to pervert the justice system, is characteristic of the manner in which Ashcroft operates.
In a June 5 appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Ashcroft demanded that Congress give him still more powersmore surveillance powers, more drastic sentencing provisions, and more death penalty applications. Ashcroft made it clear that his desire for harsher sentences is not for purposes of punishment or deterrence, but as a lever for coercing "cooperation" and plea-bargaining. Ashcroft complained that "existing law does not consistently encourage cooperation by providing adequate maximum penalties to punish acts of terrorism," and called for greater use of the death penalty and life imprisonment. - The Lackawanna Six -
The Washington Post reported recently how Ashcroft's Justice Department has used the threat of indefinite military imprisonment, to compel guilty pleas from six young Yemeni-Americans from Lackawanna, N.Y. The six were coerced into pleading guilty to terrorist crimes, with sentences of six to nine years, under the threat that if they didn't, they would be designated as "enemy combatants" and shipped off to military prisons, where they would have no access to lawyers or the courts.
The six have admitted attending an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan prior to the 9/11 attackshaving been recruited to go there for ostensibly religious purposesbut the government could offer no evidence that they planned any terrorist acts against the United States.
Lawyers for the six feared that if they went to trial, and the case started going badly for the prosecution, the government might transfer the cases to the military. (This is similar to what occurred in the case of Lyndon LaRouche et al., which was being tried in Federal court in Boston in 1988; the case was dropped and transferred to the Alexandria, Va. "rocket docket," when the Justice Department realized that it was losing the case after five months of trial.)
"We had to worry about the defendants being whisked out of the courtroom and declared enemy combatants if the case started going well for us," said a defense lawyer. "So we just ran up the white flag and folded. Most of us wish we'd never been associated with this case." Neil Sonnet, the chairman of the American Bar Association's task force on the treatment of enemy combatants, says: "The defendants believed that if they didn't plead guilty, they'd end up in a black hole forever."
"These guys wouldn't hurt a flea, but they were fools to go [to Afghanistan] and fools not to be honest," says a Lackawanna man who had coached most of the defendants in soccer. "After the Sept.11 attacks, it became a disaster. I told my nephew, 'Take a plea because no jury is going to sympathize with you now.' "
It is also reported that this was the reason that Ohio truck driver Lyman Faris pleaded guilty to having had an implausible plan to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge, because he feared being declared an "enemy combatant" if he didn't plead guilty. It's hard to see how any jury would have taken such a wild charge seriously: namely, that Faris was supposedly going to cut the supporting cables of the bridge and cause it to collapsewithout anyone noticing!
Another twist to the Lackawanna Six story, relates to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's evolving plans for targetted assassinations (as in Iraq). Defense lawyers naturally sought to question the two men who had recruited their clients to go to Afghanistan for "jihad training." One, Juma al-Dosari, has been widely reported to be in the Guantanamo Bay military prison, but the Justice Department refuses to acknowledge his presence. The other, Kamal Derwish, was killed along with five other men when U.S. forces fired a missile at their car in Yemen, in an Israeli-style targetted assassination. "He's the alleged recruiter, but now he's been incinerated by the government," said a defense attorney. - The Moussaoui Case -
Also being closely watched, for its implications for civilian trials in terrorism cases, is the proceeding in Federal court in Alexandria, Va., involving terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui. Moussaoui, a French-Algerian, is charged with participation in the Sept. 11 conspiracyeven though he was already in jail at the time of the hijacking attacksand could face the death penalty if convicted.
Moussaoui's lawyers have sought access to Ramzi bin al-Shibh, identified as a top al-Qaeda operative involved in planning the Sept. 11 attacks, who is being held by the U.S. military at an undisclosed location abroad after being captured in Pakistan last year.
Under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, an accused person is entitled to call witnesses on his behalf, and Moussaoui's desire to question bin al-Shibh is about a clear exercise of a Sixth Amendment right as can be found. According to press reports, bin al-Shibh has told his interrogators that Moussaoui was considered untrustworthy by the al-Qaeda leadership, and that he was not part of the 9/11 attacks. Irrespective of the truth or accuracy of such reports, Moussaoui is certainly entitled to call such a witness, who could offer exculpatory testimony. The judge trying the case has agreed, and has ordered prosecutors to make bin al-Shibh available for questioning by Moussaoui's attorneys, as a potential defense witness.
The Justice Department and the Defense Department have totally refused to cooperate with the judge's order, grandiosely claiming that any questioning whatever of bin al-Shibh, could jeopardize the entire U.S. war on international terrorism. And so far, even the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has upheld most of the government's actions in terrorism cases (such as the "unlawful combatant" designation), has declined to overturn the judge's order.
The Justice Department has been dropping broad hints that it will abandon the Federal court case, and transfer Moussaoui to military custody, if faced with no choice but to produce bin al-Shibh. Of course, even the military tribunals may grant defendants the right to call witnesses, so that may not work either. But there is nothing in the way the Justice Department interprets the law, or in the President's military order, that says that the government has to put "unlawful combatants" on trial. They can just be held indefinitely, without access to a lawyer, the courts, or even to their families.
Although such detentionsuch as is being done with over 600 military prisonersviolates international legal conventions to which the U.S. is a party, John Ashcroft could care less. And, as can be seen from the Lackawanna and Brooklyn Bridge cases, the use of such military detentions only increases his leverage in civilian cases. - ACLU Sues Ashcroft -
On July 30, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in Federal court in Detroit against Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller, asking the court to declare the notorious Section 215 of the USA-Patriot Act unconstitutional, and to issue a permanent injunction preventing the FBI and Justice Department from enforcing it.
According to the complaint filed in court, Section 215 allows the government to obtain access to a person's financial and other records and personal belongingswithout having to show probable cause or any convincing proof that the person is involved with terrorism.
The FBI can obtain financial records, membership lists, records of library borrowing or Internet use, and the like, in total secrecy, and without the person targetting ever knowing about it.
Nor, contrary to the Justice Department's assertions, is this power limited to non-citizens. All the FBI has to do, is to claim that the records are sought in connection with a foreign intelligence investigation. The application is made to the supersecret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has little authority to question an application presented by the FBI and Justice Department.
The Detroit suit was filed on behalf of six organizations that work with Arab-Americans and Muslims. Many of the groups deal with immigrants; one assists refugees from Saddam Hussein's Iraq, many of whom had helped the United States during the first Gulf War. That group, called Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services of Knoxville, Tenn., had all of its records relating to Iraqi refugees subpoenaed by the FBI.
Section 215 has also been the subject of intense opposition from a group that usually does not get involved in political protests: librarians. The provision allows the FBI to obtain access to a library's records concerning a subject's reading habits, borrowing, or Internet use.
About 165 communities around the country have now passed resolutions or bills condemning the Patriot Act, and in some localities, barring local officials from cooperating with Federal agents trying to enforce Section 215.
Reprinted from the New Federalist of Aug. 11.
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