Surprise: Former 'enemy combatant' admits helping Al-Qaeda
"Former 'enemy combatant' admits helping Al-Qaeda," from AFP, May 2 (thanks to James):
PEORIA, Illinois (AFP) -- Al-Qaeda sleeper agent Ali al-Marri, who was held by the United States without trial for more than five years as an “enemy combatant,” pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to provide material support to terrorism.
“Without a doubt, this case is a grim reminder of the seriousness of the threat we as a nation still face,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.
“But it also reflects what we can achieve when we have faith in our criminal justice system and are unwavering in our commitment to the values upon which the nation was founded and the rule of law.”
Marri, who was the last “enemy combatant” held on U.S. soil, faces a maximum of 15 years in jail after reaching a deal with prosecutors to drop a second charge in exchange for the guilty plea. He will be sentenced on July 30.
Marri admitted to attending several terrorist training camps in Pakistan from 1998 to 2001, according to an agreed statement of fact.
While there, he said he met Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, considered the architect of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Marri entered the United States on September 10, 2001 with his wife and children ostensibly to study at an Illinois university.
The next day Al-Qaeda launched its attacks, and Marri continued to work for the terrorist organization by researching poisons such as cyanide and the location of dams, waterways and tunnels.
Marri was arrested in Illinois in December 2001 in connection with the terrorist attacks and eventually charged with credit card fraud.
The 43-year-old dual Saudi-Qatari national had spent nearly six years in isolation in a military brig in South Carolina without charge after then-president George W. Bush declared him an enemy combatant in 2003.
Unlike the detainees held at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Marri was a legal U.S. resident when he was first arrested.
His case was transferred to civil court on February 26 when he was formally indicted on charges of providing support to Al-Qaeda and conspiring with others to do the same.
Marri's case raised one of the most vexing questions of the Bush administration: whether a U.S. president has the authority to detain terror suspects -- including legal U.S. residents -- indefinitely without charge.
Marri had pursued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the president's authority to detain terror suspects indefinitely without charge.
The court had agreed to hear the case, but shortly after the government filed its indictment it urged the Supreme Court to set aside as “moot” the constitutional challenge to Marri's detention as an enemy combatant.
The high court sent the case back to an appeals court, effectively delaying the resolution of an issue that could have implications for the estimated 240 “enemy combatants” still held in Guantanamo.
Obama has vowed to shut the “war on terror” prison within a year, amid criticism over U.S. interrogation tactics used on some terror suspects, including “waterboarding,” or simulated drowning.
However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday said that about 50 to 100 of the detainees cannot be tried or released and the government has not yet determined what to do with them.
Comment: Note what happens when you take terrorists and "lay on them credibility called civil courts"-money, time-who are you kidding Mr. Holder? This demonstrates the tribulations of the obvious!!
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