LACKAWANNA, New York, Sept 18: Lawyers representing six men, who are allegedly belonging to an Al Qaeda terrorist cell in upstate New York, said their clients were victims of McCarthyism, referring to an anti-Communist witch-hunt launched by the late US Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Joseph LaTona, who represents suspect Faysal Galab, compared the case to criminal charges that were filed against Communist Party sympathizers during the McCarthy era of the 1950s.

Lawyers argue that even if the men trained at an Al Qaeda camp it should not be considered a violent crime. “To me, this is like charging someone with a thought crime,” one defence lawyer said. “You’re prosecuting somebody for attending a training camp, even though there’s no evidence they had any kind of plans for any terrorist act,” he said.

The six men face felony charges of supporting a terrorist organization and the threat of an additional treason charge, which could result in death penalty.

FBI agents supervising the case, however, disagreed with the assumption. “Nobody can be naive enough to think there’s nothing wrong in training with Al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden,” said Stanley J. Borgia, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI in Buffalo.

“These men were trained in how to sacrifice their lives, how to use suicide as a weapon against America,” he said. “They received some of the same training that the 9-11 hijackers received.”

On Tuesday, defence lawyers met a group of Yemeni business community in Lackawanna, a sleepy border town about 720km west of New York City, in an effort to raise money for their clients’ possible bail.

Jim Harrington, who represents suspect Sahim A. Alwan, was one of many attorneys to meet the Yemenite Benevolent Association in an effort to raise $100,000 for each man before a Wednesday bail hearing.

Harrington declined to say exactly how much money was raised. All six suspects are US citizens of Yemeni descent, with all but one born and raised in the United States.

After the meeting, Harrington criticized the government’s case against his client, but would not comment on whether the 29-year-old Alwan had actually attended a training camp run by Al Qaeda.

“It has not been established that visiting Afghanistan is a crime,” he said. “The government has not established that my client has been to the (Al Qaeda) training camps.”

Harrington also said that to deny “them bail, the government would have to prove that they are a risk to life, and a danger to the community.”

Alwan, with Mukhtar al Bakri, 22; Faysal Galab, 26; Shafal Mosed, 24; Yasein Taher, 24; and Yahya Goba, 25, were charged on Saturday with conspiring to give material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

John Molloy, who represents al Bakri, said he was impressed by the number of people who attended the meeting and were willing to help arrange the bail.

“My client is very shocked,” said Molloy. “He was snatched from his wedding bed. The reception (in Bahrain) ended at 2am and he was arrested at 11am.”

According to the government, the men were being investigated in the summer of 2001, before Sept 11, after the FBI received information that “a number of individuals had attended and participated in terrorism training in Afghanistan.”