Al Qaeda cell case tests patience: DATELINE WASHINGTON

FOR three days, proceedings in a small courtroom in western New York made headlines across the world. The court was hearing the bail applications of six men accused of running an Al Qaeda sleeper cell — a dormant terrorist group — in the United States, which, according to the prosecution, was to be activated later by the Al Qaeda leadership.

The men — all born Americans of Yemeni parentage — deny the charge. The prosecution insists that last year the men attended an Al Qaeda training camp in southwestern Afghanistan where they were trained to use rifles, handguns and explosives and learned mountain climbing.

Since it is the first group ever to be tried for running an Al Qaeda cell inside the United States, the hearing drew international attention.

The bail hearing — usually decided in one session — continued for three days and then the judge, H. Kenneth Schroeder Jr., adjourned the court till Oct 3 when, he said, he would announce his decision.

From the beginning, the judge seemed aware of the immense importance of the case and at every stage took pains to explain the American judicial process for those from outside the United States who may not know it.

He also seemed aware that while many in the United States wanted him to keep the suspects behind bars, there were others — both in the United States and abroad — who wanted him to release them on bail.

“To be perfectly blunt, I know there are people out there who say if we let these people out and we have another 9/11 — God forbid — but that’s a risk I would be taking,” Schroeder continued. “I’m not concerned with what other people think.”

Schroeder said his principal aim was the “protection of probably the most valuable aspect of all, which is the Constitution of the United States.”

But, in a case like this, mere adherence to the constitution may not be sufficient. As he often said during the proceedings, at the end of the day he would have to draw his own conclusions and no matter what he concluded, it would be controversial.

It is not one of those cases in which the preponderance of evidence silences the critics. The judge said that so far the government had not shown anything to prove that the suspects were involved in any plot to carry out terrorist acts inside the United States.

“I haven’t seen anything that shows me convincingly or with clarity that these men were preparing or planning any acts of harm,” said Schroeder on the last day of the bail hearing. “I haven’t heard of any act of violence or propensity of violence in the history of these individuals.”

The prosecution, however, insisted that releasing the men on bail would endanger lives in the United States and allow the suspects to flee. “There are no conditions that will guarantee the safety of the community and ensure the appearance of the suspects in the court,” said Assistant US Attorney William Hochul.

Defence lawyers had earlier requested the judge to free the six men on bail but restrict their movement. They had proposed installing surveillance cameras at their homes and ordering the suspects not to leave the county and report their movement to the police.

“The government and the American public cannot afford to have another 9/11,” Hochul said. “We will do everything we can to stop it and (they) ... should be kept in detention until the case is decided by jury.”

Independent law experts say the prosecution’s problems will not end after the bail applications are disposed of. The prosecution, they say, may find it difficult to prove the charges against the suspects.

The government, apparently, is depending on the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 — created after the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building — to prosecute the suspects. But legal experts say the act does not apply to these suspects.

According to them, the law is meant to deal with those accused of “providing, attempting to provide and conspiring to provide material support and resources to designated terrorist organizations.”

There’s nothing in this law that specifically bars anyone from attending a terrorist training camp, or from supporting Al Qaeda.

“The law does not prohibit being a member of one of the designated terrorist groups or vigorously promoting or supporting the political goals of the group,” Judge Alex Kozinsky of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California wrote in a past decision.

“Plaintiffs are even free to praise the groups for using terrorism as a means to achieving their ends. What the law prohibits is the act of giving material support,” he wrote.

Based on what’s known about what is being called the Sleeper Cell case, legal experts presume “material support” to be the men themselves. But to use their association with Al Qaeda as providing “material support” to the group, the prosecution will have to prove that they participated in terrorist activities or were planning to participate in such activities. So far the prosecution has revealed no evidence to prove this point.

Legal experts say that to convict the suspects, the prosecutors may need harder evidence than they’ve revealed. “What counts is real proof,” says Lee Albert, a law professor at the University at Buffalo. “And this is not an easy charge to prove.”

The weakness in the government’s arguments has encouraged defence lawyers to urge the court to throw out the case for lack of evidence.

Through a notice, made available to the media on Thursday, the lawyers argue that a warrant for the arrest of a defendant may not be issued “unless it appears from the complaint or from an affidavit ... that there is probable cause to believe that an offense has been committed and that the defendant has committed it.”

The criminal complaints in this case, they say, alleged that the defendants “knowingly and unlawfully” provided “material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization” in violation of federal law prohibiting such activities.

But they make no mention, the lawyers say, of what resources the defendants are alleged to have provided.

“Nothing in the criminal complaint indicates that any of these defendants provided material support by any means defined in the law pertaining to foreign terrorist organizations. Mere attendance is not enough,” the motion says.

On Wednesday, prosecutor Hochul said the six men travelled to Karachi and Quetta in the summer of 2001 where they had contacts with Al Qaeda operatives who arranged for them to visit the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in southwestern Afghanistan. At an Al Qaeda guest-house, they received religious indoctrination and listened to hate messages against the United States and Israel from Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, he said.

The six defendants, all from Lackawanna, New York, were charged with providing support or resources to foreign terrorists.

FBI officials believe the men — Muhktar Al Bakri, 22, Shafal Mosed, 24; Faysal Galab, 26; Sahim Alwan, 29; Yasein Taher, 24; and Yahya Goba, 25 — made up a cell of Al Qaeda operatives who received training at Al Qaeda’s Faruq terror camp in Afghanistan.

The prosecutors showed the English translation of an Arabic e-mail sent by Al Bakri in which he refers to “a big meal” and a “huge vision.” They argued that these were codes for a new attack on the United States. Al Bakri admitted to FBI officials that the “meal” referred to a large explosion or attack planned by Al Qaeda against the United States, prosecutors said.

Defence attorneys insisted their clients were not involved in planning any attack and that there is no evidence the six men have had contact with Al Qaeda since their trip to Afghanistan.

Al Bakri’s e-mail, they argued, was sent to someone who had no knowledge of Al Qaeda and referred to a rumour in Saudi Arabia that Al Qaeda was planning an attack inside the kingdom. Al Bakri and the unidentified recipient of the e-mail had heard the rumour from a taxi driver in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the lawyers said.

“Because of 9/11, the government wants everyone, including you, to speculate,” attorney John Molloy told the judge.

“It is not unusual,” said a law professor who requested not to be identified. “The prosecution always wants the judge to speculate that the suspects are guilty; the defense wants him to speculate that they are innocent. What’s unusual in this case is that neither side is basing its arguments on solid proofs.”

The professor, who attended all three days of proceedings, said he understood why the judge was taking so long to “decide a mere bail applications. He does not only want to do justice but also wants others to see it.”

And yet many already doubt if justice can be done in such a political case which invokes extreme emotions on both sides of the divide.

Rule of thumb poll projections: VIEW FROM MARGALLA

WITH THE elections only a fortnight away we still hear a lot of people asking the disturbing question: Are they going to be held at all? And the reason for the uncertainty appears to be the seeming lack of the usual hustle and bustle of election activity. The situation on the borders with India, the Iraq crisis and the growing impression that the President’s life itself is under serious threat are adding to this uncertainty. Anything can happen any time to provide a reasonable excuse to postpone the elections which if held without any rigging on the E-day are most likely to produce a highly hostile parliament and if rigging is resorted to then the government is likely to have a hostile nation on its hands.

Except for some posters here and there and a corner meeting of some obscure leader in some unknown location, there seems to be nothing happening which would give one a sense of being in the thick of an election. Of course, a lot of electioneering is taking place in the newspapers and on the three or four Pakistan centric TV channels. But if you go by the reach of the newspapers and the TV, hardly 25 per cent of the population (with the newspapers reaching only about 5 per cent of this) is being exposed to this kind of electioneering. And perhaps out of this only about 10 per cent actually read election news or do not switch to other channels when an election programme is being broadcast by their favourite channel. And after all, most of them who see these programmes or read election news may not be the kind of people who would like to take the trouble of going to polling booths and stand in a queue to cast their votes. In the past only about a maximum of 35-40 per cent of the registered voters on an average have turned out to vote.

What does make a voter go out to vote? In Pakistan more often than not a voter is transported to the polling station by the candidate himself or by the party to which he belongs. At the polling station too he does not make an effort on his own to find out the drill. This is explained to him by the party workers who also guide him to the right booth and give him as well a chit mentioning his number on the voters’ list to make it easier for him to get the ballot paper. This is like peeling the banana for you! This exercise entails a lot of expenditure on the part of the candidate or the Party. Some of the new election laws which were introduced recently have put a limit on such expenditure. Therefore, in most cases this time the voters are likely to be left on their own to find their way to the polling booth and get their ballot papers on their own and cast them. Those who go on their own to vote are often those who are either very angry with one or the other candidate and would not like to see him win or they favour a candidate so much for one reason or the other that they are prepared to undergo all the physical trouble that the exercise of actual voting entails. Both these kinds of voters make up their minds or their minds are made up for them about whom to vote at least about a month or so before the actual E- day. And this happens when the voters interact with the candidate and listen to him at public meetings. All this is not happening this time to an extent which could be regarded as normal. This has also increased the uncertainty about the elections taking place in time.

Suppose elections are held after all on the due date despite all this uncertainty, then what would happen? The chances are, the turnout would be too low unless the PPP succeeds in getting its vote bank which, perhaps, is still very substantial worked up to a point where it decides on its own to defeat all the machinations the military regime has employed to keep the Party and its leadership from getting its due share in the elections. The PPP has one clear advantage here. The impression, that has been created by both the government and the King’s parties and alliances that between the two they have already engineered the polls so as to deny the PPP even a respectable presence in the next parliament, has perhaps, agitated the PPP supporter enough to make him/her go out on his/her own and vote for the Arrow for which he or she has been voting all these years except in the 1997 elections in which about 4 million of them did not vote, perhaps, in protest against the second PPP government’s style of governance.

The PML-Q is made up of winnable candidates. And every one and his auntie in this country now knows that the government is bent upon giving this party at least a simple lead over the others in the parliament come what may. Such an impression normally creates a kind of complacency among the target voters. Believing that their candidate would win in any case even if they did not go to vote, the voters may decide not to take the trouble at all on the election day. This aspect, together with the possibility that the PML vote bank as such is already divided between the two major PMLs — the PML-N and the PML-Q — is likely to render even the winnable PML-Q candidates vulnerable on the election day. Also, it has been observed that the religious voters have played a decisive role in the past elections. In 1988, when the PPP won a majority in the National Assembly it was kept out of the largest province, the Punjab, and its majority in the National Assembly was restricted by getting the religious voter to go with the pro-establishment elements. By 1990 a large portion of religious vote bank had shifted its allegiance to PML-N and, therefore, the party achieved a landslide victory in that election. In 1993 elections, the religious elements decided to go it alone which enabled the PPP to win more seats than the PML-N then. In 1997 too the religious elements had gone along with PML-N. This, besides the fact that a large number of PPP voters did not go out to vote, enabled the PML-N to reduce the strength of the PPP in the National Assembly to less than two scores that year.

This time, since all the religious elements have decided to join hands and go their separate way, the chances of their supporters voting for either of the PMLs are nil. So, with no religious voter supporting their candidates, both the PMLs which are already at a disadvantage because of the split within would be entering the contest on October 10 without the usual decisive edge over the PPP. And lastly, since the next elections are being held on the basis of joint electorate, most of the minority voters are likely to go for PPP candidates rather than for either MMA or the PMLs for obvious reasons. So, if elections are held at all, there is going to be low turnout. But if the PPP voters decided on their own to come out to defeat the scheme of the Army regime the turnout is likely to go up to a respectable level of 25-30 per cent. And if this happens the chances of PPP sweeping the polls would become very bright, unless, of course, there is a blatant and open rigging in favour of the King’s Party and government sponsored alliances.—Onlooker

Electioneering gathering momentum: DATELINE QUETTA

ELECTIONEERING is slowly gathering momentum as the polling date is drawing closer. The election commission has finalized the list of candidates, and political parties too have finally selected their nominees for the respective constituencies following seat adjustments.

There is no change in the pattern of election this time also. Old parties and old groups are holding their political cocoons in their firm grip. However, some of the stalwarts in Balochistan stand disqualified as they are not properly educated under the amended electoral laws. They are thus fielding new faces. But behind the scene the same political elements are working or dictating politics.

In any case, they are not allowing their adversaries to make serious inroads into their secured political constituencies. Presumably, Balochistan as a province has got the privilege to have a significant number of constituency-based politicians who would occupy the personified seats in the federal and provincial parliaments in the past. They are generally the tribal chieftains, feudal lords or moneyed people. It may not match the number of such politicians of Punjab or Sindh, but their number is still significant as a matter of fact. At least 40 per cent seats will be going again to these strong groups and individuals who have been exercising monopoly over their political constituents for decades.

The Pakistan Muslim League (QA) is the main striving force on the political scene, making a strenuous election campaign right from the very outset. Its leaders were constantly hammering into the minds of potential newcomers even when there was doubt about whether the government would hold an election or not. Jam Yusuf of Lasbela, the party’s provincial chief, was engaged in winning over the support of potential leaders and groups of people, bringing all of them into the party fold to make it very strong in the given situation.

Baring a few, no significant leader of the PML is left behind in the Nawaz Sharif faction of the PML. Jam Yusuf started his homework much earlier than presumed by some people generally. He camped in Islamabad’s Balochistan House from where he initially operated, and successfully. Now his party is leading all other parties if one calculates the safe constituencies or NA or PA seats from this province.

In the last election, the PML, the then ruling party, secured merely two seats on party tickets. Later on it emerged as the single largest party after independents joined the then ruling party. In other words, ex-MPAs jumped into the bandwagon of PML(N). At present, Jam Yusuf has gathered a respectable number of potential winners and is rightly laying claims to forming the coalition government under his leadership. In other words, the pro-establishment parties are taking the lead in terms of realpolitik. So far the opposition parties are far behind in the election campaign.

However, the power and influence of populist forces in Balochistan cannot be underestimated in coming days. They have a vast mass base. The pro-establishment parties or figures have no match to populist parties on the political scene challenging their popularity. The Balochistan National Party (Mengal), the Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party and the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) are considered populist in regional politics, thus commanding considerable influence over the people. Public meetings organized by these parties are attracting bigger crowds.

Highly seasoned politicians, some of them born agitators, know the art of playing with the sentiments of the people. They speak in the language of the people and have thus their own areas of influence to outwit the government once it tries to play politics on their wicket.

One such area is Makran where no sardar or feudal lord rules the region. In the past it used to be a constituency of political figures. Bizenjos or the BNM won most of the seats in the past. This time there is a change on the political scene: Zobeida Jalal, a commoner by all means, is contesting the National Assembly election as an independent candidate. She is a former federal minister for education. She rose to high position for her contributions to the cause of girl education in places like Mand, a remote township in Makran. In a male-dominated society of Balochistan, she is creating history in politics by contesting election on a general seat and not on a seat reserved for woman.

According to initial reports, she has outwitted her opponents. One after other, her opponents are leaving the electoral battle. There was a seat adjustment between the National Alliance and the Balochistan National Democratic Party (BNDP) in Makran. Both the parties agreed to extend unqualified support to Ms Jalal against the BNM nominee. It gave an edge to Ms Jalal. Earlier, important sections of the population supported her for the service to the broad masses. A portion of main international highway linking Karachi with Iranian Balochistan is named after her as a tribute to her contributions to the economic well-being of the people.

At the same time, the BNM and its nominee are giving a very tough time to Ms Jalal. There was a very big meeting at Gwadar — attended by thousands of people, big even in the local political context. Three major political parties of Balochistan: the BNM, the BNP and the JWP: joined hands against Ms Jalal.

Menon and a lot of malice

KHUSHWANT Singh, one of India’s leading authors, editors and columnists, can be nothing, if not forthright. For instance, he writes in his autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice: “Despite having been forced out of Lahore, I remained emotionally involved with Pakistan. On the bone of contention, Kashmir, over which the two countries have gone to war, I felt that Pakistan had a stronger case than India.”Try telling this to LK Advani and hundreds of thousands of north Indians, Mr Singh.

He had been, as he says, driven out of Lahore, but, at the same time, he acknowledges that “Mr Jinnah had sent word to my father... to persuade me to stay on in Lahore. The indication was clear; he wanted to consider me as a Judge of the High Court.” Then he adds that Mr Jinnah had “not foreseen that there would be a place for non-Muslims” in Pakistan. This is not quite correct. Mr Jinnah had not created a country in which non-Muslims would have no place. Other, and more sinister forces were at work. But we’ll let that pass. Obviously, Khushwant was too close to events to have seen things in perspective. And first impressions are nearly always indelible.

Once when Mr Nehru visited Britain, the Indian High Commission’s own tabloid, India News, taken out to mark the occasion, had this headline: ‘Bandit Nehru in London’. Detected in time, orders were given to rectify the error. The new typesetter had also never heard of the word ‘Pandit’. So he substituted it once again with ‘Bandit’ “we had scrapped the whole issue and sent a member of the staff to see that the word was printed right.”

Another quote from the Nehru visit: “The Daily Herald carried a large photograph of Nehru with Lady Mountbatten in her negligee opening the door for him. The caption read: Lady Mountbatten’s Midnight Visitor. It also informed its readers that Lord Mountbatten was not in London.” How convenient for the Panditji. Cuckolding the last British Viceroy of India while he was away. Was he away or had he been sent out on an errand by Lady Mountbatten? Anyhow, Khushwant Singh feels that “Our P.M.’s liaison with Lady Edwina had assumed scandalous proportions. The Herald’s photographer had taken the chance of catching them, if not in flagrante delicto, at least in preparation for it.”

Again, “he was a vain man who did not want to be caught picking his nose or yawning.” Why, in a similar position of strength, I would be gladly caught by all the news cameramen in the world, happily doing what US president Johnson used to do in the Oval Office. Young readers wouldn’t know anything about Krishna Menon, the most despicable Indian one could ever imagine. He was the Indian High Commissioner in London in those days (circa 1947-1950). Khushwant Singh, since he is very nearly a kindred soul, thinks almost on the same lines:

“Menon was a complex character, the most unpredictable and prickly I have ever met... (He) had a chip on his shoulders about being a black and picked up quarrels on imaginary racial insults. He had no scruples in business matters. He was also a congenital liar... he had a strong streak of sadism. Menon’s bad temper and discourtesy had to be experienced to be believed... Merit did not matter very much to Menon; unquestioned loyalty did...”

Again, “lying was Menon’s second nature and came as easily to him as discourtesy.”

And finally, Khushwant Singh says: “Menon is the subject of a couple of biographies and a road is named after him. I think in my long years I got to know him better than his biographers or any of the leftists who acclaim him as a great son of India. General Shiv Varma summed him up aptly when he said:‘Menon was a bachelor, the same as his father.’” Let me now bring this Menon business to an end.

Long years ago, when Krishna Menon used to make the lives of delegates to the UN General Assembly miserable with maddeningly mindless pettifogging on the Kashmir issue, the permanent US representative to the world forum, almost literally threw up on a day when the Indian had been particularly revolting.

“Gawd!” he cried in anguish, “the b...rd is so ugly every time he speaks, I feel like voting against India.” (the expletive used is mine). And American votes on Kashmir in the early years of the dispute but during the height of the Cold War used to be rather friendly. The Kashmir issue has lingered on because of the Soviet veto in those years. The Russians had to pay a price for their wholly immoral policies as a result of which Kashmir has not seen a day of peace since 1948. All said and done, the Ugly Indian served his master Nehru well but then such was the nature of international politics in those days that even an imbecile could have done just as well. But, as they say, ugly is as ugly does.

THE Israelis were reported demolishing ‘everything’ around Palestinian President Yaseer Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah. According to a later report, Israeli engineers were seen demolishing “parts of a building housing Yasser Arafat’s offices and lodgings on Friday and Palestinian officials warned the structure could collapse on their besieged president.”

How would you like if somebody or some group powerful enough to do so, demolished parts of the White House with George Bush in the Oval Office? The Sharonistovs are creating a dangerous precedent. They have clear intentions of killing Arafat in a contrived accident and then offer their deep condolences over the ‘unintended error’. Perhaps they could then lay a wreath on his grave and order three days of mourning. If Sharon is not a born again Mussolini, then I don’t know anything about the Italian dictator.

Meanwhile, Washington has just now recognized “Israel’s right to defend itself and to deal with security.” George Bush, the reigning president’s father, says of Saddam Hussein: “I don’t hate easily, but I think he’s, as I say, his word is no good and he’s a brute... So there’s nothing redeeming about this man... I have nothing but hatred in my heart for him. He’s got a lot of problems, but immortality isn’t one of them.” Nor is it a problem with father and son Bush. Bush Sr and Bush Jr are no paragons of virtue. I could say right now: “I have nothing but hatred in my heart for them.”

There was talk earlier this week in Germany that the justice minister there had compared George W Bush to Hitler. The minister is quoted as having said: “Bush wants to divert attention from domestic political problems... Hitler also did that.” The German minister later denied having said that but the good work had by then been done. Denial or no denial, people are now openly doing just that — comparing Mr Bush to Hitler. And not without justice. I have myself done this and, honestly, I find very little to choose between George and Adolf. In this case at least, comparisons are not ‘oderous’ as William S would have said. The Bard was not altogether in fallible, after all.

The German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, meanwhile, has based his election campaign on the issue of ‘war or peace’.

He has pledged that he would never send German troops to fight Iraq but how to counter his justice minister who said the other day that “if current American laws aimed at insider trading had been in force in 1980 when the (US) president worked in the oil sector, ‘Bush would be sitting in prison today’. So whether or Mr Bush thinks and acts like Hitler, this one is difficult to beat. No matter what one does, truth will out. Savvy?