Reuters - U.S. Faces Uphill Battle Convicting Seven Terrorism Suspects Nabbed in Miami

June 24, 2006

By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent

The U.S. government has suffered enough legal setbacks in its war on terrorism to suggest the conviction of seven men accused of a plot to attack America's tallest building is anything but certain.

Officials said the seven arrested this week were part of a domestic terrorism cell plotting to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago. They also said any plot was at an early stage; the men did not have the weapons needed to carry out a plot.

"We are being aggressive, proactive, looking for the first opportunity to bring the charges ... so that we can prevent acts of terrorism and not let groups grow to become more operational," Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said.

But in the almost five years since the September 11 attacks, the government track record has been mixed.

Courts have convicted September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoebomber" Richard Reid. The path from arrest to conviction has also been fraught with frustration. Cases have crumbled under the weight of judicial scrutiny.

"One case after another has fallen apart under the gimlet eye of the district judges," said Eugene Fidell, a lawyer for Muslim former army chaplain James Yee, who was accused of spying and treason before the army dropped his case.

"It's possible that the trigger finger is a little quicker these days to seek an indictment than might otherwise be the case," he said.

CONVICTION CHALLENGES

The Justice Department says 261 defendants have been convicted or have pleaded guilty in what it calls terrorism and terrorism-related cases since September 11 but these can include such charges as immigration fraud.

Another 180 defendants have been charged, their cases either still pending or having ended without convictions.

Then there is the case of former Florida professor Sami al-Arian. A federal jury cleared him of some terrorism-related charges and failed to reach a verdict on others in December.

In this week's case, a grand jury indictment said the men pledged loyalty to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network to wage war against the U.S. government, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a news conference the defendants never had any contact with the militant group.

The indictment also said at least one of the men plotted to blow up the 110-story Sears Tower. But Deputy FBI Director John Pistole acknowledged the discussions to attack the tower, the tallest building in the United States, were "aspirational rather than operational."

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the RAND think tank outside Washington, said officials had to take threats seriously but balance that carefully against the suspects' actual ability to carry plots out.

"Potentially, ... exaggerating the capabilities of the perpetrators risks in a sense undermining public confidence when the terrorists look like Keystone Cops and we've painted them to be Public Enemy Number One," Hoffman said.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice which has backed the government on terrorism prosecutions at the Supreme Court, dismissed suggestions that some federal indictments may have been hasty.

"You've got to get a grand jury to indict, so you have to present enough evidence to indict," he said.

But he acknowledged the government faced an uphill battle securing terrorism convictions when much of the critical evidence may be classified.