Al-Hussayen’s defense rests its case

BOISE – Sami Al-Hussayen’s defense rested its case Wednesday, after just one witness and a single day of testimony.

Prosecutors were startled by the move, which came after they had spent more than six weeks laying out their case that the University of Idaho graduate student’s volunteer work on Islamic Web sites constituted material support to terrorism.

“I’m caught short,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Lindquist, the lead prosecutor in the case. “I’m taken by surprise by this announcement.”

Lead defense attorney David Nevin, as he left the courthouse, said, “We felt like the important stuff that needed to be said had been said.”

Nevin said the online articles, lectures and the like that prosecutors have pointed to as evidence of support for terrorism were “widely available.”

“We have a thing called the First Amendment in this country,” Nevin said.

Supporters of the former UI Muslim Students Association president were buoyed by the move.

“If you have truth, you don’t need to speak a lot,” said Abdurrahman Alyabes, an electrical engineering student from Saudi Arabia who watched from the courtroom audience on Wednesday.

Raul Sanchez, a UI professor who served with Al-Hussayen on a campus diversity committee, had planned to testify as a character witness and was among several defense witnesses who suddenly found themselves free to go home Wednesday.

“There isn’t anything I know about Sami that’s consistent with the charges,” Sanchez said as he left the court.

Closing arguments in the case were scheduled for Tuesday, after which the jury will deliberate. Al-Hussayen faces three terrorism charges and 11 immigration charges, all related to his involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, a religious outreach group for which he helped maintain various Web sites. He also transferred large sums of money to the group, including donations from his wealthy uncle in Saudi Arabia.

The immigration charges are based on the contention that Al-Hussayen’s work for IANA violated the terms of his student visa, which allowed him in the country “solely” to study.

Prosecutors had no comment after the trial ended for the day. They have contended that Al-Hussayen’s computer activities helped create an online network that enabled Muslim extremists in Palestine and Chechnya to raise funds and drum up recruits for terrorism, and that Al-Hussayen either knew or intended that would happen. That’s the standard that must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, under federal terrorism laws as modified by the USA Patriot Act.

The single defense witness, security consultant and former longtime CIA agent Frank Anderson, spent the morning entertaining the jury with his colorful experiences overseas and painting a benign picture of the two key Web sites in the case, which he said are a religious outreach or evangelism site, www.islamway.com, and an online magazine analyzing politics, www.Alasr.ws. Alasr, an Arabic word, translates to “The Age,” Anderson told the court.

Four fatwas, or Muslim religious treatises, posted on Alasr.ws offering various religious justifications for suicide attacks appeared to be posted “to advance analysis,” Anderson said. He said he’s seen similar treatises published in a wide variety of settings, including Web sites, books, magazines and more, both in the United States and in the Middle East. Asked if the issue of suicide – which is prohibited by the Quran – is widely debated in the Middle East, Anderson responded, “Ad nauseum.”

Anderson, a terrorism expert and former CIA agent in such locations as Lebanon, Yemen and Morocco, was the first expert witness called who wasn’t being highly paid. Instead, he told the court he was volunteering his time in the case and being reimbursed only for his airfare and hotel.

Asked why, he said, “I lived for almost 13 years in countries where you could be put in jail for what you write or say. I do not want–”

He was interrupted by an objection from the prosecution, which the judge sustained. The remark was stricken from the record.

Jurors relaxed and smiled as the silver-haired agent detailed his qualifications as an expert, though he frequently had to preface his remarks with “those that are unclassified,” and “the agency has authorized me to say…”

For two years after that, he was the CIA’s director of technical services, he said. “If you watch James Bond, I was ‘Q’ for a couple of years,” he said to appreciative smiles from the jurors. He went on to serve as chief of the CIA’s Near East and South Asia Division.

A high-ranking CIA official who worked for the agency from 1968 to 1995, Anderson said he served as a chief of station at various locations in the Middle East, and also held key positions at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. There, he headed the Afghan Task Force from 1987 to 1989, directing a U.S. backed-guerilla war fought by Afghan Mujahadin to expel the Red Army.

He also described his interactions with terrorists and terrorist groups over the years, from negotiating about peace with the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization to recruiting individual terrorists to serve as spies for the United States.

“Terrorists have tried to kill me, they have killed my friends and colleagues, and I’ve dealt with them in situations where I had to drive with my right hand and hold a pistol on ‘em with my left hand in order to talk to them,” Anderson told the court.

Anderson said he had interviewed terrorists about their recruiting tactics, and noted similarities between terrorist recruiting and CIA recruiting for spies overseas. Each asks the target to do something he or she wouldn’t normally be inclined to do, he said – commit an act of violence against innocents, including women and children, or become a traitor to one’s country by spying for another.

He said a key step necessary in the recruiting process is a personal relationship with an appealing, persuasive recruiter. That testimony was used to counter prosecution testimony that materials posted on the Internet, such as videos, religious treatises and articles, can recruit people for terrorist acts.

However, on cross-examination, federal prosecutor David Deitch noted that Anderson’s time at the CIA ended in 1995 – before the rise of the Internet. Anderson acknowledged that he didn’t use the Internet in his work at the CIA, but said he’s used it extensively since then. He now does private consulting work, which includes evaluating terrorist threats for companies considering locating in high-conflict areas overseas, and has served on various government commissions dealing with the war on terrorism.

Deitch objected vociferously to Anderson’s testimony, saying he shouldn’t be allowed as an expert witness because he couldn’t be cross-examined about his CIA work, because it’s nearly all still classified. To demonstrate that, in his cross-examination, Deitch repeatedly pressed Anderson for specific names, dates and locations of various CIA operations. Most of those questions Anderson couldn’t answer without divulging classified information.

Judge Lodge said prosecutors could file a motion to strike Anderson’s testimony. “I’ll allow you to do it, but I think you’re wasting your time.”