Justice Department wants terror convictions tossed

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department has asked a judge to throw out the convictions of a suspected terror cell in Detroit because of prosecutorial misconduct, reversing course in a case the Bush administration once hailed as a major victory in the war on terrorism, legal sources said Tuesday.

The department told U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen that it supports the Detroit defendants’ request for a new trial and would no longer pursue charges of material support of terrorism. That means the defendants at most would only face fraud charges at a new trial, the legal sources said.

The department’s decision came after a months-long independent investigation uncovered several pieces of evidence that prosecutors failed to turn over to defense lawyers before the trial last year and exposed deep disputes within the government over the course of the case and the quality of the prosecution’s evidence.

The legal sources are familiar with what the court has been told about the problems with the case and about the government’s plans. They would speak only on condition of anonymity because the judge in the Detroit case has imposed a gag order. They said the department’s filing with the court is harshly critical of Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino, the lead prosecutor in the case.

Convertino has been under investigation for months and filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against Attorney General John Ashcroft earlier this year. In an interview with the Associated Press, Convertino accused Justice Department superiors of thwarting his efforts to introduce some evidence against the defendants at trial.

In the new court papers, the Justice Department divulges new testimony from a recently retired CIA officer who calls into question one of the government’s key conclusions at trial, the legal sources said.

The retired CIA officer told the Justice Department that he had offered to testify at the trial but was turned down and that he came to a somewhat different analysis of a sketch the prosecutors introduced at trial as evidence the Detroit men cased and intended to attack a Turkish air base, the sources said.

In a June 2003 jury verdict hailed by the administration as the breakup of a terror cell, Karim Koubriti, 26, and Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi, 38, were convicted on terrorism and fraud charges and Ahmed Hannan, 36, was convicted of fraud. A fourth defendant, Farouk Ali-Haimoud, 24, was acquitted.

Their lawyers have argued for months for a new trial, accusing the prosecutors of withholding evidence that could have aided the defense during the trial.