Ahmed Omar Abu Ali
Encyclopedia
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is an American who was convicted of providing material support to the al Qaeda terrorist
network and conspiracy to assassinate President George W. Bush
.
, in 1981 and raised in Falls Church
, Virginia
, Abu Ali was valedictorian
of his class at the Islamic Saudi Academy
high school
in nearby Alexandria
. Abu Ali entered the University of Maryland
in the fall of 1999 as an electrical engineering
major, prayed at the Dar al-Hijrah
mosque in Falls Church, Virginia (where two of the 9/11 hijackers and the suspected shooter in the Fort Hood shooting
prayed), but withdrew in the middle of the 2000 spring semester to study Islamic theology
at the Islamic University of Medina in Medina, Saudi Arabia.
organizations speculated that Abu Ali's situation was actually a case of extraordinary rendition
and that he might be subject to torture
. In addition, comments allegedly made by Gordon Kromberg, a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, heightened the concerns that Abu Ali had faced torture during his detention and interrogation in Saudi Arabia. In 2003, Kromberg was asked by a defense lawyer whether Abu Ali would be brought to the United States to face charges. Kromberg responded: "He's no good for us here. He has no fingernails left," according to an affidavit filed in court by the lawyer, Salim Ali.
In response to the detention by the Saudi government, Abu Ali's family, represented by Morton Sklar and the World Organization for Human Rights, filed a civil action against the U.S. government in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia
. In the suit, they asked the court to issue a writ of habeas corpus to force the United States government to take action to get Abu Ali returned to the US. The government challenged the case, claiming that the court did not have jurisdiction either to interfere with US foreign policy (an executive function), or to force the Saudi government to release Abu Ali. Judge John D. Bates
issued an order requiring partial discovery to determine if the court did, in fact, have jurisdiction.
, returned by a grand jury
in the Eastern District of Virginia
on February 3, 2005. The indictment charged Abu Ali with two counts of providing material support to terrorists, two counts of providing material support to a terrorist organization (Al Qaeda), one count of contributing goods and services to Al Qaeda, and one count of receiving services from Al Qaeda.
The indictment was later amended to add charges of conspiracy to assassinate the president, conspiracy to hijack aircraft, and conspiracy to destroy aircraft. The indictment alleged that Abu Ali had joined a terrorist cell in Medina, led by senior al-Qaeda members Ali Al-Faqasi and Zubayr Al-Rimi
, and that among the plots they were developing were a plan to assassinate the President of the United States, and a plan to mount 9/11-style attacks using planes transiting through the US. The criminal case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David H. Laufman and Stephen M. Campbell and U.S. Justice Department
Trial Attorney Jerry R. DeMaio.
After an extended pre-trial suppression hearing, in which Abu Ali himself testified, Judge Gerald Bruce Lee
, who presided over the case, ruled that Abu Ali's confession to Saudi agents was admissible.
The defense expert was Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture. Dr. Keller physically examined Abu Ali and said that he observed about seven to ten scars on Abu Ali’s back which evince scars from the whipping Mr. Abu Ali claims he suffered during interrogation in Medina.
The government expert was Dr. Robert Katz, a dermatologist. He did not physically examine Abu Ali but viewed photographs that the court had taken. Dr. Katz stated that, in his opinion, the marks depicted on Abu Ali’s back in the photograph were not scars, but “pigment discolorations.”
The judge sided with the prosecution.
On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals
for the Fourth Circuit upheld the conviction but overturned the sentence on the grounds that the prior Court had deviated from federal sentencing guidelines which call for life in prison. Judge Lee resentenced Ali to life in prison.
Mr. Ali is held under highly restrictive conditions in ADX Florence
supermax
prison. In August 2008, he requested permission to receive two books by Barack Obama
, Dreams from My Father
and The Audacity of Hope
. Permission was denied by prison authorities on the grounds that the books contained material "potentially detrimental to national security".
They conclude that:
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
network and conspiracy to assassinate President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
.
Background
Born in Houston, TexasHouston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
, in 1981 and raised in Falls Church
Falls Church, Virginia
The City of Falls Church is an independent city in Virginia, United States, in the Washington Metropolitan Area. The city population was 12,332 in 2010, up from 10,377 in 2000. Taking its name from The Falls Church, an 18th-century Anglican parish, Falls Church gained township status within...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, Abu Ali was valedictorian
Valedictorian
Valedictorian is an academic title conferred upon the student who delivers the closing or farewell statement at a graduation ceremony. Usually, the valedictorian is the highest ranked student among those graduating from an educational institution...
of his class at the Islamic Saudi Academy
Islamic Saudi Academy
The Islamic Saudi Academy of Washington is an International Baccalaureate World university preparatory school in Virginia, accredited with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and authorized by IB in December 2008. It has classes from pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade, and has a...
high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
in nearby Alexandria
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...
. Abu Ali entered the University of Maryland
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
in the fall of 1999 as an electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
major, prayed at the Dar al-Hijrah
Dar al-Hijrah
The Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center is a mosque in Northern Virginia. It is located in Culmore, Lake Barcroft area of unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, directly between the Bailey's Crossroads, and Seven Corners, Virginia, US Post Offices.-Background:...
mosque in Falls Church, Virginia (where two of the 9/11 hijackers and the suspected shooter in the Fort Hood shooting
Fort Hood shooting
The Fort Hood shooting was a mass shooting that took place on November 5, 2009, at Fort Hood, the most populous U.S. military installation in the world, located just outside Killeen, Texas. In the course of the shooting, a single gunman killed 13 people and wounded 29 others...
prayed), but withdrew in the middle of the 2000 spring semester to study Islamic theology
Islamic theology
Islamic theology is a branch of Islamic studies regarding the beliefs associated with the Islamic faith. Any religious belief system, or creed, can be considered an example of aqidah. However, this term has taken a significant technical usage in Islamic history and theology, denoting those...
at the Islamic University of Medina in Medina, Saudi Arabia.
Arrest and detention in Saudi Arabia
In June 2003, Abu Ali was arrested by Saudi authorities while taking exams at the Islamic University of Medina. He was held for approximately 20 months by the Saudi government without charges or access to an attorney, and given the paucity of information coming out of Saudi Arabia about the case, many human rightsHuman rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
organizations speculated that Abu Ali's situation was actually a case of extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition is the abduction and illegal transfer of a person from one nation to another. "Torture by proxy" is used by some critics to describe situations in which the United States and the United Kingdom have transferred suspected terrorists to other countries in order to torture the...
and that he might be subject to torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
. In addition, comments allegedly made by Gordon Kromberg, a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, heightened the concerns that Abu Ali had faced torture during his detention and interrogation in Saudi Arabia. In 2003, Kromberg was asked by a defense lawyer whether Abu Ali would be brought to the United States to face charges. Kromberg responded: "He's no good for us here. He has no fingernails left," according to an affidavit filed in court by the lawyer, Salim Ali.
In response to the detention by the Saudi government, Abu Ali's family, represented by Morton Sklar and the World Organization for Human Rights, filed a civil action against the U.S. government in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia
United States District Court for the District of Columbia
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia is a federal district court. Appeals from the District are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit The United States District Court for the District of Columbia (in case citations, D.D.C.) is a...
. In the suit, they asked the court to issue a writ of habeas corpus to force the United States government to take action to get Abu Ali returned to the US. The government challenged the case, claiming that the court did not have jurisdiction either to interfere with US foreign policy (an executive function), or to force the Saudi government to release Abu Ali. Judge John D. Bates
John D. Bates
John Deacon Bates , is a United States federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He was appointed by President George W. Bush in December 2001, and has adjudicated in several cases directly affecting the office of the President.-Personal:Bates was born in Elizabeth,...
issued an order requiring partial discovery to determine if the court did, in fact, have jurisdiction.
US criminal trial
The District Court in DC never got a chance to rule on jurisdiction. In February 2005, Abu Ali was transferred to US custody pursuant to a criminal indictmentIndictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
, returned by a grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
in the Eastern District of Virginia
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia is one of two United States district courts serving the Commonwealth of Virginia...
on February 3, 2005. The indictment charged Abu Ali with two counts of providing material support to terrorists, two counts of providing material support to a terrorist organization (Al Qaeda), one count of contributing goods and services to Al Qaeda, and one count of receiving services from Al Qaeda.
The indictment was later amended to add charges of conspiracy to assassinate the president, conspiracy to hijack aircraft, and conspiracy to destroy aircraft. The indictment alleged that Abu Ali had joined a terrorist cell in Medina, led by senior al-Qaeda members Ali Al-Faqasi and Zubayr Al-Rimi
Zubayr Al-Rimi
Al-Rimi's wife was arrested in the beginning of June along with the wife of al-Faqasi and two other women. She was turned over to his father for safekeeping, who sought to return her to Morocco....
, and that among the plots they were developing were a plan to assassinate the President of the United States, and a plan to mount 9/11-style attacks using planes transiting through the US. The criminal case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David H. Laufman and Stephen M. Campbell and U.S. Justice Department
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
Trial Attorney Jerry R. DeMaio.
Pretrial hearings
Abu Ali went to trial in the fall of 2005. The government's evidence was focused on a detailed confession Abu Ali had made while in Saudi custody. Abu Ali challenged the admissibility of the confession, claiming: (1) the confession was involuntary due to alleged torture he had suffered at the hands of the Saudis; and (2) he should have been given certain constitutional protections (including Miranda warnings), because the interrogations were a joint venture between the FBI and Saudi authorities, rather than a purely Saudi interrogation, which would not have been subject to the same scrutiny under the U.S. Constitution.After an extended pre-trial suppression hearing, in which Abu Ali himself testified, Judge Gerald Bruce Lee
Gerald Bruce Lee
Gerald Bruce Lee is currently serving as judge on the United States District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia, commonly referred to as the "Rocket Docket.".-Education and career highlights:...
, who presided over the case, ruled that Abu Ali's confession to Saudi agents was admissible.
Abu Ali’s testimony regarding his torture
Abu Ali testified that on the first day, his interrogators asked him whether he knew specific people and whether he knew about bombings in Riyadh. At one point, his blindfold was taken off. Abu Ali said he then saw the bruised face of a man through a window in the door to the room. The man was asked if he knew Abu Ali, and he shook his head no, then was taken away. Abu Ali was not fed this day. The Saudis hit him, slapped him, punched him in the stomach, and pulled his beard, ears, and hair. He was not allowed to use the bathroom, even when Abu Ali asked to wash up for prayers. The next day, the Saudis continued hitting him. At one point, he was taken from the chair in which he was sitting, and his handcuffs were handcuffed to a chain or other handcuffs in the floor, leaving him with his knees to his chest on the ground, hunched over with his head on his fists, and his feet shackled. Then someone began to strike him on the back and to yell, “confess!” He does not know what he was hit with, or how many times. Although he was blindfolded, Abu Ali said he could hear four different voices in the room, and that he thinks he was assaulted by only one person. Abu Ali said it was “very painful” and that it was the “first time I felt extreme pain.” While he was being hit on the back, people in the room kept telling him to “confess.” When the beating began, he was clad in an undershirt and long underpants. At one point, his undershirt was torn off and he was struck on his bare back. Eventually, Abu Ali told them he would cooperate. The beating stopped, and he was taken back to his cell.Marks on Abu Ali’s back
There were several marks on Abu Ali’s back which the defense presented as physical evidence that Abu Ali had been tortured. The prosecution claimed that these marks were not the result of torture but merely “pigment discolorations.”The defense expert was Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture. Dr. Keller physically examined Abu Ali and said that he observed about seven to ten scars on Abu Ali’s back which evince scars from the whipping Mr. Abu Ali claims he suffered during interrogation in Medina.
The government expert was Dr. Robert Katz, a dermatologist. He did not physically examine Abu Ali but viewed photographs that the court had taken. Dr. Katz stated that, in his opinion, the marks depicted on Abu Ali’s back in the photograph were not scars, but “pigment discolorations.”
The judge sided with the prosecution.
Jury trial and appeal
The jury trial took place in November 2005. On November 22, 2005, after deliberating for two and a half days, the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict on all counts. On March 29, 2006, Ali was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his crime. While prosecutors had pushed for a life sentence, Judge Gerald Bruce Lee explained that the (relatively) light sentence was handed down because Abu Ali's actions "did not result in one single actual victim. That fact must be taken into account."On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals
United States court of appeals
The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal court system...
for the Fourth Circuit upheld the conviction but overturned the sentence on the grounds that the prior Court had deviated from federal sentencing guidelines which call for life in prison. Judge Lee resentenced Ali to life in prison.
Mr. Ali is held under highly restrictive conditions in ADX Florence
ADX Florence
The United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility is a supermax prison for men that is located in unincorporated Fremont County, Colorado, United States, south of Florence. It is unofficially known as ADX Florence, Florence ADMAX, Supermax, or The Alcatraz of the Rockies...
supermax
Supermax
Supermax is the name used to describe "control-unit" prisons, or units within prisons, which represent the most secure levels of custody in the prison systems of certain countries...
prison. In August 2008, he requested permission to receive two books by Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, Dreams from My Father
Dreams from My Father
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance is a memoir by United States President Barack Obama. It was first published in July 1995 as he was preparing to launch his political career, five years after being elected the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review in...
and The Audacity of Hope
The Audacity of Hope
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream is the second book written by then-Senator Barack Obama. In the fall of 2006 it became number one on both the New York Times and Amazon.com bestsellers lists after Obama was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey. In the book, Obama expounds on...
. Permission was denied by prison authorities on the grounds that the books contained material "potentially detrimental to national security".
Criticism of trial by Amnesty International
Amnesty international has called Ali's trial unfair based on their observations in the period from 7–10 November 2005.They conclude that:
Amnesty International is seriously concerned that the trial of Ahmed Abu Ali may set a precedent in US courts of according unqualified support to the declarations of a foreign government regarding its human rights record as a means of rendering evidence admissible, including statements obtained by torture and ill-treatment. In this case, the statements of officials from Saudi Arabia, a state with a clear record of widespread torture and ill-treatment, flatly denying that such practices existed appear to have been taken at face value with no serious attempts allowed to challenge the claims presented