Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri
Encyclopedia
Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri (Arabic: علي صالح كحلة المري ) (b. 1966/1967) is a citizen of Qatar
who was arrested on charges of being a sleeper al Qaeda agent while studying at Bradley University
in the United States
. After denying any wrongdoing since his arrest, al-Marri pled guilty in a plea agreement to the federal charges on April 30, 2009. After a transfer from Federal Correctional Institution, Pekin
, he has been held at United States Penitentiary, Florence
since March 2010. Previously, he had been detained in solitary confinement for six years at the Naval Consolidated Brig, Charleston
.
Al-Marri is the only non-citizen known to have been held as an enemy combatant in the continental United States since September 11. In July 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
upheld the government's authority to hold Al-Marri as an enemy combatant, but also ruled that he was entitled to contest his detention in federal court. In February 2009, reports emerged that Al-Marri had been indicted by the federal government.
Al-Marri was released from detention by the Secretary of Defense on March 10, 2009 and was served an arrest warrant the same morning at the Charleston naval brig. He was immediately taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Service.
reports that al-Marri's initial capture was at a routine traffic stop in Peoria in December 2001. He was held in civilian jails in Peoria, Illinois
and New York City
as a material witness
.
It was Ali Soufan
's questioning of Mohammed al Qahtani, that led to the terrorism charges against al-Marri, whom al Qahtani had mentioned being a relative.
In 2002, Ali was charged with making false statements to the FBI and to financial institutions, identity fraud, and credit card fraud. Al-Marri was alleged to be in possession of more than 1750 credit card numbers, along with the names of the account holders, none of whom were Al-Marri. He was also alleged to be in possession of falsified identification documents. Additionally, he was alleged to have used a Qwest
calling card to call a number in Dubai
linked to the reputed al-Qaeda
financier Mustafa al-Hawsawi
. After searching al-Marri's computer, folders were found labeled "jihad arena" and "chem," which (according to the government) contained information on hydrogen cyanide, a poisonous gas produced in large quantities by several industrial processes in the U.S. and listed amongst chemical warfare agents that cause general poisoning, along with lectures by Osama bin Laden
and links to Web sites related to weaponry and satellite equipment.
Al-Marri's initial charges were dropped when President Bush classified him as an unlawful combatant
in 2003. Unlike other foreigners, al-Marri was not transported to the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp
but was instead transferred to Naval Consolidated Brig, in Charleston, South Carolina.
Al-Marri was allowed access to legal counsel
in October 2004. His lawyers report that al-Marri has described being subjected to extreme cold, with insufficient bedding and clothing. He has been deprived of all reading material, except a Qur'an
. Unlike the cells at Guantanamo Bay, which all have an arrow painted on the floor that points toward Mecca
, his guards reportedly decline to inform him of which direction is East. In addition to his cell's window being merely translucent (rather than transparent), he also claims to have no clock, preventing him from knowing the proper times to say prayers. He has also reportedly been deprived of personal hygiene items. The lack of such items have reportedly also rendered him unable to pray as a result of ritual impurity
.
Al-Marri reported that he had not been interrogated for a year. His lawyer sought to obtain protection for him through the writ of habeas corpus
.
In October 2008, 91 pages of memos drafted in 2002 by officers at the Naval Consolidated Brig, Charleston became public. The memos indicate that officers were concerned that the isolation and lack of stimuli was driving Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, Yasser Hamdi and José Padilla insane.
On November 13, 2006, the United States Department of Justice
asserted in a six-page motion with the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
that, according to the Military Commissions Act of 2006
, al-Marri should be tried in a military tribunal as an enemy combatant rather than in a civilian court.
The document begins:
After a long legal battle the previously classified justification for Al Marri's detention was made public. On September 9, 2004, Jeffrey N. Rapp, Director of the Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism submitted a 16 page sworn statement containing many allegations against Al Marri, including:
On June 11, 2007, in al-Marri v. Wright
, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Military Commissions Act doesn't deny al-Marri his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers.
The court ruled that al-Marri must be released from military detention to either be freed or to be placed in US civilian detention where the federal government would have to charge him with crimes. The court held an en banc
rehearing of the ruling on October 31, 2007. In its decision issued on July 15, 2008 the Court voted 5-4 that if the Government's allegations are true, al-Marri can be held in military detention indefinitely as an enemy combatant, but he has not received sufficient due process to determine if these allegations are in fact true. The case is allowed to return to trial court but no particular proceedings have been specified.
On 9 November 2008, Jerry Markon, writing in the Washington Post, reported that al-Marri's lawyers had petitioned the United States Supreme Court to overturn the lower court ruling that allowed him to be treated as an enemy combatant in spite of being a legal resident of the USA.
On December 5, 2008, the Supreme Court agreed to hear al-Marri's case.
On January 22, 2009, President Barack Obama
issued a memorandum
requiring that al-Marri's status be reviewed in addition to the detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay.
Al Marri pled guilty to conspiracy to support a terrorist group in 2009, and received a 15 year sentence.
On October 12 2011 Tony Bartelme, writing in the Charleston Post and Courier reported on documents the paper had recently received from an 8 year old Freedom of Information Act request about the use of the consolidated brig in the "war on terror". Among those documents was a 2005 exchange of memos between the prison's commander, E.P. Giambastiani to Charles Stimson
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs
.
In the memos Giambastiani requested that al Marri, Hamdy and Padilla be transferred to Guantanamo.
According to Bartelme:
outlined the case of Ali al-Marri in an editorial on 24 November 2008, titled "Indefinite Detention". It criticized the George W. Bush administration
's enemy combatant doctrine, and called on the Supreme Court justices to "make clear that a president cannot trample on individual rights by imprisoning people indefinitely simply by asserting that they are tied to terrorism."
In another editorial of 8 December 2008, called "Tortured Justice", the Times editorial board wrote: "The extent of the damage to American liberties, and how lasting it will be, will be told in part by the outcome of two cases [Ali al-Marri's "enemy combatant" and Maher Arar
's "extraordinary rendition
"] that are to be heard by the federal courts." They said the Obama administration would have to decide "whether to defend the indefensible when the case comes to trial".
, quoting inside sources, reported on February 26, 2009 that al-Marri was to be indicted by Obama's Department of Justice
.
On February 27, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder
announced that a federal grand jury in the Central District of Illinois had returned a two-count indictment charging Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, 43, with providing material support to al-Qaeda and conspiring with others to provide material support to al-Qaeda. He said that the Office of the Solicitor General would move to dismiss al-Marri’s pending litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court, and that al-Marri would be transferred to Department of Justice custody for criminal prosecution as soon as the Supreme Court rules on that motion. On March 6, 2009 the U.S. Supreme court dismissed the application, remanded to the Fourth Circuit, and instructed the Fourth Circuit to dismiss the appeal as moot. In March 2009, al-Marri made his first appearance before a judge in Charleston, S.C. After denying al-Marri's request for bail, the South Carolina judge ordered his transportation to Illinois. Al-Marri plead not guilty before Judge Michael Mihm in a U.S. District Court of Illinois. Judge Mihm set the date of the trial for May 26 but added that, realistically, he wanted to "try this case by the end of the year." Mihm also ordered the prosecution to hand over evidence, such as a copy of al-Marri's hard drive, to the defense attorneys.
Al-Marri was scheduled to make his initial court appearance on March 10, 2009 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert S. Carr in a federal court in Charleston
, South Carolina
.
Al-Marri was transported afterward back to the Peoria federal court by the marshals and appeared before Mihm. He indicated to Mihm he understood the charges against him.
In March 2009, Al Marri was returned to civilian custody in Peoria, from military custody.
Al-Marri admitted in his plea that he attended terrorist training camps between 1998 and 2001, where he studied weapons and operational security. He met with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and "offered his services" to aid al-Qaeda; Mohammed told him to travel to America by September 20, 2001 and wait for further instructions. Al-Marri said that while enrolled at Bradley University, he researched cyanide
on the Internet
and continued communicating with al-Qaeda.
On October 29, 2009, Al-Marri was sentenced to 8 years in prison. He was moved from Federal Correctional Institution, Pekin
to the US Penitentiary, Florence High
security in Colorado in March 2010. His projected release date is January 18, 2015.
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
who was arrested on charges of being a sleeper al Qaeda agent while studying at Bradley University
Bradley University
Bradley University, founded in 1897, is a private, co-educational university located in Peoria, Illinois. It is a small institution with an enrollment of approximately 6,100 undergraduate and postgraduate students and a full-time faculty of approximately 350....
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. After denying any wrongdoing since his arrest, al-Marri pled guilty in a plea agreement to the federal charges on April 30, 2009. After a transfer from Federal Correctional Institution, Pekin
Federal Correctional Institution, Pekin
Federal Correctional Institution, Pekin is medium security federal prison for males. It is located on Illinois Route 29 on the south edge of Pekin, Illinois, and there an adjacent satellite prison camp for minimum security female inmates....
, he has been held at United States Penitentiary, Florence
United States Penitentiary, Florence
The United States Penitentiary in Florence is a high security prison located in the Florence Federal Correctional Complex in Fremont County, Colorado, near Florence.-History:...
since March 2010. Previously, he had been detained in solitary confinement for six years at the Naval Consolidated Brig, Charleston
Naval Consolidated Brig, Charleston
The Naval Consolidated Brig , is a medium security U.S. military prison. The brig, Building #3107, is located in the south annex of Joint Base Charleston in the city of Hanahan, South Carolina....
.
Al-Marri is the only non-citizen known to have been held as an enemy combatant in the continental United States since September 11. In July 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:*District of Maryland*Eastern District of North Carolina...
upheld the government's authority to hold Al-Marri as an enemy combatant, but also ruled that he was entitled to contest his detention in federal court. In February 2009, reports emerged that Al-Marri had been indicted by the federal government.
Al-Marri was released from detention by the Secretary of Defense on March 10, 2009 and was served an arrest warrant the same morning at the Charleston naval brig. He was immediately taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Service.
Arrest
The Peoria Journal StarPeoria Journal Star
The Journal Star is the major daily newspaper for Peoria, Illinois and surrounding area. First owned locally, then employee-owned, it became a Copley-owned entity in 1996. In 2007, the paper was sold to Fairport, New York-based GateHouse Media.-History:...
reports that al-Marri's initial capture was at a routine traffic stop in Peoria in December 2001. He was held in civilian jails in Peoria, Illinois
Peoria, Illinois
Peoria is the largest city on the Illinois River and the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, in the United States. It is named after the Peoria tribe. As of the 2010 census, the city was the seventh-most populated in Illinois, with a population of 115,007, and is the third-most populated...
and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
as a material witness
Material witness
A material witness is a person with information alleged to be material concerning a criminal proceeding. The authority to detain material witnesses dates to the First Judiciary Act of 1789, but the Bail Reform Act of 1984 most recently amended the text of the statute, and it is now codified at...
.
It was Ali Soufan
Ali Soufan
Ali H. Soufan is a Lebanese-American former FBI agent who was involved in a number of high-profile anti-terrorism cases both in the United States and around the world...
's questioning of Mohammed al Qahtani, that led to the terrorism charges against al-Marri, whom al Qahtani had mentioned being a relative.
In 2002, Ali was charged with making false statements to the FBI and to financial institutions, identity fraud, and credit card fraud. Al-Marri was alleged to be in possession of more than 1750 credit card numbers, along with the names of the account holders, none of whom were Al-Marri. He was also alleged to be in possession of falsified identification documents. Additionally, he was alleged to have used a Qwest
Qwest
Qwest Communications International, Inc. was a large United States telecommunications carrier. Qwest provided local service in 14 western U.S. states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.On April...
calling card to call a number in Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
linked to the reputed al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
financier Mustafa al-Hawsawi
Mustafa al-Hawsawi
Mustafa al-Hawsawi is a member of the militant Islamic organization al-Qaeda and allegedly an organizer and financer of the September 11 attacks....
. After searching al-Marri's computer, folders were found labeled "jihad arena" and "chem," which (according to the government) contained information on hydrogen cyanide, a poisonous gas produced in large quantities by several industrial processes in the U.S. and listed amongst chemical warfare agents that cause general poisoning, along with lectures by Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
and links to Web sites related to weaponry and satellite equipment.
Al-Marri's initial charges were dropped when President Bush classified him as an unlawful combatant
Unlawful combatant
An unlawful combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a civilian who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war. An unlawful combatant may be detained or prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action.The Geneva Conventions apply in wars...
in 2003. Unlike other foreigners, al-Marri was not transported to the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp
Guantanamo Bay detainment camp
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a detainment and interrogation facility of the United States located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. The facility was established in 2002 by the Bush Administration to hold detainees from the war in Afghanistan and later Iraq...
but was instead transferred to Naval Consolidated Brig, in Charleston, South Carolina.
Enemy combatant
Right to counsel
Right to counsel is currently generally regarded as a constituent of the right to a fair trial, allowing for the defendant to be assisted by counsel , and if he cannot afford his own lawyer, requiring that the government should appoint one for him/her, or pay his/her legal expenses...
in October 2004. His lawyers report that al-Marri has described being subjected to extreme cold, with insufficient bedding and clothing. He has been deprived of all reading material, except a Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
. Unlike the cells at Guantanamo Bay, which all have an arrow painted on the floor that points toward Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
, his guards reportedly decline to inform him of which direction is East. In addition to his cell's window being merely translucent (rather than transparent), he also claims to have no clock, preventing him from knowing the proper times to say prayers. He has also reportedly been deprived of personal hygiene items. The lack of such items have reportedly also rendered him unable to pray as a result of ritual impurity
Wudu
Wuḍhu is the Islamic procedure for washing parts of the body using water often in preparation for formal prayers...
.
Al-Marri reported that he had not been interrogated for a year. His lawyer sought to obtain protection for him through the writ of habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
.
In October 2008, 91 pages of memos drafted in 2002 by officers at the Naval Consolidated Brig, Charleston became public. The memos indicate that officers were concerned that the isolation and lack of stimuli was driving Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, Yasser Hamdi and José Padilla insane.
On November 13, 2006, the United States Department of Justice
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...
asserted in a six-page motion with the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:*District of Maryland*Eastern District of North Carolina...
that, according to the Military Commissions Act of 2006
Military Commissions Act of 2006
The United States Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. Drafted in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision on Hamdan v...
, al-Marri should be tried in a military tribunal as an enemy combatant rather than in a civilian court.
The document begins:
After a long legal battle the previously classified justification for Al Marri's detention was made public. On September 9, 2004, Jeffrey N. Rapp, Director of the Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism submitted a 16 page sworn statement containing many allegations against Al Marri, including:
- Al Marri was to hack into the US banking system, and "to wipe out balances and otherwise wreak havoc with banking records in order to damage the U.S. economy."
- Investigator had found information about hydrogen cyanide on Al Marri's laptop... "The highly technical information found on al-Marri's laptop computer far exceeds the interests of a merely curious individual."
On June 11, 2007, in al-Marri v. Wright
Al-Marri v. Wright
al-Marri v. Spagone, was a legal case in which the United States Supreme Court had to decide whether individuals can be imprisoned indefinitely for suspected wrongdoing without being charged with a crime and tried before a jury....
, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Military Commissions Act doesn't deny al-Marri his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers.
The court ruled that al-Marri must be released from military detention to either be freed or to be placed in US civilian detention where the federal government would have to charge him with crimes. The court held an en banc
En banc
En banc, in banc, in banco or in bank is a French term used to refer to the hearing of a legal case where all judges of a court will hear the case , rather than a panel of them. It is often used for unusually complex cases or cases considered to be of greater importance...
rehearing of the ruling on October 31, 2007. In its decision issued on July 15, 2008 the Court voted 5-4 that if the Government's allegations are true, al-Marri can be held in military detention indefinitely as an enemy combatant, but he has not received sufficient due process to determine if these allegations are in fact true. The case is allowed to return to trial court but no particular proceedings have been specified.
On 9 November 2008, Jerry Markon, writing in the Washington Post, reported that al-Marri's lawyers had petitioned the United States Supreme Court to overturn the lower court ruling that allowed him to be treated as an enemy combatant in spite of being a legal resident of the USA.
On December 5, 2008, the Supreme Court agreed to hear al-Marri's case.
On January 22, 2009, President 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...
issued a memorandum
Memorandum
A memorandum is from the Latin verbal phrase memorandum est, the gerundive form of the verb memoro, "to mention, call to mind, recount, relate", which means "It must be remembered ..."...
requiring that al-Marri's status be reviewed in addition to the detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay.
Al Marri pled guilty to conspiracy to support a terrorist group in 2009, and received a 15 year sentence.
On October 12 2011 Tony Bartelme, writing in the Charleston Post and Courier reported on documents the paper had recently received from an 8 year old Freedom of Information Act request about the use of the consolidated brig in the "war on terror". Among those documents was a 2005 exchange of memos between the prison's commander, E.P. Giambastiani to Charles Stimson
Charles Stimson
Charles Douglas "Cully" Stimson is a former American political appointee at the Pentagon. Stimson was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs...
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs
The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs is a political appointment created by United States President George W. Bush. The appointee has responsibility for captives apprehended during the "war on terror"....
.
In the memos Giambastiani requested that al Marri, Hamdy and Padilla be transferred to Guantanamo.
According to Bartelme:
New York Times editorials
The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
outlined the case of Ali al-Marri in an editorial on 24 November 2008, titled "Indefinite Detention". It criticized the George W. Bush administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
's enemy combatant doctrine, and called on the Supreme Court justices to "make clear that a president cannot trample on individual rights by imprisoning people indefinitely simply by asserting that they are tied to terrorism."
In another editorial of 8 December 2008, called "Tortured Justice", the Times editorial board wrote: "The extent of the damage to American liberties, and how lasting it will be, will be told in part by the outcome of two cases [Ali al-Marri's "enemy combatant" and Maher Arar
Maher Arar
Maher Arar is a telecommunications engineer with dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship who resides in Canada. Arar's story is frequently referred to as "extraordinary rendition" but the U.S. government insisted it was a case of deportation.Arar was detained during a layover at John F...
's "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...
"] that are to be heard by the federal courts." They said the Obama administration would have to decide "whether to defend the indefensible when the case comes to trial".
Court case
The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, quoting inside sources, reported on February 26, 2009 that al-Marri was to be indicted by Obama's Department of Justice
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...
.
On February 27, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder
Eric Holder
Eric Himpton Holder, Jr. is the 82nd and current Attorney General of the United States and the first African American to hold the position, serving under President Barack Obama....
announced that a federal grand jury in the Central District of Illinois had returned a two-count indictment charging Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, 43, with providing material support to al-Qaeda and conspiring with others to provide material support to al-Qaeda. He said that the Office of the Solicitor General would move to dismiss al-Marri’s pending litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court, and that al-Marri would be transferred to Department of Justice custody for criminal prosecution as soon as the Supreme Court rules on that motion. On March 6, 2009 the U.S. Supreme court dismissed the application, remanded to the Fourth Circuit, and instructed the Fourth Circuit to dismiss the appeal as moot. In March 2009, al-Marri made his first appearance before a judge in Charleston, S.C. After denying al-Marri's request for bail, the South Carolina judge ordered his transportation to Illinois. Al-Marri plead not guilty before Judge Michael Mihm in a U.S. District Court of Illinois. Judge Mihm set the date of the trial for May 26 but added that, realistically, he wanted to "try this case by the end of the year." Mihm also ordered the prosecution to hand over evidence, such as a copy of al-Marri's hard drive, to the defense attorneys.
Al-Marri was scheduled to make his initial court appearance on March 10, 2009 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert S. Carr in a federal court in Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
, South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
.
Al-Marri was transported afterward back to the Peoria federal court by the marshals and appeared before Mihm. He indicated to Mihm he understood the charges against him.
In March 2009, Al Marri was returned to civilian custody in Peoria, from military custody.
Guilty plea
On April 30, 2009 he entered a plea of guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.Al-Marri admitted in his plea that he attended terrorist training camps between 1998 and 2001, where he studied weapons and operational security. He met with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and "offered his services" to aid al-Qaeda; Mohammed told him to travel to America by September 20, 2001 and wait for further instructions. Al-Marri said that while enrolled at Bradley University, he researched cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
and continued communicating with al-Qaeda.
On October 29, 2009, Al-Marri was sentenced to 8 years in prison. He was moved from Federal Correctional Institution, Pekin
Federal Correctional Institution, Pekin
Federal Correctional Institution, Pekin is medium security federal prison for males. It is located on Illinois Route 29 on the south edge of Pekin, Illinois, and there an adjacent satellite prison camp for minimum security female inmates....
to the US Penitentiary, Florence High
United States Penitentiary, Florence
The United States Penitentiary in Florence is a high security prison located in the Florence Federal Correctional Complex in Fremont County, Colorado, near Florence.-History:...
security in Colorado in March 2010. His projected release date is January 18, 2015.
See also
- Jarallah al-Marri, his brother, former detainee at Guantanamo Bay Naval BaseGuantanamo Bay Naval BaseGuantanamo Bay Naval Base is located on of land and water at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba which the United States leased for use as a coaling station following the Cuban-American Treaty of 1903. The base is located on the shore of Guantánamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba. It is the oldest overseas...
in CubaCubaThe Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
. - Yaser Esam HamdiYaser Esam HamdiYaser Esam Hamdi is a now-former American citizen who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001. It is claimed by the U.S. government that he was fighting against U.S. and Afghan Northern Alliance forces with the Taliban...
, former U.S. citizen who was held as an enemy combatant in the Continental U.S. see Supreme Court ruling Hamdi v. RumsfeldHamdi v. RumsfeldHamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 was a U.S. Supreme Court decision reversing the dismissal of a habeas corpus petition brought on behalf of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen being detained indefinitely as an "illegal enemy combatant." The Court recognized the power of the government to detain enemy...
External links
- Free Ali Almarri website
- Case information by defense lawyers, Brennan Center for JusticeBrennan Center for JusticeThe Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School is a non-partisan public policy and law institute that focuses on issues involving democracy and justice...
at New York UniversityNew York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. - Adam LiptakAdam LiptakAdam Liptak is an American journalist, lawyer and instructor in journalism. He is currently the Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times. In July 2008, Liptak was assigned to take over coverage of the U.S...
, "In War of Vague Borders, Detainee Longs for Court", New York Times, January 5, 2007 - The Hard Cases, The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, February 23, 2009, analyzing the case and how the Obama administration will respond. - US residents in military brigs? Govt says it's war by Matt Apuzzo, Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, May 24, 2008. Accessed 2008-05-24 - Discredited Yoo Memos Led to “Enemy Combatant” Detainment and Denial of Habeas Corpus, Brennan Center for JusticeBrennan Center for JusticeThe Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School is a non-partisan public policy and law institute that focuses on issues involving democracy and justice...
, April 8, 2008. Accessed 2008-05-25 - 4th Circuit Opinion in Convenient Form
- Brother campaigns for 'enemy combatant', BBC NewsBBC NewsBBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
, 2009-01-24. Accessed 2009-01-26 - Justice to review al-Marri's case, Charleston Journal. Accessed 2009-01-26.
- Order to review case of ‘enemy combatant’, Gulf TimesGulf TimesThe Gulf Times newspaper was founded in 1978 as the first publication of the Gulf Publishing and Printing Company in the capital city of Qatar, Doha . One of three English-language newspapers in the country [2006]...
. Accessed 2009-01-26.