U.S. Suspect in Pakistan Defends 'Jihad' Plans

Image by hazy jenius via Flickr

Filed at 10:10 a.m. ET

SARGODHA, Pakistan (AP) -- One of five Americans detained in Pakistan said their aim was to go to Afghanistan to wage jihad against Western forces, defending their intention as justified under Islam.

But he denied any links to al-Qaida or plans to carry out terrorist attacks in Pakistan, as alleged by Pakistani authorities.

Monday was the first time the young Muslims from the Washington, D.C., area have addressed a court after being arrested in early December in the eastern Pakistani city of Sargodha. The case has spurred fears that Westerners are traveling to Pakistan to join militant groups. Pakistani police have said they plan to seek life sentences for the men under the country's anti-terrorism law.

''We are not terrorists,'' one of the men, Ramy Zamzam, told The Associated Press as he entered a courtroom in Sargodha on Monday.

''We are jihadists, and jihad is not terrorism,'' he said.

Jihad has several different meanings in Islam, but Zamzam seemed to be referring to the duty to fight against foreign forces viewed as occupying a Muslim country.

The men, aged 19 to 25, denied they had ties with al-Qaida or other militant groups during a court appearance Monday in Sargodha, said their attorney, Ameer Abdullah Rokri.

''They told the court that they did not have any plan to carry out any terrorist act inside or outside Pakistan,'' said Rokri. ''They said that they only intended to travel to Afghanistan to help their Muslim brothers who are in trouble, who are bleeding and who are being victimized by Western forces.''

The Americans arrived amid tight security. About a dozen police cars escorted the prison van inside the court premises as officers manned the rooftops of surrounding buildings. The men wore handcuffs as they walked into the courthouse for their hearing.

The court remanded the men to prison for 14 days to give police time to prepare their case, said Rokri.

''We have told the court that police have completed their investigation and have enough evidence against the five suspects to try them under anti-terrorism law,'' said police officer Matiullah Shahani.

Image by tonx via Flickr

Police have not said what the group's intended target was, but authorities say the men had a map of Chashma Barrage -- a complex located near nuclear power facilities that includes a water reservoir and other structures. It lies in the populous province of Punjab, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Islamabad.

Pakistan has a nuclear weapons arsenal, but also nuclear power plants for civilian purposes.

The court ordered the release of one of the suspects' fathers, Khalid Farooq, because of a lack of evidence that he had committed any crime, said police officer Tahir Shirazai.

It was unclear if Farooq, also a U.S. citizen, was still in custody since authorities said they had released him more than two weeks ago.

Pakistani police and government officials have made a series of escalating and, at times, seemingly contradictory allegations about the men's intentions, while U.S. officials have been far more cautious. The U.S. is also looking at charging the men -- Umar Farooq, Waqar Khan, Ahmed Minni, Aman Hassan Yemer and Ramy Zamzam.

Officials in both countries have said they expect the men to eventually be deported back to the United States, though charging them in Pakistan could delay that process.

The U.S. Embassy has declined to comment on the potential charges the men face in Pakistan.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Detained Americans had nuclear power site map, say Pakistan police (guardian.co.uk)
• Pakistan To Seek Terror Charges Against Americans (huffingtonpost.com)
• Americans to appear in Pakistan court (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• U.S. Suspects in Pakistan Deny Plot (online.wsj.com)

Genocide charge for Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan

Image via Wikipedia

A UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia has charged Khieu Samphan, formerly the head of state for the Khmer Rouge, with genocide.

The move came after genocide charges were filed against two other Khmer Rouge leaders, Ieng Sary and Nuon Chea.

All the genocide charges relate to the men's treatment of Cambodia's Vietnamese and Muslim minorities.

All three men had already been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Those charged are already in pre-trial detention although the trial is not expected to begin before 2011.

Denial

Up to two million people are thought to have died under the Khmer Rouge's rule.

Khieu Samphan, 78, has never denied these deaths, but both he and his lawyers insist that, as head of state, he was never directly responsible.

Image via Wikipedia

One member of his defence team is the infamous French lawyer Jacques Verges, whose previous clients have included Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and Venezuelan hijacker Carlos the Jackal.

Mr Verges, 83, has known Khieu Samphan since they were both involved in left-wing student activities in France in the 1950s.

WHO WERE THE KHMER ROUGE?

Maoist regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979

Founded and led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998

Abolished religion, schools and currency in a bid to create agrarian utopia

Up to two million people thought to have died from starvation, overwork or execution

He says he has lived a life of poverty since the Khmer Rouge regime was toppled.

A court official confirmed that the allegations related to the treatment of two minority groups: Cham Muslims and ethnic Vietnamese people.

Image by Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia via Flickr

Researchers believe that the Khmer Rouge killed hundreds of thousands of Chams because of their religious beliefs.

The accusation of genocide carries enormous symbolic weight, says the BBC's Guy De Launey in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh.

Final arguments were heard last month in the trial of Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, known as Comrade Duch, who has admitted being responsible for overseeing the deaths of 15,000 people.

Judges at the tribunal are expected to rule on his verdict early next year.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Tribunal charges 3rd ex-Khmer Rouge with genocide (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouge's 'naive' head of state (telegraph.co.uk)
• Khmer Rouge tribunal expects first verdict in 2010 (ctv.ca)
• Nazi defence is model for Khmer Rouge's main jailer (telegraph.co.uk)
• Cambodia's Trial of the Century, Televised (time.com)
• Cambodia Khmer Rouge trial: Duch 'should serve 40 years' (telegraph.co.uk)
• Khmer Rouge Tribunal Enters Final Phase (nytimes.com)

Dec 4, 2009 (DVB)–Three men who allegedly leaked information on Burma’s secret tunnel project appeared in a Rangoon court yesterday on spy charges

Dec 4, 2009 (DVB)–Three men who allegedly leaked information on Burma’s secret tunnel project appeared in a Rangoon court yesterday on charges of espionage, which could be punishable by death.

The men, a former army major and two Burmese foreign ministry officials, are also accused of leaking the details of senior governmental visits to North Korea and Russia. Intelligence documents detailing the two visits, as well as North Korean involvement in a project to develop underground military facilities across Burma, have been obtained by DVB. According to the documents, Burma’s ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has been developing the tunnels since 1996. As well as advanced communication systems and possible weapons factories, the tunnels are being built to accommodate battalions of troops in the event of an invasion. One of the three men, ex-major Win Naing Kyaw, had worked as a personal assistant for late junta secretary-2, General Tin Oo, who died in a helicopter crash in 2001. After retiring from the army, he joined a non-governmental organisation under the UN Development Programme in Burma, and went for training in Cambodia. He was arrested on his return at Rangoon International Airport on 29 July this year. Win Naing Kyaw, along with Thura Kyaw, a senior clerk from the foreign ministry’s European desk, is accused of leaking documents related to a 2006 visit by the SPDC’s second-in command, Maung Aye, to Russia, where he discussed the procurement of a guided missile system with Moscow’s deputy minister of defense, Yury Nikolayevich Baluyevsky. The two are also accused of exposing details of a trip by SPDC number three, Shwe Mann, to North Korea in 2008, where he visited tunnel complexes dug deep into the side of mountains that can hold heavy armoury, including chemical weapons. The information about the two visits was allegedly distributed via former SPDC official Aung Linn Htut, who is now living in exile after government authorities found the documents stored in his computer hard drive. The third defendant, Pyan Sein, is accused of spreading information about Burma’s tunnel project close to Naypyidaw via a woman known only as Ma Sint. The men are facing a raft of charges, including the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, the Emergency Act, the Electronics Act and the Official Secrets Act. The final charge can be punishable by life imprisonment or execution. More army officials have also been detained in connection with the case. One of them, special warrant officer Aung Kyaw Linn from the Myanmar Army (ground force), is currently detained in a military prison under a direct order from the military court. The trial, which began on 3 November, is being held in a closed court inside Rangoon’s Insein prison, where Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was tried earlier this year. Reporting by Yee May Aung

Judge considers time served in sentencing al-Qaeda aide - washingtonpost.com

Image via Wikipedia

Qatari spent 6 years on Navy brig, gets half of maximum penalty

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 30, 2009

In a decision that could carry implications for the masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks, a judge on Thursday sentenced an al-Qaeda sleeper agent with ties to the group's senior leaders to eight years and four months in prison.

The sentence sliced away nearly half of the 15-year maximum available penalty against Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who entered the country as a graduate student on Sept. 10, 2001, under instructions from al-Qaeda operations chief Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm essentially gave Marri credit for spending more than six years on a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. Marri was held in isolation without criminal charges as one of only three enemy combatants on American soil.

Over the course of the two-day sentencing hearing in Peoria, Ill., attorneys for Marri presented evidence of his often-bleak detention conditions, arguing that he was held in a dark and chilly cell without a blanket, a mattress and his prescription eyeglasses for long stretches, and that his mouth sometimes was covered with duct tape. The judge said he pared nine months from the prison term because of the harsh conditions.

Justice Department lawyers had exhorted the judge to ignore Marri's indefinite detention, ordered in 2003 by President George W. Bush, and to focus instead on the alleged danger he posed. They pointed to evidence uncovered in an FBI search that Marri had performed research on hazardous chemicals and had bookmarked possible U.S. targets such as dams and reservoirs.

The Obama administration moved Marri out of the military brig and into a federal court in February. He eventually pleaded guilty there to a single charge of conspiring to provide support to terrorists. That felony charge, used often by prosecutors in national security cases because of its relatively low burden of proof, carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

Experts on terrorism and advocacy groups for victims had been closely watching Marri's case for clues about what it could mean for the architects of the Sept. 11 attacks, who may soon be moved onto U.S. soil for trial in federal courts in New York and Virginia.

Given the years Marri has already served, he will spend about five more years behind bars, with the possibility of returning to his native Qatar, his attorneys said.

Kirk S. Lippold, commander of the USS Cole when it was targeted by Islamist terrorists while the vessel docked in Yemen in 2000, called the sentence "appalling" and "grossly inadequate." Lippold said that if prosecutors move other defendants from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for trials in regular U.S. federal courts, it could "create an era of unacceptable compromise to our national security."

Robert M. Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies sentencing in terrorism cases, said the Marri sentence "probably comes with the territory in switching somebody out of military detention and into the criminal justice system."

The case is one of the few concrete examples, Chesney said, of an ongoing debate over whether the U.S. criminal justice system is "up to the task" of trying and convicting terrorism suspects.

An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because a government task force is still reviewing the cases of Guantanamo detainees, said possible criminal charges against them could be far more serious and could carry much longer prison terms than Marri received.

For instance, the Justice Department this year moved detainee Ahmed Ghailani from Guantanamo to a federal courthouse in New York, where he will stand trial on murder charges relating to the deaths of 224 people in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. decided not to seek the death penalty against Ghailani, but he faces multiple life sentences.

The government's record on sentencing among terrorism suspects has been mixed, even in cases decided by military commissions, which are sometimes touted as tougher venues.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a driver for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was convicted in a military trial of providing material support for terrorism and sentenced to 66 months, but he was given credit by the presiding judge for the 61 months he had spent at Guantanamo.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said, "This administration is committed to bringing terrorists to justice for their crimes."

Marri cried in the courtroom when he told the judge about the years he spent without any word from his wife and five children. His attorneys said they were "very pleased" with the resolution of the case.

Lawrence Lustberg, Marri's attorney, said in a telephone interview that his client's case "shows our system can handle [terrorism cases] in an evenhanded way, consistent with our ideals of justice."

Group Says China Has Executed 4 for Roles in Tibet Riots - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia

By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — A Tibetan exile group in India says that the Chinese authorities have executed four people convicted for their roles in the riots that convulsed Tibet last year.

According to the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, the four were put to death on Tuesday, more than six months after they were tried and convicted of starting fires in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, that killed seven people.

At least 18 people died in March 2008 during violence that was directed at Han Chinese migrants, whose growing presence in the region has angered many native Tibetans. Since then at least 84 people have been convicted during trials that rights groups say are opaque, cursory and unfair.

The executions were not announced by the Chinese news media, and a woman who answered the phone at the Lhasa Municipal Intermediate People’s Court hung up when asked to confirm the accounts provided by the exile group.

The executions come at a time of deteriorating relations between China and representatives of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader who has been trying to negotiate greater autonomy for Tibetans. This week Chinese officials angrily denounced his planned visit to a Buddhist area of India that China claims as its own. China views the Dalai Lama, who fled to India three decades ago, as an instigator of Tibetan separatism.

Although they claim that Tibetans are sometimes secretly killed in detention, exile groups say the executions this week were the first in Tibet since 2002. They identified three of those killed as Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak, both men, and a woman named Penkyi.

Tashi Choephel, a researcher at the center, said he was unable to confirm the identity of the fourth. “It is extremely difficult to get any news out of Tibet, and those who provide information do so at great risk to their own lives,” he said, speaking from Dharamsala, India.

In announcing the convictions in April, the state-run news agency Xinhua said the accused had set fire to downtown clothing stores, killing employees who were cowering inside. “These arsons were among the worst crimes,” according to a court official quoted at the time.

“They led to extremely serious consequences, resulted in great loss of life and property and severely undermined social order, security and stability.”

In an effort to maintain order since the riots, the authorities have intensified their grip on daily life in Tibet and imposed greater restrictions on Buddhist monks and nuns, many of whom were at the center of the initial protests that turned violent.

According to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which released a report on Thursday that documents the crackdown, at least 670 Tibetans have been jailed in 2009 for activities that include peaceful protest or leaking information to the outside world.

The report detailed a widespread “patriotic education” campaign that requires monks and nuns to pass examinations on political texts, agree that Tibet is historically a part of China and denounce the Dalai Lama.

“The government has in the past year used institutional, educational, legal and propaganda channels to pressure Tibetan Buddhists to modify their religious views and aspirations,” the report said.

China Court Sentences 6 to Death in Rioting - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia

By EDWARD WONG

BEIJING — A Chinese court sentenced six men to death and a seventh to life in prison on Monday for their roles in the deadly ethnic rioting that convulsed the western regional capital of Urumqi in July, according to Xinhua, the state news agency.

All seven had names that suggested they were Uighurs, the largest ethnic group in the vast region of Xinjiang. All were convicted of murder, and some were also found guilty of arson and robbery, Xinhua reported.

The sentences were the first to be handed down by a court in response to the rioting of July 5, in which enraged Uighurs went on a rampage against Han, the dominant ethnic group in China, in the streets of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. At least 197 people were killed, most of them Han civilians, and 1,600 injured, the government announced. The ethnic rioting was the worst in decades in China and prompted cycles of retaliation as well as protests against the regional government.

Uighurs in Xinjiang have long complained of discrimination against them and of mass migrations to Xinjiang by the Han that have changed society in parts of the region they once dominated.

The six sentenced to death by the Intermediate People’s Court in Urumqi were Abdukerim Abduwayit, Gheni Yusup, Abdulla Mettohti, Adil Rozi, Nureli Wuxiu’er and Alim Metyusup, according to Xinhua. The seventh, Tayirejan Abulimit, was given a life sentence because he had confessed to murder and robbery and helped in the arrest of Alim Metyusup, Xinhua reported.

The English-language version of the Xinhua report did not provide details of the crimes. However, the Chinese-language version said that Abdukerim Abduwayit killed five people by stabbing them or beating them with an iron pipe, and that he helped set fire to buildings that forced 13 people to jump from their windows. Most of the men were convicted of similar crimes, according to the Xinhua report.

The trial on Monday was held without any prior announcement. In late August, China Daily, an official English-language newspaper, reported that trials would start that week, but regional authorities quickly said after the article appeared that a trial date had not been set.

The sentences in Urumqi were handed down just two days after two courts in southern China sentenced 11 people for their roles in the ethnic melee at a toy factory that served as a spark of the Xinjiang rioting. Xiao Jianhua, a Han man identified by a court as the “principal instigator” of that brawl, received a death sentence, another man received life in prison and nine others were given shorter prison terms.

Zhang Jing contributed research.

Man Pleads Guilty in Plot to Bomb Sites in Toronto - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia

By IAN AUSTEN

OTTAWA — A man unexpectedly pleaded guilty on Thursday to leading a plot to blow up at least three prominent sites, including the Toronto Stock Exchange, in a bid to create chaos to force Canada to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

The defendant, Zakaria Amara, who was 20 and working at a gas station at the time of his arrest in 2006, is the fifth member of a group known as the Toronto 18 to be convicted or plead guilty in the case. But prosecutors said the others were peripheral players who did not have full knowledge of Mr. Amara’s plan to damage the stock exchange, the Toronto office of Canada’s intelligence service and a military base.

But evidently the authorities were much better informed about the plot than were some of Mr. Amara’s co-conspirators. An agreed statement of facts presented to a court in Brampton, Ontario, on Thursday showed that the group had been infiltrated by two police informants and that its actions were under intense surveillance by police and intelligence agencies.

As the authorities watched and listened in, Mr. Amara organized training camps that featured extremist Islamic teachings and somewhat inept military-style exercises. Among other things, members of the group considered raiding Canada’s Parliament buildings and beheading Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as well as conducting raids on nuclear power stations.

Mr. Amara and most of the others were arrested in June 2006 after receiving what he believed to be three metric tons of fertilizer for making bombs. He had unknowingly placed the order through a police informant, and what he received was an inert powder.

By pleading guilty to two terrorism charges, Mr. Amara faces up to life in prison. Two other members of the group have entered guilty pleas in recent weeks.

Mr. Amara grew up in Mississauga, Ontario, a Toronto suburb, and as a teenager he began exchanging e-mail messages with Muslims around the world who promoted violent and radical forms of Islam. He started what became the Toronto 18 with another man who still awaits trial and whose identity remains protected by a court order, according to the statement of facts that was read in court on Thursday.

But Mr. Amara eventually split from his partner to form a cell to develop and carry out a bomb plot that he hoped would cause widespread destruction.

Evidence from the court case indicates that Mr. Amara had been known to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service since he was 16. Alarmed by what they found in 2005, police and intelligence agents hired two informants to infiltrate the group. The Globe and Mail, a Toronto newspaper, reported last month that the agent who arranged the ersatz fertilizer shipment, Shaher Elsohemy, was paid about $3.8 million by the government.

According to the statement, Mr. Amara planned to pack three rental trucks with ammonium nitrate fertilizer. It appeared that the bombs were to be detonated on Sept. 11, 2006, in what another conspirator called “The Battle of Toronto.” One of the targets, the Toronto office of the intelligence agency, is near the CN Tower, a major tourist attraction, as well as the stadium that is home to the Toronto Blue Jays. An explosion was also intended at an unidentified military base in Ontario.

About a month before Mr. Amara’s arrest, the police surreptitiously searched his house, where they found a bomb-making manual and a shopping list of bomb ingredients, according to the statement. Mr. Amara had had business cards created with the phrase “student farmers.”

Six defendants still await trial. Charges have been suspended or dropped against seven other people.

Iran Tries 2nd Group Accused of Overthrow Plot

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 9, 2009

TEHRAN, Aug. 8 -- A second group of dissidents, demonstrators and embassy workers appeared in court Saturday as prosecutors pressed their case against opposition members accused of plotting to topple Iran's religious leadership.

More than 100 defendants were put on trial Saturday, a week after a similar hearing involving other groups of politicians, journalists and protesters. State television showed several pro-opposition politicians and demonstrators in gray prison uniforms sitting in the dock, guarded by police officers.

Outside the courthouse, brief skirmishes broke out between police and family members of the accused.

Most of the 40-page indictment focused on what prosecutors said was an attempt by Western nations -- particularly the United States and Britain -- to inspire a "velvet revolution" in the turmoil surrounding Iran's presidential election in June.

Even before the voting, Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps had accused two candidates opposing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of plotting a nonmilitary overthrow modeled after the popular uprisings that toppled governments in Georgia and Ukraine. The guards are widely thought to be behind the arrests and court case, which is playing out in Iranian state media.

"The U.S. is swamped in Iraq and Afghanistan. The possibility to use the military option against the Islamic Republic of Iran has reached its lowest level, so creating basic changes in the structure of Iran's system required covert and soft actions by the West," Iran's deputy prosecutor said, according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

People gathered outside the court said government supporters were bused in to fill the few places made available in court to the public.

"None of the family members could get in," said Mahdieh Mohammadi, the wife of Ahmad Zeidabadi, a journalist and critic of the government who was arrested nearly two months ago.

"About 50 women and children waited for hours in the hot sun. Suddenly the police showed up, telling us to leave. But we stayed, and they arrested some of us," she said in a telephone interview.

The prosecutor presented what he said was evidence of a well-planned plot to overthrow Iran's system of religious leadership, building on a theory one of his colleagues had introduced last week.

The prosecutor said social network sites such as Facebook, which has a Farsi version, and Twitter, which postponed maintenance throughout the protests, as well as a recent trial version of a Google Farsi translation program, were part of "beastly efforts" to create a wedge between the Iranian people and their government.

Iranian authorities have filtered Facebook and Twitter since shortly after the election.

Prosecutors said the United States has used exchange programs for artists and academics, support for terrorist groups and a monitoring post based in the U.S. mission in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in its efforts to bring about the velvet revolution.

During the Bush administration, Iran "listening posts" were set up in the Emirates, Turkey and other countries and were manned by Farsi-speaking Iran experts from the State Department.

To support their allegations, Iranian officials often point to a $400 million budget for covert operations passed by Congress in 2008.

Britain "became active as the information arm of the United States and Israel in order to fill the gap of them not being present in Iran," the prosecutor said.

The defendants Saturday included Hossein Rassam, an Iranian employee at the British Embassy who was charged with espionage.

"We gathered information and news so that the British government would have a better understanding of Iran to adopt and implement its policies," Rassam said in a speech broadcast live on state television. He was allowed to return home after the session.

Britain expressed outrage at the charge against Rassam, saying it "directly contradicts assurances we had been given repeatedly by senior Iranian officials," the Associated Press reported.

French national Clotilde Reiss, who was arrested at the airport in Tehran after participating in rallies, issued a short statement asking for clemency, Fars reported.

"I have written a one-page report and submitted it to an official at the cultural department of the French Embassy who was not a diplomat," she was quoted as saying in fluent Farsi. "I should not have taken part in illegal protests. . . . I regret my activities and I apologize to the Iranian nation and the court. I hope they will pardon me."

In a sign that members of Iran's judiciary might be divided over the court case, national prosecutor general Qorban-Ali Dori-Najafabadi said the judiciary had called for the release of Saeed Hajjarian, a supporter of opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi who became disabled after an assassination attempt in 2000.

"Following a visit last week by our brothers to Hajjarian, his condition was relatively good, but we still advise that he be kept in his own house," Dori-Najafabadi said, according to Fars.

Others have been more straightforward.

"This court is unacceptable," said Saleh Nikbakht, a lawyer defending former vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi and Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari, whose alleged confession was televised last week.

Nikbakht said he has not been allowed to meet with his clients or see their files.

"Holding sessions without the presence of the accused's lawyer and also before the investigation process has been completed is illegal," Nikbakht said. "I don't know how many more sessions there will be. Anything seems possible at this point."

Torture Claim against Iran Trial

Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi says opposition detainees put on trial have been subjected to "medieval torture".

He denounced the trials, which started on Saturday, as fraudulent and said the prisoners had been forced to confess.

Earlier ex-President Mohammad Khatami criticised the hearings as "show trials" that would damage confidence in Iran's Islamic establishment.

More than 100 people have been put on trial on charges including conspiracy.

Ten more people were brought before the court on Sunday, reports said.

The detainees, all held in the wake of the disputed elections on 12 June, include several leading reformers. Some are accused of rioting and vandalism, as well as the more serious conspiracy charges.

They were among thousands of Iranians who rejected the official declaration that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the election.

Mr Khatami, in comments on his website, expressed hope that Saturday's trial would not "lead to ignorance of the real crimes", the Associated Press reports.

The AFP news agency quotes Mr Khatami, who was president from 1997 to 2005, as making more outspoken criticism of the trial.

"What was done yesterday is against the constitution, regular laws and rights of the citizens," his office quoted him as saying.

KEY DEFENDANTS

Mohammad Ali Abtahi (left): former vice-president, member of the Assembly of Combatant Clerics

Mohsen Mirdamadi (centre): leader of the biggest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front

Behzad Nabavi (right): member of the central council of the Organisation of the Mujahideen of the Islamic Revolution, former industry minister and former vice speaker of parliament

Mohsen Aminzadeh : former deputy foreign minister, served under reformist president Mohammad Khatami, member of Islamic Iran Participation Front

Mr Mousavi's comments went even further, accusing the authorities of forcing the detainees to confess to the crimes.

"The teeth of the torturers and confession-extorters have reached to the bones of the people," he said.

"Witnessing such trumped-up trials, the only judgment that the conscience of humanity can make is the moral collapse and discredit of its directors."

Mohsen Rezai, the only conservative to have challenged Mr Ahmadinejad in the election, also criticised the trial, saying people who had attacked the protesters should also be put on trial.

Earlier Fars news agency reported that a group of Iranian MPs had filed a complaint against Mr Mousavi several weeks ago, calling for him to be put on trial for "directing recent riots".

Hardliner Mohammad Taghi Rahba said Mr Mousavi and Mr Khatami were the main culprits behind the unrest.

Key defendants

At Saturday's trial, defendants in prison uniforms were seated flanked by guards.

IRAN UNREST

12 June Presidential election saw incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected with 63% of vote

Main challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi called for result to be annulled, alleging poll fraud

Mass street protests saw at least 30 people killed and foreign media restricted

They included supporters of opposition leaders Mr Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, and aides of Mr Khatami.

The semi-official Fars news agency reported that former deputy foreign minister Mohsen Aminzadeh, former government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh, former senior lawmaker Mohsen Mirdamadi and former Industry Minister Behzad Nabavi were among those on trial.

The BBC's Kasra Naji says the timing and scale of the trial came as a surprise and suggests Iran's leadership wants to send a message to stop any more protests.

Foreign media, including the BBC, have been restricted in their coverage of Iran since the election protests turned into confrontations with the authorities in which at least 30 people were killed.

Opposition groups alleged widespread vote-rigging. Post-election protests saw the largest mass demonstrations in Iran since the 1979 revolution, which brought about the current Islamic system of government.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/8180180.stm

Published: 2009/08/02 16:49:29 GMT

China to Try Suspects Held After Riots

By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — China will begin trials in the next few weeks for suspects it accuses of playing a role in the deadly riots that shook the capital of the Xinjiang region in early July, state media outlets reported Friday.

The English-language China Daily newspaper said officials were organizing special tribunals to weigh the fate of “a small number” of the 1,400 people who have been detained, most of them Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority whom security forces have blamed for much of the killing.

Earlier this week, the authorities arrested an additional 253 suspects, many through tips provided by residents of Urumqi, the regional capital where the violence took place. On Thursday, the authorities published the photographs of an additional 15 people, all but one of them Uighur, who they say had a hand in the unrest. Those who provide information leading to an arrest can collect as much as $7,350 in reward money.

“The police urged the suspects to turn themselves in,” China Daily wrote, quoting an unidentified law enforcement official. “Those who do so within 10 days will be dealt with leniently, while others will be punished severely.”

In the days after the riots, the head of the Communist Party in Xinjiang was blunt about what awaits those convicted of the most serious offenses. “To those who have committed crimes with cruel means, we will execute them,” said the official, Li Zhi.

The riots, the worst outbreak of ethnic strife in China’s recent history, began July 5 after protests over the deaths of Uighur factory workers in another part of China turned into a murderous rampage. The violence, which lasted three days, claimed 197 lives, most of them Han Chinese beaten to death on the streets, according to the government. The Han are the dominant ethnic group in China.

Uighur advocates overseas, however, insist that the official death toll undercounts the number of Uighurs killed by the paramilitary police and during revenge attacks by the Han that followed the initial rioting.

China has accused outsiders of instigating the unrest, heaping most of the blame on Rebiya Kadeer, the 62-year-old leader of the World Uighur Congress, which advocates self-determination for China’s Uighurs. They say Ms. Kadeer, a businesswoman who spent years in a Chinese jail before going into exile, organized the killings from her home in Washington.

In recent weeks Ms. Kadeer has been on an aggressive campaign to convince the world that her people are the primary victims of the rioting. During a visit to Japan on Wednesday, she told reporters that 10,000 people had disappeared overnight in the days following the unrest. “Where did they go?” she asked. “Were they all killed or sent somewhere? The Chinese government should disclose what happened to them.”

Her claims have infuriated China, with one official in Xinjiang describing her remarks as “completely fabricated.” Ms. Kadeer says she cannot reveal the source of her information because to do so would endanger those who provided it.

If the trials that followed the 2008 riots in Tibet are any guide, the court hearings in Xinjiang will be swift. According to China Daily, the accused will be appointed lawyers who have “received special training,” as have the judges who will preside over the cases. Each trial will be heard by a panel of three or seven judges, and the majority opinion will prevail.

Human rights groups, however, say they have little confidence the tribunals will be fair. They expect the proceedings to be closed to the public, as are most trials in China, and they note that the defendants will not have lawyers of their own choosing.

“Without independent legal counsel, you don’t have any clue as to what evidence has been collected and through what means,” said Renee Xia, international director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which is based in Hong Kong. “Were they tortured or coerced to confess? Trials can be speedy, but it doesn’t mean they will be fair.”

Mumbai Gunman Enters Plea Of Guilty

By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

NEW DELHI, July 20 -- The lone surviving gunman in last year's Mumbai attacks stunned a courtroom audience Monday by confessing his involvement in the deadly carnage that killed more than 170 people.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, one of the 10 gunmen who laid siege to India's financial capital for three days last November, stood as he narrated chilling details of his training in Pakistan, named the individuals who conceived the plan and outlined the journey the gunmen undertook by sea.

Upon reaching Mumbai, the gunmen attacked several sites, including two five-star hotels, a train station and a Jewish outreach center.

Kasab, 22, was captured in a police ambush on the night of the attacks while he was trying to escape in a stolen car. He confessed his involvement while being interrogated but then retracted his statement when the trial began April 1, alleging that police had coerced and tortured him to extract an admission of guilt.

In Mumbai on Monday, the prosecution in Kasab's case was calling a witness when the defendant announced that he wanted to make a confession.

Kasab, who for months had professed his innocence, said the outlawed, Pakistan-based group Lashkar-i-Taiba was behind the attacks, and he revealed the names of the leaders from the group who trained him.

He said one of the suspects who has been arrested, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, was the mastermind behind the attack, along with others who engineered it and dispatched the gunmen to travel by ship from Karachi, Pakistan, through the Arabian Sea to Mumbai. The attackers had to change boats four times to reach their destination.

Kasab did not accuse Hafiz Sayeed, the founder of Lashkar-i-Taiba, of involvement.

"We were surprised when he abruptly took the stand and pleaded guilty," Ujjwal Nikam, the prosecuting lawyer in the high-profile trial, said in an interview. "The cat is now out of the bag."

Kasab's attorney, Abbas Kazmi, said he was unaware of his client's plans to plead guilty. "It was shocking for everybody, including me," Kazmi told reporters outside the court.

Noting that Kasab was formally charged in a Pakistani court last week with participating in the attack, Kazmi said his client might have decided to confess after concluding he had no real chance of avoiding conviction. In addition to accusing Kasab, Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency charged Lakhvi and several others and said they would be tried in a court in Rawalpindi.

"It is obvious that someone has told Kasab of this," Kazmi said. "Some of his guards who were manning him in jail must have leaked the information to him."

In court Monday, Kasab recounted the start of the siege the night of Nov. 26, saying that he and an accomplice, Abu Ismail, went to a train station restroom and assembled a bomb by installing a timer in it.

"I have confessed. The trial should end now. Sentence me soon," Kasab is reported to have told the judge, according to the Press Trust of India.

A transcript of his courtroom statement is to be sent to the prosecution for review on Tuesday, after which the judge will decide whether to accept the confession and how to proceed.

Kasab's case has moved through India's court system with unusual speed. The daily trial sessions are being held in a fortress-like, makeshift courtroom inside the Mumbai jail compound where Kasab has been held in solitary confinement since November.

Nikam, the prosecutor, said Kasab has "confessed, but also very intelligently."

"He disclosed some information and hid a lot of other crucial information," he said. "Why did he do this and why all of a sudden? Perhaps the events in Pakistan left him feeling that he has no other option anymore."

The prosecutor recalled that Kasab initially told authorities he was underage when he was arrested, apparently hoping for leniency. "He had been trying different tactics all this while to wriggle out of the case," Nikam said. "I feel this is another trick that he is playing to get a lesser sentence."

Countering Riots, China Rounds Up Hundreds

By ANDREW JACOBS

URUMQI, China — The two boys were seized while kneading dough at a sidewalk bakery.

The livery driver went out to get a drink of water and did not come home.

Tuer Shunjal, a vegetable vendor, was bundled off with four of his neighbors when he made the mistake of peering out from a hallway bathroom during a police sweep of his building. “They threw a shirt over his head and led him away without saying a word,” said his wife, Resuangul.

In the two weeks since ethnic riots tore through Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang, killing more than 190 people and injuring more than 1,700, security forces have been combing the city and detaining hundreds of people, many of them Uighur men whom the authorities blame for much of the slaughter.

The Chinese government has promised harsh punishment for those who had a hand in the violence, which erupted July 5 after a rally by ethnic Uighurs angry over the murder of two factory workers in a distant province. First came the packs of young Uighurs, then the Han Chinese mobs seeking revenge.

“To those who have committed crimes with cruel means, we will execute them,” Li Zhi, the top Communist Party official in Urumqi, said July 8.

The vow, broadcast repeatedly, has struck fear into Xiangyang Po, a grimy quarter of the city dominated by Uighurs, Turkic-speaking Muslims who have often had an uneasy relationship with China’s Han majority. Uighurs are the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, but in Urumqi, Han make up more than 70 percent of the 2.3 million residents.

It was here on the streets of Xiangyang Po, amid the densely packed tenements and stalls selling thick noodles and lamb kebabs, that many Han were killed. As young Uighur men marauded through the streets, residents huddled inside their homes or shops, they said; others claim they gave refuge to Han neighbors.

“It was horrible for everyone,” said Leitipa Yusufajan, 40, who spent the night cowering at the back of her grocery store with her 10-year-old daughter. “The rioters were not from here. Our people would not behave so brutally.”

But to security officials, the neighborhood has long been a haven for those bent on violently cleaving Xinjiang, a northwest region, from China. Last year, during a raid on an apartment, the authorities fatally shot two men they said were part of a terrorist group making homemade explosives. Last Monday, police officers killed two men and wounded a third, the authorities said, after the men tried to attack officers on patrol.

“This is not a safe place,” said Mao Daqing, the local police chief.

Local residents disagree, saying the neighborhood is made up of poor but law-abiding people, most of them farmers who came to Urumqi seeking a slice of the city’s prosperity. Interviews with two dozen people showed vehement condemnation of the rioters. “Those people are nothing but human trash,” one man said, spitting on the ground.

Still, the police response has been indiscriminate, they said. Nurmen Met, 54, said his two sons, 19 and 21, were nabbed as riot officers entered the public bathhouse his family owns. “They weren’t even outside on the day of the troubles,” he said, holding up photos of his sons. “They are good, honest boys.”

Many people said they feared that their family members might be swallowed up by a penal system that is vast and notoriously opaque. Last year, in the months leading to the Beijing Olympics, the authorities arrested and tried more than 1,100 people in Xinjiang during a campaign against what they called “religious extremists and separatists.”

Shortly after the arrests, Wang Lequan, the region’s Communist Party secretary, described the crackdown as a “life and death” struggle.

Uighur exile groups and human rights advocates say the government sometimes uses such charges to silence those who press for greater religious and political freedoms. Trials, they say, are often cursory. “Justice is pretty rough in Xinjiang,” said James Seymour, a senior research fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

In a sign of the sensitivities surrounding the unrest, the Bureau for Legal Affairs in Beijing has warned lawyers to stay away from cases in Xinjiang, suggesting that those who assist anyone accused of rioting pose a threat to national unity. Officials on Friday shut down the Open Constitution Initiative, a consortium of volunteer lawyers who have taken on cases that challenge the government and other powerful interests. Separately, the bureau canceled the licenses of 53 lawyers, some of whom had offered to help Tibetans accused of rioting last year in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

Rights advocates say that if the trials in Xinjiang resemble those that took place in Tibet, many defendants will receive long sentences. “There is a lot of concern that those who have been detained in Xinjiang will not get a fair trial,” said Wang Songlian, a research coordinator at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group.

Residents of Xiangyang Po say police officers made two morning sweeps through the neighborhood after the rioting began, randomly grabbing boys as young as 16. That spurred a crowd of anguished women to march to the center of Urumqi to demand the men’s release.

But none of the detainees has come home, the residents say, and the authorities have refused to provide information about their whereabouts.

“I go to the police station every day, but they just tell me to be patient and wait,” said Patiguli Palachi, whose husband, an electronics repairman, was taken in his pajamas with four other occupants of their courtyard house. Ms. Palachi said they might have been detained because a Han man was killed outside their building, but she insisted that her husband was not involved. “We were hiding inside at the time, terrified like everyone else,” she said.

Although it was impossible to verify the accounts of the residents, as Ms. Palachi spoke, more than 10 people gathered to share similar accounts.

Emboldened by the presence of foreign journalists, the group decided to walk to the local police station to confront the police again. “Maybe if you are with us, they will give an answer,” said Memet Banjia, a vegetable seller looking for his son. “Probably they will say nothing and the next day we will disappear, too.”

But the meeting with the police was not to be. As the residents approached the station house, a squad car roared up and the crowd melted away. The foreigners were ordered into the car and driven to the station house. After an hour’s wait, a pair of high-ranking security officials arrived with a lecture and a warning.

“You can’t be here; it’s too unsafe,” one of them said as he drove the foreigners back to the heavily patrolled center of the city. “It’s for your own good.”

Zhang Jing contributed research.

Second Turkish 'Plot' Trial Opens

Fifty-six people, including two retired generals, journalists and academics, have gone on trial in Turkey accused of plotting to overthrow the government.

Prosecutors say they were members of a shadowy ultranationalist network - dubbed Ergenekon - which allegedly aimed to provoke a military coup.

The two generals, who are in their 60s, could face life in prison if convicted.

This is the second court case related to the Ergenekon case. Another 86 suspects went on trial in October.

The investigation has strained relations between the governing AK Party, which has its roots in political Islam, and the military, which considers itself the guardian of Turkey's secular constitution.

Last week, President Abdullah Gul approved a new law giving civilian courts the power to try military personnel suspected of threatening national security or having links to organised crime.

'Coup plans'

Forty-four of the defendants were present inside the courtroom at the heavily-guarded Silivri prison on the outskirts of Istanbul on Monday to hear the charges against them read out.

Gen Hursit Tolon, a former army commander, looked relaxed as he answered questions from the four-judge panel after being accused of masterminding a terrorist group and inciting armed rebellion against the government.

His co-accused, Gen Sener Eruygur, a former commander of the paramilitary gendarmerie forces, was not present because of ill-health.

According to the 1,909-page indictment, the two men "began implementing the coup plans they drew up in 2003-2004 while in office and continued their activities after they retired".

The allegations first surfaced in March 2007, when a magazine published excerpts from the purported diary of a former navy commander, which described how Gen Eruygur and several other senior officers had plotted coups but failed to secure the support of the heads of the armed forces.

After retiring, the indictment says, the two men used civil society groups to incite public opinion against the AKP-led government.

At the same time, it alleges, they helped set up Ergenekon, which is accused of being behind several violent attacks, including the bombing of a secularist newspaper in 2006 and an attack on the country's top administrative court in the same year, in which a judge died.

Targeting those key parts of the secular establishment were supposed to foment chaos and to provoke Turkey's military into launching a coup in defence of secular interests, it is alleged.

'Lie'

Other prominent suspected Ergenekon members who went on trial on Monday include two journalists who have frequently criticised the government, Mustafa Balbay and Tuncay Ozkan; two university rectors; and the head of the Ankara chamber of commerce.

All the defendants deny the charges, saying they are politically motivated and designed to undermine the AK Party's opponents.

About 200 people demonstrated against the trial outside the court building on Monday, many holding portraits of Ataturk, the secularist founder of modern Turkey.

"This trial is a lie. They are fabricating evidence to arrest Ataturk's followers," one protestor, Suzan Demirten, told the Associated Press.

The BBC's David O'Byrne in Istanbul says it is unclear if the presiding judge will now decide to merge the proceedings with the ongoing trial of the 86 other suspects in the Ergenekon case, who include several other senior military personnel.

What is certain, however, is that few Turks doubt that at least some truth lies behind the accusations of coup plotting by elements of the military, our correspondent says.

And equally few doubt that whatever the result of the trials, the delicate balance of power between the Turkey's political and military elites has changed irrevocably, he adds.

Obama Raises Concerns About Freedom and Judicial Independence in Russia

By PETER BAKER and CLIFFORD J. LEVY

MOSCOW — Ahead of his departure for Moscow on Sunday night for a visit aimed at repairing strained relations with Russia, President Obama vowed not to sacrifice American support for greater freedom here and questioned the politically charged prosecution of a prominent Russian businessman.

Mr. Obama raised concerns about the treatment of the businessman, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, who along with his partner has been put back on trial six years after they were first arrested. Critics say the new trial seems aimed at keeping Mr. Khodorkovsky, an opponent to the government who was once Russia’s richest man, in prison.

“Without knowing the details, it does seem odd to me that these new charges, which appear to be a repackaging of the old charges, should be surfacing now, years after these two individuals have been in prison and as they become eligible for parole,” Mr. Obama said in written answers to questions posed by a Russian opposition newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, over the weekend. “Nonetheless, I think it is improper for outsiders to interfere in the legal processes of Russia.”

But Mr. Obama called on President Dmitri A. Medvedev to follow through on his promise “to strengthen the rule of law in Russia, which of course includes making sure that all those accused of crimes have the right to a fair trial and that the courts are not used for political purposes.”

In a television interview that was broadcast in Russia on Saturday night, Mr. Obama did not repeat critical comments that he had made about Vladimir V. Putin, the former president and current prime minister, who is widely considered Russia’s dominant leader.

Mr. Obama plans to conduct negotiations with Mr. Medvedev on Monday and have breakfast with Mr. Putin on Tuesday. In the interview on Russian state television, Mr. Obama was asked why it was important to meet both men. Mr. Obama noted that he had never met Mr. Putin, but added, “Obviously, he has been a very strong leader for the Russian people.”

The interview with Russian television was conducted on Thursday shortly after Mr. Obama offered a different view of Mr. Putin in an interview with The Associated Press.

In the A.P. interview, Mr. Obama said Mr. Putin had “one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new.” Mr. Obama said that it was time to move forward and that Mr. Medvedev “understands that.”

The comment was seen as provocative, and some American officials worried that Mr. Obama may have been too sharp in taking on Mr. Putin while others argued that it let the president come in a position of strength.

On Sunday, the Kremlin released the text of an interview in which Mr. Medvedev once again suggested that the United States needed to compromise on its proposed antimissile system in Eastern Europe in order to obtain a broader agreement on cutting nuclear arsenals.

Mr. Khodorkovsky’s case is one of three that have come up as Mr. Obama heads here. Supporters want him to press Russia not only to free Mr. Khodorkovsky but also to do more to pursue the killers of two journalists, Anna Politkovskaya, a crusading war correspondent, and Paul Klebnikov, an editor for Forbes magazine.

Ms. Politkovskaya held dual Russian and American citizenship while Mr. Klebnikov was an American of Russian heritage. Mr. Obama is sending top advisers to a memorial service to be held in Moscow on Tuesday for the fifth anniversary of Mr. Klebnikov’s death, and offered a show of support for Ms. Politkovskaya’s colleagues by answering written questions posed by her newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.

Novaya Gazeta’s editors, Dmitri Muratov and Andrey Lipsky, asked Mr. Obama if he would ratchet back American attention to liberty issues in Russia.

“Of course not,” Mr. Obama wrote, adding: “I agree with President Medvedev when he said that ‘freedom is better than the absence of freedom.’ So, I see no reason why we cannot aspire together to strengthen democracy, human rights, and the rule of law as part of our ‘reset.’ ”

Mr. Khodorkovsky, who led Yukos, Russia’s most successful oil company at the time, was arrested in 2003 when he challenged Mr. Putin. He was convicted of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to eight years in prison, while his oil company was effectively taken over by the state. He is back on trial on new charges of embezzlement and money laundering.

Mr. Khodorkovsky’s parents hoped that Mr. Obama’s interest would prompt Mr. Medvedev to stop the trial and free their son. “I liked very much what Obama said,” his father, Boris Khodorkovsky, said in an interview. But Mr. Medvedev dismissed the possibility of a pardon, at least for now, comparing the case to the recent conviction of Bernard L. Madoff in the United States.

“Some businessmen have been given very long sentences, 150 years in the United States of America,” Mr. Medvedev said in his interview with Italian news media. “Why is it that somehow no one is unduly upset about this case?”

ACLU Says Detainee Mohammed Jawad Was Tortured Into Confessions

By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 2, 2009

The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday accused the Obama administration of using statements elicited through torture to justify the confinement of a detainee it represents at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The ACLU is asking a federal judge to throw out those statements and others made by Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who may have been as young as 12 when he was captured. His attorney argued that Jawad was abused in U.S. custody, threatened and subjected to intense sleep deprivation.

"The government's continued reliance on evidence gained by torture and other abuse violates centuries of U.S. law and suggests the current administration is not really serious about breaking with the past," said ACLU lawyer Jonathan Hafetz, who is representing Jawad in a lawsuit challenging his detention.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the government would not comment on the types of evidence it will use in Jawad's case challenging his imprisonment. "We intend to prove our case in court rather than attempt to do so through the media," Boyd said.

In court papers, the Justice Department alleges that Jawad threw a grenade into a vehicle containing two U.S. Special Forces soldiers and their Afghan interpreter on Dec. 17, 2002. Jawad was also associated with a group tied to Osama bin Laden, the government alleges.

After the grenade attack, Jawad was picked up by Afghan police, according to military and federal court records.

During U.S. military commission hearings on his case, a judge found that Afghan interrogators threatened to kill Jawad and his family if he did not confess to playing a role in the attack. Jawad then admitted to participating in the attack, wrote the judge, Army Col. Stephen R. Henley.

Later the same night, he was questioned by U.S. Special Forces and confessed again, Henley wrote.

In November, Henley found that the first set of statements were elicited through "physical intimidation and threats of death" and that Jawad's fears "had not dissipated by the second confession." He ruled that prosecutors could not use either of the confessions during military commission proceedings.

Despite Henley's ruling, Hafetz said the Justice Department wants to use those very confessions to justify Jawad's detention in the detainee's lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle.

Hafetz said he is also asking Huvelle to suppress other statements Jawad made to interrogators at the U.S. military prisons at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay. Those statements were tainted, Hafetz said, because Jawad was beaten, forced into painful "stress positions," and chained to a wall and deprived of sleep in Bagram. At Guantanamo, Jawad was interrogated more than 50 times and subjected to sleep deprivation, Hafetz said.

Jawad's situation received attention last year when a military prosecutor abruptly quit his post, saying that the case was riddled with problems and that the prisoner had suffered physical and psychological mistreatment while in custody.

That former prosecutor, Darrel Vandeveld, later filed a declaration supporting Jawad's challenge to his confinement in a federal lawsuit.

"It is my opinion, based on my extensive knowledge of the case, that there is no credible evidence or legal basis to justify Mr. Jawad's detention," Vandeveld wrote.

As Ahmadinejad Tightens Grip in Iran, Mousavi Faces Tough Choices

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 29, 2009

TEHRAN, June 28 -- With the opposition visibly weakening in Iran amid a government crackdown, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters have begun to use his disputed victory in this month's election to toughen the nation's stance internationally and to consolidate control internally.

In recent days, they have vilified President Obama for what they call his "interventionist policies," have said they are ready to put opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's advisers on trial and have threatened to execute some of the Mousavi supporters who took to the streets to protest the election result.

On Sunday, news agencies reported that the police broke up another opposition gathering -- witnesses said it numbered about 2,000 -- and detained eight British Embassy staff members, accusing them of a role in organizing the demonstrations.

The actions reflect the growing power of a small coterie of hard-line clerics and Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, Iranian analysts say. Revolutionary Guard members, in particular, have proved instrumental to the authorities since the June 12 election, and analysts say their clout is bound to increase as the conflict drags on.

The emerging power dynamics leave Mousavi with tough choices. Confronted with increasing political pressure over what supporters of the government say is his leading role in orchestrating riots, he can either acknowledge his defeat and be embraced by his enemies or continue to fight over the election result and face imprisonment.

"Everything now depends on Mousavi," said Amir Mohebbian, a political analyst. "If he decreases the tension, politicians can manage this. If he increases pressure, the influence of the military and security forces will grow."

Should he continue to fight, other analysts say, Mousavi and many of his advisers could be jailed, which would mean the end of their political influence within Iran's ruling system. The exclusion of such a large group would end Iran's traditional power-sharing system. Authority would rest in the hands of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, and his supporters, leaving the parliament as the lone outpost of opposition voices.

On the other hand, accepting defeat might allow Mousavi to create a political party that, although unable to challenge the rule of Khamenei, could give him an opposition role during Ahmadinejad's second term. Mousavi's supporters, who are still enraged over post-election violence that they blame on the government, would be extremely disappointed by such a move.

The one possible wild card in Mousavi's favor seems to be coming from the holy city of Qom, one of the most influential centers of Shiite learning. There, several powerful grand ayatollahs have issued statements calling for a compromise and, most tellingly, have not joined Khamenei in his unequivocal support of Ahmadinejad.

"Events that happened have weakened the system," Grand Ayatollah Abdolkarim Mousavi Ardabili said during a meeting with members of the Guardian Council, the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency reported Saturday. "You must hear the objections that the protesters have to the elections. We must let the people speak."

Another grand ayatollah issued two fatwas, or religious edicts, on Saturday, saying Islam forbids security forces from hitting unarmed people. Grand Ayatollah Asadollah Bayat Zanjani said the protests were Islamic. "These gatherings are the lawful right of the people and their only method for informing the rulers of their requests," he said.

Mousavi and another opposition candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, have vehemently refused to recognize the election results, which officially gave Ahmadinejad a landslide victory. They have also declined to participate in recount efforts by the Guardian Council, which must certify the final results Monday but which the opposition insists is biased.

Their refusal plays into the hands of the president's camp, which, strongly supported by state media, has launched a campaign against Mousavi, the protesters and his advisers. According to the official narrative of this campaign, opposition unrest was fomented by Iran's foreign enemies -- including the United States, Great Britain and Saudi Arabia -- in an attempt to overthrow the regime.

The Iranian government and its allies are gearing up to use those accusations to bring to court some political opponents, a move aimed at silencing the opposition for a longer period, analysts here say. The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said Sunday that more than 2,000 people are in detention and that hundreds more have gone missing since the election.

"We are very worried about my husband's fate," said Mahdieh Mohammadi, wife of journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi, a government critic. He was arrested the day after the election. "When you know nothing at all for the past two weeks, naturally you start to worry about everything."

State media have rolled out a daily serving of alleged plots and conspiracies involving Mousavi supporters. They refer to the protesters as "rioters" and "hooligans." Mousavi's aides are linked to plans for "a velvet revolution" meant to overthrow Iran's complex system of religious and democratic governance. Some demonstrators have been forced to make televised statements in which they admit to being the pawns of foreigners.

The head of the parliament's judicial commission has said that Mousavi could be put on trial. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a staunch ally of Iran's supreme leader, called Friday for "severe and ruthless" punishments for the "leaders of the agitations," asking the judiciary to try them as those who "wage war against God." Such crimes are punishable by death under Iran's Shiite Islamic law.

Khamenei has said that those organizing the "riots" will be held responsible for the "violence and bloodshed." He has openly supported Ahmadinejad, breaking with the Islamic republic's tradition of the supreme leader being above the fray.

The Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose power mushroomed after the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively, is in position to gain even more sway in the government. The 120,000-member corps acts as a praetorian guard, protecting Iran's Islamic ruling system, and its commanders are close to top Iranian leaders. In recent years, the corps has added divisions, expanded its intelligence operations, helped professionalize the voluntary militia known as the Basij and taken greater control of the borders.

"We are now in a security situation. That is increasing their influence," said Mohebbian, the analyst, who is critical of both main presidential candidates. "Mousavi's extremist actions have made it easy for military people to get involved in politics, which is always bad for democracy."

Former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an Ahmadinejad rival who supported Mousavi, on Sunday broke his post-election silence and called for an investigation into complaints of election irregularities.

"I hope those who are involved in this issue thoroughly and fairly review and study the legal complaints," Rafsanjani said.

Special correspondent Kay Armin Serjoie in Tehran contributed to this report.