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Would-be Bush assassin sez everybody makes mistakes
After confessing to FBI agents that he joined al-Qaeda and discussed plans to assassinate President George Bush, an American student wrote a letter to his parents saying that "everyone makes mistakes"."I know this will be difficult for you ... but I've been detained here in Saudi Arabia for some charges of terrorism," wrote Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24, who is on trial in federal court in Virginia for conspiracy to assassinate the President, providing support to al-Qaeda and other charges. "It seems like I will spend some years in jail. I know that you raised me to be a good person, but everyone makes mistakes, and the best people are the ones that learn from their mistakes," he wrote. Jurors at Abu Ali's trial heard excerpts of the letter during testimony today, but were told nothing of the confession he made to the FBI before writing the letter. The September 2003 confession is inadmissible because FBI agents, who had travelled to Saudi Arabia to question Abu Ali, ignored his request for a lawyer. Prosecutors are relying instead on a confession he gave to the Saudis shortly after his arrest in June 2003 in Medina, where he was attending college. Defence lawyers contend he gave a false confession after being tortured by Saudi security forces. The Government denies that he was mistreated. Abu Ali volunteered to write the letter at the end of his four-day interrogation, and asked FBI agent Luke Kuligoski to deliver the letter to his parents in Falls Church, Kuligoski testified today. The letter contains no explicit admission of guilt by Abu Ali, but prosecutors believe the letter is evidence that Abu Ali was not coerced into confessing. Also today, FBI agents testified that they found numerous suspicious items in Abu Ali's bedroom in the family's Falls Church apartment, including a book written by Osama bin Laden's top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, a magazine devoted to handguns and an article praising the September 11 attacks. Prosecutors learned yesterday and early today that they could not present testimony from several witnesses, including an expert on al-Qaeda and a cryptographer with expertise in decoding secret al-Qaeda messages. Defence lawyers had complained that they received insufficient notice of the planned testimony, and US District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee agreed, suggesting that prosecutors were engaging in "trial by ambush". Abu Ali was born in Houston and grew up in Falls Church, where he was valedictorian at an Islamic high school. He was returned to the US in February. He faces up to life in prison if convicted. Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-11-03 |
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