 The wife of a Syrian-born journalist now on trial in Spain for alleged links to Al Qaeda said her husband Taysir Alony was arrested merely "for going his job well". In his closing statement at the trial of Alony and 23 others in Madrid, prosecutor Pedro Rubira said that when the Al Jazeera correspondent taped an interview with Osama bin Laden in October 2001, "he interviewed his boss".| Right. He interviewed his boss, then contacted the CIA and told them where they could wire the reward money, then watched the teevee coverage of Osama's arrest and subsequent "crossfire." Oh, he didn't do that? He kept his mouth shut and muttered something about "infidels" under his breath? In that case, he should hang. |
"What the prosecutor said does not bother us. It's to be expected because that's his job," Fatima Zahra told EFE. At the same time, she said Rubira's reference confirms "what we've always maintained, which is that they arrested him (Alony) for his work, for having interviewed Osama Bin Laden"."It is ever more clear that it was for doing his job well and for not being named Juan, Pepe, George or Michael but Taysir," she said, adding that if any other person had been the only journalist able to remain in Afghanistan "nobody would have dared to say that he was favoured and he would have been given an award". The journalist's wife said she was confident that the verdict would be arrived at sooner than originally thought because the trial proved to be shorter than expected after the prosecutor decided to forego presenting some pieces of evidence. "We've been halted for two years now and we want to get on with our lives," she said. "If justice is done, the verdict will be favourable and Taysir will have to be set free," she said, adding that her husband is in very good spirits and that the trial had made him want to go to law school. |