Today's sprawling front-page, top-of-the-fold Washington Post article on scary "enemy combatant" Ali al-Marri.http://www.washingtonpost.com/... is trial by smear. The article relays lots of "coincidences [that] are suggestive," based on sources speaking on the condition of anonymity (only one source is named). What the article neglects to mention is the sordid history and the opportunistic use of the "enemy combatant" label on this man, who has the dubious distinction of being the only foreigner arrested in the U.S. and held here as such, despite slap-downs by the Supreme Court and the conservative Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The government believes that al-Marri is a senior al-Qaeda agent who operated a sleeper cell in the U.S. A "top counterterrorism official" said that al-Marri trained in Afghanistan at one of bin Laden's camps. "Federal agents" allege that Khalid Sheik Monhammed was his handler. "U.S. authorities" allege that he traveled to Saudi Arabia to get cash from the alleged paymaster for the 9/11 plotters. "Intelligence and law enforcement sources" say he was making calls to Saudi Arabia, where, I should mention, his family lived on and operated a camel farm.
The evidence against him? Guilt by association ("Dhiren Barot, al-Qaeda's chief operative in Britain, was already in New York" when al-Marri took a trip there. . .) Also, al-Marri registered for a course to improve his English, when he had already taken two or three English courses. (Quick, they better come arrest my au pair!) Al-Marri set up five e-mail accounts on a computer at Western Illinois University, where he was enrolled. He set up a sham business in Macomb, Illinois, and three bank accounts using a stolen Social Security number, and used stolen credit card numbers to make fictitious purchases. Most damning, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who we tortured, said al-Marri ws not next Mohammad Atta. At most, it sounds like a series of mail and wire fraud charges could be leveled against him.
Buried in the article is that al-Marri allowed FBI agents to search his apartment without a warrant -- twice.
Before his arrest, al-Marri -- a Qatari national -- was attending graduate school at Bradley University in Illinois where he lived with his wife and five children. Originally, the government held him on a "material witness" warrant. Then it charged him with making false statements. Less than a month before al-Marri's trial (that's what's supposed to happen in this country), the government dropped its charges against him, and declared him an "enemy combatant." (Few people know that the government sought to have al-Marri's criminal case dismissed without prejudice -- that is, without losing the government's ability to choose later to re-indict him in a civilian court.)
He has been in jail for more than FIVE years. In a South Carolina military brig. Without charge. With spotty access to counsel, or none at all. And with judicial review over the government's protests only because last month the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals -- the most conservative federal appellate court in the country -- held in al-Marri's case that the jurisdiction-stripping provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 did not apply to him, and that the government is free to try al-Marri, but it could not continue to detain him indefinitely without charge.
So, what's the Administration to do? Oh yeah. Follow the Jose Padilla game plan--another "enemy combatant" (this one a U.S. citizen) caputured and held in the U.S.: Fan the flames of fear with a big, scary newspaper article to let the public know how dangerous this person is.
The Post has it wrong. In a reversal of the usual legal presumptions, the Post says that, "Beneath the legal maneuvers are mysteries that Marri has never addressed." The legal burden is not on al-Marri to address these "mysteries." It's innocent until proven guilty -- at least in the civilian criminal system. And for that matter, if this was being tried in federal criminal court, where it should be, al-Marri would have the right to remain silent and the right against self-incrimination. See the U.S. Constitution.