Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (191092)	7/9/2006 1:32:34 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Yemen says its not against the law for Yemenis to fight Americans in Iraq. edition.cnn.com Landmark al Qaeda trial collapses Judge: 'Islamic Sharia law permits jihad against occupiers' Saturday, July 8, 2006 Posted: 1854 GMT (0254 HKT) SAN'A, Yemen (AP) -- The trial of 19 alleged al Qaeda members had been designed to showcase how serious Yemen was in the fight against terror. But the Islamic militants, accused of plotting to assassinate Westerners and blow up a hotel frequented by Americans, were all acquitted for lack of proof, the presiding judge ruled Saturday. Prosecutors had failed to provide "adequate evidence that the defendants were plotting attacks against foreigners or planning to assassinate Americans in Yemen," the verdict said. Critics say the decision points to the Yemeni president's bid to win the radical Islamic vote ahead of elections in September. Several of the defendants did confess to having been in Iraq to fight U.S. troops there and had Iraqi stamps on their passport, the court heard. "But this does not violate [Yemeni] law," the judge said. "Islamic Sharia law permits jihad against occupiers," he said. Mohammed al-Maqaleh, an expert in Islamist affairs who frequently appears in Yemeni media, described the verdict as a "shock." "The judiciary is collaborating with the Islamist extremists and this verdict is politicized," al-Maqaleh said on the telephone. He said it was another sign that President Ali Abdullah Saleh was trying to drum up support from Muslim radicals ahead of the coming presidential elections. Saleh has long-standing ties with Islamic militants, who have stood by the administration since the 1980s. They sided with his northern government in the 1994 civil war and the successful battle against secessionists from the secular south. Saleh has announced he will again run for president, breaking earlier promises to step down after 28 years at the helm of this impoverished Arab nation. In defiance to Saleh, five Yemeni opposition parties have chosen Faisal bin Shamlan, a prominent businessman and former Cabinet minister, to challenge him. Bin Shamlan has spoken out against al Qaeda and won respect for denouncing corruption. Osama bin Laden's family originally came from Yemen, which was long regarded as a haven for al Qaeda. But the country, which was the scene of the October 2000 suicide bombing against the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors, joined America's war on terror after September 11 and waged a crackdown on militants. Muslim extremists remain popular, and the four-month trial of the suspected terrorists often produced elements of a farce, as an at-times raucous crowd followed heated discussions between the defendants and the judge. All but one of the alleged militants have denied the charges, several stating they were arrested simply because they had fought in Iraq. But one defendant, Ali al-Harthi, acknowledged in court that he had returned home to perpetrate jihad, or holy war, against Americans in Yemen. From behind the bars where they stood clad in blue prison uniforms Saturday, the 14 Yemeni and five Saudi defendants greeted the verdict with cries of "Allahu akbar" (God is great). Families received the decision with cheers and claps. Some burst into tears. "This [verdict] is a change for the judiciary in Yemen," said Ali al-Kurdi, one of the defendants. "It is fair, something unusual." Al-Kurdi, from Yemen, has spent three years in Afghanistan in the '90s and was charged with being linked to al Qaeda, authorities said. The state prosecutor appealed the collective acquittal, and the defendants were brought back to their cells at the intelligence services' jail where they have been held for more than two years.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (191092)	7/9/2006 2:17:48 AM
From: Elroy	Respond to of 281500

The Saudis can't even keep them locked up long enough to bring them to trial..... Published: 07/08/2006 12:00 AM (UAE) gulfnews.com Terror suspects escape prison in Riyadh Riyadh: Seven suspected terrorist suspects have escaped from a detention centre in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. The state news agency SPA reported that the men - six Saudi's and one Yemeni - were under investigation but did not have any proven links to Al Qaeda. An Interior Ministry spokesman said: "Seven detainees at Malaz prison in Riyadh, held in connection with security cases, were able to leave the detention centre. "They were in Malaz prison and under investigation. Somehow they left the prison, they ran away," he added. King Abdullah last month renewed an amnesty he first offered two years ago to repentant Islamist militants. But it seems these men will not qualify for that incentive now, as the spokesman added: "If they do not return to the detention centre, they will not be eligible for the amnesty granted by the king and will become wanted by security forces."

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (191092)	7/9/2006 5:30:04 AM
From: Elroy	Respond to of 281500

You still can't explain what % of the local population during the invasion of Afghanistan were not "illegal combatants". The percentage that were not carrying arms, or logistically supporting Al Qai'da. Sounds like in Iraq being in a taxi that happens to contain bomb making materials is cause to be detained indefinitely without charge. Not having them on your person, but being in a taxi that happens to have them (perhaps in the trunk, who knows?). Do we have any reason to believe the decision to send someone to Gitmo was based on more than this type of "evidence"? Unfortunately, we don't know, because the government has not released the criterion that indicated someone was Gitmo material and not local jail material or even not a concern material. American filmmaker sues Rumsfeld over detention in Iraq Cyrus Kar says he was hooded, threatened by U.S. soldiers Saturday, July 8, 2006 Posted: 2030 GMT (0430 HKT) LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- An aspiring Iranian-American filmmaker who spent nearly two months in a prison in Iraq without being charged has sued Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other military officials, calling the government's detention policies unconstitutional. Cyrus Kar, 45, of Los Angeles seeks unspecified damages and sweeping changes in the government's detention policies overseas. The suit was filed this week in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union of California. It is the first civil case challenging detention policies in Iraq, said Mark Rosenbaum, the organization's legal director. A phone message left for a Pentagon spokesman was not immediately returned Saturday. When Kar was released, military officials said that he had been properly detained as "an imperative security threat" and that the matter had been handled and resolved appropriately. "This case highlights the effectiveness of our detainee review process," spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Don Alston said following Kar's release. Kar was taken into custody in May 2005 after he visited Iraq to make a documentary film about Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who wrote the world's first human rights charter. Potential bomb parts were found in a taxi in which Kar was riding. He was released July 10 after his family sued, accusing the federal government of violating his civil rights and holding him after the FBI cleared him of suspicion. He is a former U.S. Navy SEAL, according to news reports. The new lawsuit said his 55-day detention violated not only his civil rights, but also the Geneva Convention and the law of nations. "Human rights monitors note that the vast majority of the over 15,000 detainees in U.S. military custody in Iraq have never been charged, tried, provided counsel, or allowed to challenge their detention in court, and over one-fifth of them have been detained for over a year in this manner," the suit states. Kar said that while he was imprisoned he was at various times hooded and threatened, taunted and insulted by U.S. soldiers. One soldier slammed Kar's head into a concrete wall, the suit said. What happened to him in Iraq was "a life-altering experience," Kar told the Los Angeles Times. In addition to Rumsfeld, the defendants include Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., commanding general of the multinational forces in Iraq, and Maj. Gen. William H. Brandenburg, who was in charge of detainee operations in Iraq at the time of Kar's detention.