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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (342422)	7/7/2007 3:02:01 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574649

"What does believing in God have to do with believing in evolution???" Ah, Ted, you just fell into his trap. Evolution has zip to do with belief or faith. It has everything to do with facts and mechanisms.

To: tejek who wrote (342422)	7/7/2007 3:29:19 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574649

The Law of Unintended Consequences Libby Case May Aid Hamas Suspect By JOSH GERSTEIN Staff Reporter of the Sun July 5, 2007 An alleged Hamas operative is likely to be among the first criminal defendants to try to capitalize on President Bush's commutation of the 2 1/2 year prison sentence imposed on a former White House aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., for obstructing a CIA leak investigation. Mohammed Salah, 57, is scheduled to be sentenced by a federal judge in Chicago next week on one count of obstruction of justice. In February, a jury convicted Salah and a co-defendant, Abdelhaleem Ashqar, of obstruction, but acquitted the pair of a far more serious charge of racketeering conspiracy in support of Hamas's terrorist campaigns in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. "What the president said about Mr. Libby applies in spades to the case of Mohammed Salah," Salah's defense attorney, Michael Deutsch, told The New York Sun yesterday. "We'll definitely be bringing it up to the judge. … It's going to be a real test, a first early test of whether we're a nation of laws or a nation of men." Mr. Deutsch is seeking a sentence of probation for his client. Prosecutors contend that federal sentencing guidelines call for Salah to be sentenced to up to almost 22 years. However, the prosecution acknowledges that the maximum sentence the law allows on a single obstruction count is 10 years. Despite Salah's acquittal on the racketeering charge, which could have carried a life sentence, prosecutors have asked Judge Amy St. Eve to find that the evidence presented at trial proved Salah was part of a terrorist conspiracy. "The jury did not find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant Salah committed racketeering conspiracy. The standard at sentencing, however, is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt," the prosecution wrote in a recent court filing. Prosecutors have also asked the judge to consider a series of alleged offenses from the 1990s that Salah was never charged with, including bank fraud and perjury on behalf of a Hamas leader then facing deportation, Mousa abu Marzook. "To sentence Mr. Salah on the basis of non-relevant, stale, and acquitted conduct would most assuredly result in an unreasonable sentence and promote disrespect for the law," Mr. Deutsch said in papers filed with the court. At Libby's sentencing, his lawyers made similar complaints that prosecutors were seeking to lengthen his prison term based on a conspiracy to leak the name of the CIA operative, Valerie Plame, even though no charges were brought for the leak. Judge Reggie Walton sided with the prosecution in that dispute and by so doing may have added more than a year to Libby's sentence. Continued 1 \| 2 \| Next » nysun.com