Best of Rocky Top Brigade 2003
Self-described "Damn Foreigner" Manish has patiently collected the best "Rocky Top Brigade" (Tennessee and ex-Tennessee bloggers) posts of 2003. Check it out! And thanks, Manish!

Brian Arner's whipsaw experience visiting the Smokies -- the beauty of Chimney Tops, the sprawl and traffic of Pigeon Forge a few miles outside the park -- was one of my favorites. We visited the Smokies this year during our Thanksgiving trip back to Tennessee, and had a similar experience -- although Maddie's take on Pigeon Forge was "this place is rockin." Girl likes neon, what can I say. (She liked the Smokies, too, don't get me wrong.)

Manish's own post about dealing with the INS is well worth reading, too.

I've by no means looked at everything yet. Too bad there wasn't anything for Peggy's "A moveable beast" blog, though, it's always nice to drop by there. Maybe I overlooked it. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:13:00 AM -- |    

 
Mzoudi trial evidence phase ends; acquittal likely
The evidence phase of the Hamburg, Germany trial of Abdelghani Mzoudi, who is accused of supporting the 9/11 attacks and charged as an accessory to over 3000 counts of murder, has ended with yet another setback for the prosecution. The Hamburg newspaper Abendblatt explains:

The court ruled against deposing author and Al Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda, who had interviewed terror planners Ramzi Binalshibh und Khalid Scheikh Mohammed for his book "Masterminds of Terror". The deposition requested by the German federal prosecutor's office was "not required for investigation of the truth," said presiding judge Klaus Rühle. The prosecutor's office had wanted to prove among other things that a great part of the attacks were planned in Hamburg and not in Afghanistan. Ruehle countered that it could not be concluded from Fouda's book that the journalist had acquired corresponding information from Binalshibh or Sheikh Mohammed. "Fouda presents suppositions as facts," said Ruehle.

Together with Ruehle's previous rulings in this case*, it seems likely the scheduled January 22 verdict will be an acquittal. One of the most curious and -- for the prosecution -- damaging turns in the case came last fall when American authorities apparently provided weakly exculpatory evidence to German prosecutors. As ABC News relayed an Associated Press summary just before Christmas,

The government's case was undermined this month with the introduction of information believed to have come from Binalshibh. The government has not identified the informant, but the Hamburg judge said he was sure it was Binalshibh.

The informant reportedly said only he and the three Hamburg-based suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah knew of the plot.

Since Binalshibh is in U.S. custody at an "undisclosed location," his comments appear to have been forwarded by American authorities to German law enforcement and prosecutors. The court ruled against accepting testimony by a German law enforcement officer that there was also incriminating evidence -- but that he couldn't reveal what it was under the terms of use of the information agreed to with the United States.

The German periodical Spiegel reported last month that German Justice Minister Otto Schily made a secret visit to Washington, D.C. to tell Attorney General Ashcroft that he feared that the Hamburg court would overvalue Binalshibh's comments and acquit Mzoudi. The Hamburg court did free Mzoudi for the remainder of the trial when the exculpatory evidence was presented. But Schily's plea for help did not meet with success:

The request of the German government to be allowed to present at least parts of heretofore secret documentation of Binalshibh's interrogations to the judges was turned down by the U.S. government. The investigating authorities wanted to prove with these materials, that Binalshibh had earlier made other statements about the composition of the Hamburg terror cell.

The Spiegel article editorializes plausibly that "Despite the looming acquittal of Mzoudi, the USA declines to provide further evidence -- it fears domestic political difficulties if it serves German justice more generously than its own -- the White House is denying important witnesses and documents to US courts as well."

As Deutsche Welle reported in mid-December, Mzoudi's next step will be to fight for asylum in Germany, claiming that

asylum in Germany will protect him from being sent back to Morocco, where he fears he would be handed over to U.S. officials.

Now it's surely possible that Mzoudi was just playing checkers with Atta et al when they'd meet up in Hamburg. It's also unlikely. That said, I can sympathize with presiding judge Ruehle's position, which seems to be, "you won't give me hard evidence incriminating Mzoudi, you try to introduce hearsay evidence, and you do provide statements casting doubt on his guilt. Guess what?"

It's hard to admire anyone in this mess. If Judge Ruehle thinks he's up for a "Profiles in Courage" nomination, I'd point out he's not likely to ever be at Ground Zero version 2.0, a point I'll wager concentrates my thinking differently than it does his. And Ruehle's standards for evidence and logic seem questionable at times, as when he claimed that the alleged Binalshibh statement "clearly exonerates" Mzoudi -- despite being no more credible than the testimony he refused to hear by reporter Fouda.

But if American officials know Mzoudi deserves to be in jail, they should have figured out how to give the Germans some evidence to that effect. If they know he doesn't or they aren't sure, they should have done more, too.



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* Timeline of the case in German, via German radio network NDR: 10/10/2001: Mzoudi arrested; 8/14/2003: trial begins; 9/23/2003: convicted cell member Motassadeq refuses to testify; 10/1/2003: FBI agent testifies, but provides only publicly availabe materials; 10/24/3003: Heinz Fromm of the German constitutional protection authority ("Verfassungsschutz") contradicts prosecution; his office is convinced that the attacks were not planned by the Hamburg group, but in Afghanistan. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:21:00 PM -- |