Anti-Terror Case Losses Calls DOJ’s Strategy Into Question

Terrorism

Anti-Terror Case Losses Calls DOJ’s Strategy Into Question

Posted Apr 21, 2008, 07:55 am CDT
By Molly McDonough

With few clear wins in its criminal prosecution of terrorism suspects, the Justice Department is facing scrutiny for its strategy of going after American-based terrorist cells and the people believed to fund terror plots before any deadly events occur.

The Washington Post reports that jurors seemed particularly troubled by a controversial element in a Miami case involving religious sect members who were indicted in 2006 for a plan to blow up an FBI office in Miami and the Chicago Sears Tower. According to the Post, FBI informants, as in several other early prosecutions, encouraged targets to perform acts they otherwise wouldn't have performed.

Jurors couldn't reach a verdict in the Miami case last week, resulting in a second mistrial. Those jurors haven't spoken up yet. But jurors from the first panel expressed skepticism that the men were as dangerous as prosecutors alleged, the Post reports.

Andrew C. McCarthy, who prosecuted Omar Abdel Rahman, aka the blind sheik, told the Post he wonders whether he would have secured a conviction for Rahman's role in the 1993 World Trade Center bomb plot if there was no explosion and defense lawyers could argue that the terrorism plans were mere fantasy.

"The argument that the people really are pathetic, hapless, incapable, has more resonance if you strike at an early stage," he says. "In a way, you're undone by your own efficiency. I do think it's harder to be a prosecutor today."

Also see, "31 Wins, 6 Losses & 1 Tie," the ABA Journal's scorecard of the Justice Department’s legal war against al-Qaida.

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Terrorism