Terrorism Judge Warns Government About Wiretap Secrecy

The federal judge who presided over the trial of confessed terrorism conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui appeared to be out of patience with the government yesterday in a hearing in another terrorism case.

Judge Leonie Brinkema of Alexandria, Va., said she might order a new trial for Islamic scholar Ali al-Timimi, convicted for inciting terrorism, if the government did not allow lawyers to review classified material about possible warrantless wiretapping of the defendant, the New York Times reports.

Brinkema also expressed frustration that the government had improperly told her it did not have video or audio tapes of interrogations of high-level al-Qaida officials in the Moussaoui case, the Associated Press reports. The CIA later disclosed the assertion was wrong and it had recordings of three interrogations.

Brinkema said she can no longer trust representations from the CIA and other government agencies about classified evidence in terror cases.