Appeals Court Overturns Two Terrorism Convictions
On October 2, a federal appeals panel in New York overturned the convictions of a Yemeni cleric and his assistant in a prominent terrorism case. The panel found that the defendants had been deprived of a fair trial because of errors by the judge who presided over the case.
The appeals court found that trial judge, Sterling Johnson Jr., had allowed the jury to hear inflammatory testimony and other evidence that prejudiced the case against Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad and his aide, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed.
Because of this finding, the case will now be sent back to the Federal District Court in Brooklyn. However, the appeals panel took the highly unusual step of ordering that the case be assigned to a different judge.
Johnson presided over the five-week trial in 2005. Hassan al-Moayad and Zayed were convicted of charges including conspiracy to support Al Qaeda and Hamas. Both men were sentenced to long prison terms. The Bush administration called the case a significant blow to Al Qaeda.
The New York Times reported that the case received wide attention even before the trial when the government's star witness, a Yemeni informant, set himself on fire outside of the White House.
John Ashcroft, as attorney general in 2003, dealt another blow to the case by announcing the charges against Hassan al-Moayad and adding that the sheik had already admitted to giving Osama bin Laden $20 million before the September 11 attacks.
The three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned the verdict and ruled that Johnson erred by allowing the jury to hear evidence such as the graphic testimony of a survivor of a 2002 bus bombing in Tel Aviv. The defendants were not implicated in the bus bombing, but prosecutors argued that the testimony was necessary to establish that Hamas, which claimed responsibility for the bombing, engaged in terrorist activity.
The defendants never disputed that Hamas engages in terrorist activity.
Writing for the appellate panel, Judge Barrington D. Parker Jr. said that the fatal bus bombing was "almost entirely unrelated" to the criminal charges against the defendants.
Parker also wrote that Johnson should not have allowed testimony from another witness, Yahya Goba. Goba described spending time at an Al Qaeda training camp that Osama bin Laden had visited in Afghanistan.
Prosecutors said that they called Goba to testify in order to explain the significance of a training camp registration form that was found by American forces in Afghanistan. On the training form, the trainee had listed Hassan al-Moayad as having recommended him.
Parker wrote that Goba's testimony went far beyond the explanation of the training camp registration form. Goba reportedly described the camp's training in explosives and weapons and visits from Osama bin Laden. He also described a speech that bin Laden had given in which he explained the importance of "performing jihad."
The appeals panel found that the value of the testimony about the Tel Aviv bus bombing and the testimony of Goba "was far outweighed by its unfair prejudice."
Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad is now 60 years old. His lawyer says that he is not in good health and hopes that he will be able to return to his country soon.
Both defendants are currently being held at the federal "supermax" prison in Florence, Colorado. Hassan al-Moayad was sentenced to 75 years in prison and Zayed received a sentence of 45 years.
