A Flawed Terrorist Yardstick
PITTSBURGH — In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Ali Alubeidy was in the cross hairs of the Justice Department, singled out as a potential terrorist by no less than U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft.
In fact, he was guilty -- of paying off a corrupt bureaucrat to get a commercial driver's license, including a permit to transport hazardous materials. His sentence: three years' probation.
But the terrorism case against him never got off the ground. Prosecutors soon realized he was not a terrorist or involved in any terrorist organization, and even said so publicly.
To the Justice Department, however, Alubeidy, and a group of 19 other Middle Eastern men caught up in the driver's license scam, still count. They are included on a list of more than 280 cases that the department cites as evidence that it is winning the war on terrorism.
The growing list has been regularly highlighted by Ashcroft and other Justice Department officials in speeches and congressional testimony, and even by President Bush. In an address to federal law enforcement officials on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush referred to the "more than 260 suspected terrorists" that the government has hauled to court.
In October, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Christopher Wray, the Justice Department's criminal division chief, cited the growing number of charges resulting from terrorism probes -- which then stood at 284 defendants -- as evidence that the department has "enjoyed key successes" in the anti-terrorism war.
Last month, in a speech before a Justice Department liaison group for federal attorneys, Ashcroft cited terrorism-related criminal charges against 286 people, declaring "we have been successful."
But a Times review of a sampling of the cases behind the numbers, based in part on internal Justice documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, paints a more ambiguous picture.
Although the report card largely has been used as a public-relations tool, courts are starting to weigh in on the substantive aspects of how the department classifies and treats perceived terrorists. Last week, a federal appeals court in New York rebuked Bush's decision in May 2002 to declare Brooklyn-born gang member Jose Padilla an "enemy combatant," and ordered that the government either charge him with a crime or release him.
