Terrorism Case

A federal judge Friday postponed a pretrial military hearing in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for a Saudi Arabian accused of being part of an Al Qaeda bomb-making cell. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said the Bush administration would not suffer any harm by delaying a few weeks the case against Ghassan Abdullah Al Sharbi until the Supreme Court ruled on the legality of the military commissions created to try suspected terrorists.

Prosecutors plan to rewrite an indictment to add charges against a man accused of aiding a plan to smuggle explosives into the United States from Canada. Assistant U.S. Atty. David Kelley did not describe the nature of the new charges against Abdel Ghani Meskini, 31, of New York. Meskini pleaded innocent in January to charges of providing and concealing support for Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national accused of trying to sneak explosives into the United States just before the New Year.

An Indian doctor was set free after Australia's chief prosecutor said a charge linking him to attempted bombings in Britain was a mistake. Mohammed Haneef, 27, was released from jail in Brisbane more than three weeks after his arrest. He had been accused of recklessly providing support to a terrorist group and could have faced up to 15 years in prison. The charge alleged that he gave his cellphone SIM card to a cousin a year ago as he left Britain to join a hospital in Australia.

An Algerian man suspected of links to an alleged international plot to blow up U.S. buildings will be handed over to immigration authorities for probable deportation, the Seattle Times reported Friday, quoting Assistant U.S. Atty. Andrew Hamilton. Abdel Hakim Tizegha, 29, was arrested near Seattle on Dec. 24, 1999, and charged with illegally entering the United States from Vancouver, Canada. U.S.

A federal appeals court Tuesday refused to block military commission proceedings against a Canadian detainee at Guantanamo Bay. Lawyers for Omar Khadr had asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to halt the case, in which Khadr is charged with murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a Special Forces soldier in a firefight in Afghanistan. Khadr, who was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002, also faces conspiracy and other charges.

A U.S. soldier accused of trying to help Al Qaeda has been ordered to stand trial at a court-martial but won't face the death penalty, Army officials said. The trial of Spc. Ryan G. Anderson was ordered June 9 by Lt. Gen. Edward Soriano, commander at Ft. Lewis, but was not made public until Wednesday. Anderson, 26, was arrested in February and charged with five counts of trying to provide the terrorist network with information about U.S.

Re "Britain Looks for Links to Transit Blasts," Aug. 15 Referring to the successful British foiling of the terrorist plot to destroy commercial airliners, The Times reports: "Despite all the evidence amassed through aggressive surveillance of the men's travel, phone calls and Internet communications, however, police still must answer key questions." Many within the Bush administration and in conservative circles have hinted that the pedantic adherence to existing laws and to the Constitution by some in the U.S. is hampering our efforts in the war on terror.

Re "Bush to Allow Terror Trials by Military," Nov. 14: Opposition to President Bush's order permitting non-U.S. citizens to be tried for terrorist acts before a military tribunal is misguided. It worked when the Nazi saboteurs were tried, convicted and sentenced, and, using similar procedures, it will work when Al Qaeda and Taliban war criminals are tried. The most compelling justification for the president's order is that it protects the sources and methods used by intelligence agencies to obtain the evidence needed for conviction.

WASHINGTON -- FBI agents arrested two U.S. citizens -- one at the airport in Atlanta, the other at a bus terminal in Augusta, Ga. -- who they said were about to leave for North Africa “to prepare to wage violent jihad.” Mohammad Abdul Rahman Abukhdair and Randy Wilson, also known as Rasheed Wilson, both 25 and residents of Mobile, Ala., were charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists in order “to kill persons or damage...

The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, says the Casey Anthony trial is proof that American courts aren't proper venues for trials of suspected terrorists. "We found with the Caylee Anthony case how difficult it is to get a conviction in a U.S. court," McConnell said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday. " Republicans were angered by the Obama administration's decision last week to transfer accused Somali terrorist Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame from a U.S. Navy ship, where had been held and interrogated, to the federal criminal system.