Detroit 'Sleeper Cell' Prosecutor Faces Probe (outside the Constitution)

[UpInArms]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/19/AR2005111900952.html

DETROIT -- Once trumpeted as one of the Justice Department's significant triumphs against terrorism, the case targeting the so-called "Detroit sleeper cell" began less than a week after the attack on the World Trade Center. It was only after a jury convicted two men of supporting terrorism that the flimsiness of the government's case became clear.

As hidden evidence spilled out and the Justice Department abandoned the effort, federal investigators began to wonder whether the true conspiracy in the case was perpetrated by the prosecution.

Now a federal grand jury in Detroit is investigating whether the lead prosecutor, Richard Convertino, or anyone else should be indicted for unfairly tipping the scales.

It is a highly unusual case. No charges have been brought and many details remain secret, but information in public documents and testimony in U.S. District Court in Detroit suggest an effort by federal prosecutors and important witnesses to mislead defense lawyers and deceive the jury. U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen said the government acted "outside the Constitution."

...more...

[lonestarnot]

1. hmmmm. not even going to feign surprise here.

[ragin_acadian]

2. The shade of Roy Cohn.

[acmavm]

3. Yeah, it's a little hard to act amazed, offended, or indignant what it's

been so obvious that this administration is and always has been all show and no go. They'll trump up any charge, torture any man/woman/child, in order to make themselves look good.

[No Exit]

4. Just like the phony "Ricin Case" in Britain!!

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/nsn/nsn-050411.htm


"One of the last claims in Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003 blew away like dust in the wind late last week in the Old Bailey, London's central criminal court.

The trial of the infamous "UK poison cell," a group portrayed by Secretary of State Powell as al Qaida-associated operatives plotting to launch ricin attacks in the United Kingdom and in league with Muhamad al Zarqawi in Iraq, found nothing of the sort. The jury did find "the UK poison cell," known as Kamel Bourgas and others (Sidali Faddag, Samir Asli, Mouloud Bouhrama, Mustapha Taleb, Mouloud Sihali, Aissa Kalef), not guilty of conspiracy to murder by plotting ricin attacks and, generally speaking, not guilty of conspiracy to do anything. Kamel Bourgas had been previously convicted of murder of a British policeman in an unpublicized trial.

Months earlier and behind the scenes, the British government had seen its claims, that the group had the capability to produce ricin and that materials on a ricin recipe found in their belongings could be linked to al Qaida, rupture. And equally startling, it was confirmed that a preliminary positive finding of the poison in a residue tested in a raid on their apartment in Wood Green in January of 2003 was false but that through bureaucratic bungling, just the opposite news was presented to British authorities.

Two days after the January 5th search of the Wood Green "poison cell" flat, and well before the outbreak of war with Iraq, the chief scientist advising British anti-terrorism authorities, Martin Pearce -- leader of the Biological Weapon Identification Group at Porton Down, had finished lab tests which indicated the ricin finding was a false positive. "Subsequent confirmatory tests on the material from the pestle and mortar did not detect the presence of ricin. It is my opinion therefore that toxins are not detectable in the pestle and mortar," wrote Pearce in one document.

But in an astonishing example of sheer incompetence, another employee at Porton Down charged with passing on to British authorities the information that the preliminary finding of ricin was in error, turned around and did the opposite, informing that ricin had indeed been detected.

At the time of Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council, expert sources in this matter within the UK government surely knew that no ricin had been recovered from the Wood Green group of alleged terrorists, men included by the Secretary of State as part of the US government's rationale for going to war with Iraq. Whether Powell, the Bush administration or U.S. intelligence also knew is unknown. Whatever the case, it was another example of the United States' horrendous intelligence on weapons of mass destruction."

[No Exit]

5. Was this in or near John Conyers' district?

If so, I can imagine a strange scenario taking place: if people were being harassed by the feds, I would imagine they could fortunately turn to their home representatives for help.

How funny that would be, since, traditionally, it has been the other way around--the feds in the past served as a protection from corrupt local officials. But when you have a federal government that is now more corrupt than any of the local governments....

(I'm not so much blaming the career federal government workers. I don't think many of them approve of the current crowd that's running Washington.)

[Halliburton]

6. i hope they do indict him

[Rose Siding]

7. Ashcroft would have driven that case hard, wouldn't he?

If they indict the pros, maybe he'll have tales to tell.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

8. Pointing directly at MIHOP

Zieg heil.