An alleged al-Qaeda plot to assassinate US President George W. Bush was revealed on Tuesday when an American man who spent 20 months in a Saudi jail on suspicion of terrorism was charged with conspiring to kill the president.
According to the indictment, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, conspired with al-Qaeda members in Saudi Arabia to carry out the assassination, either by getting "close enough to the president to shoot him on the street" or with a car bomb.
The US attorney leading the prosecution, Paul McNulty, said Abu Ali had "turned his back on America" and "now stands charged with some of the most serious offences our nation can bring against supporters of terrorism."
The indictment does not say what evidence the prosecution has against Abu Ali, other than the FBI's discovery of al-Qaeda literature, gun magazines and general information about surveillance and counter-surveillance at his home in Falls Church, a Washington suburb.
The charges provoked laughter in the US district court in Washington from over a hundred of Abu Ali's supporters, and were later rejected by his father, Omar, who claimed they had been "cooked."
One of his lawyers, Ashraf Nubani, said he had been tortured while in Saudi prison.
"He has the evidence on his back. He was whipped," Nubani told the court, according to the Associated Press.
Abu Ali, who was born in Texas and came top of his high school class in Virginia, was picked up by the Saudi authorities in Medina in June 2003, a month after a wave of al-Qaeda bomb attacks against residential compounds for foreigners in Riyadh.
His family and supporters mounted a lawsuit in July demanding he be released or charged. They claimed his arrest had been initiated by the US, which was keeping him in Saudi Arabia "to avoid constitutional scrutiny by US courts."
The lawsuit triggered a court battle with the administration over its use of secret evidence against Abu Ali. Under legal pressure, the US state department presented a formal request to the Saudi government in January to charge Abu Ali, or allow him to be brought back to the US. According to a legal source, his parents were told only on Monday that he was being flown back and would apxpear in court.
The charges against Abu Ali included six counts of conspiracy and material support for al-Qaeda. The indictment claims he met his unnamed co-conspirators when he travelled to Medina in 2000 for religious studies. He returned home in August that year but stayed in touch with one of those contacts before returning to Saudi Arabia in September 2002, where he met the contact again and announced "his interest in joining al-Qaeda."
"It was defendant Abu Ali's intent to become a planner of terrorist operations like Mohamed Atta and Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, well known al-Qaeda terrorists associated with the attacks on Sept. 11 2001," the indictment said.
Between September 2002 and his arrest on June 9, 2003, it was alleged, he discussed ways of assassinating Bush with at least three other co-conspirators, including one who gave him a religious blessing for the assassination.
He is also said to have attempted to travel to Iran with the intention of slipping into Afghanistan to join the jihad against US-led troops, but was denied a visa.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese