Bail Weighed For Lackawanna 6
A prosecutor said six suspected members of an al Qaeda-trained terror cell in western New York should be held without bail because they are a danger to the community.
At Wednesday's hearing, which is to resume Thursday afternoon, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Hochul began laying out the government's case for keeping the men in jail.
"We feel that the dangerousness to the community and the flight risk are very compelling," Hochul said.
The six in custody, all in their 20s and U.S. citizens of Yemeni descent, are charged with providing support or resources to foreign terrorists. If convicted, they could face up to 15 years in jail and fines up to $250,000.
As CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts reports, despite allegations they were trained in explosives and the use of long-range rifles, their families remain supportive.
Yuzeh Goba, suspect's brother says, "I know my brother. He's not that type. He's not capable of supporting any terrorist organization."
The Muslim community also backs the six. Tuesday at a closed meeting, neighbors in Lakawanna's Muslim community agreed to raise money and put up their own homes to pay for the six suspects' legal defense.
Jim Harrington, defense lawyer says: "It hasn't been established that traveling to Afghanistan is a crime."
Prosecutors argue the six were supporting terrorism simply by attending a terrorist camp in Afghanistan. Even though, as federal investigators have admitted, there is no evidence the six were actually planning a terrorist attack.
"What the government is arguing essentially is that when you associate with terrorists, you are essentially a terrorist and you can be convicted under the law," says CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen.
It's the same strategy the government used in the case of American Taliban John Walker Lyndh. He and the Buffalo suspects are all young men, the type, say terrorism experts, who've long been the favorite targets of extremists.
James Phillips, a terrorism expert at the Heritage Foundation, told CBS, "The Soviets had a phrase 'useful idiots,' in which they used for Westerners that embraced some of their policies, but not the whole agenda. And I think al Qaeda operates this way too.'"
The suspects are Sahim Alwan, 29, Faysal Galab, 26, Shafal Mosed, 24, Yasein Taher, 24, Yahya Goba, 25, and Mukhtar al-Bakri, 22. At their arraignments, U.S. Magistrate H. Kenneth Schroeder entered innocent pleas for them.
Two other suspected cell members, identified as Jaber Elbaneh and Kamal Derwish, are believed to be in Yemen. Derwish is believed to be the ringleader.
Hochul said seven men — the six charged and Elbaneh — traveled in two groups to Pakistan then to Afghanistan in 2001.
One group — Goba, al-Bakri and Alwan — each paid $1,309 to fly to Pakistan. They later flew to Quetta, Pakistan, then traveled by car to the Al-Farooq training camp near Kandahar, Afghanistan, where they were instructed by terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network, Hochul said.
"We're not talking about a training camp in terms of training for a football game ... but a training camp dedicated to producing ... terrorist fighters for the al Qaeda cause," Hochul said in court.
He said the men were trained in a variety of weapons, including Kalashnikov automatics, handguns and long-range rifles. They also were given a demonstration in using C-4, TNT and other explosives.
The six men sat quietly Wednesday next to their lawyers at two tables, wearing tan prison uniforms. About 50 relatives and as many members of the media filled the courtroom.
Defense attorneys said they submitted motions to dismiss the charges and dismiss the government's request to detain the six men, claiming a lack of probable cause.
Schroeder spent the first hour of the hearing giving a primer on the American justice system.
Five of the men were arrested after a series of raids last weekend in Lackawanna, a city of 20,000 people five miles south of Buffalo. A sixth was detained in Bahrain and flown back.
Investigators have said the men traveled to Pakistan for religious training then went to the camp, the same attended by John Walker Lindh.
Federal authorities said al-Bakri admitted the group learned terror tactics and were lectured on topics including the use of suicide as a weapon.
Officials have said they had no evidence of any pending attacks planned by the cell but became alarmed this month when conversations among the men intensified and included indications of a terrorist attack.
Before the hearing, al-Bakri's lawyer, John Molloy, questioned the strength of the government's case "if there are no specific acts that they (federal authorities) think are imminent."
Officials said discovery of the cell was connected to information that prompted the Bush administration to raise America's terror alert to "code orange" — the second-highest — on Sept. 10.
CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Cohen says prosecutors clearly feel they need to lay out more of their case at this early stage -- not only to try to convince the judge to deny bail for the six men, but also to ensure that they've alleged enough of a terror link to keep the case from being dismissed outright.
The more prosecutors can link these men to terror chiefs, the easier it will be for them to convince the judge to deny bail and to move the case forward. And since ultimately this case will rise or fall on the legal issue of whether what these men did constitutes material support to terrorism, it probably doesn't hurt the feds to lay their cards on the table, Cohen writes.
The six defendants aren't accused of a crime of violence and they have ties to their community and yet the government wants them in jail pending trial. And that means from the government's perspective educating the judge about why a terror charge like this may be different from other charges.