Lackawanna 6 Bail Decision Delayed

The six U.S. citizens of Yemeni descent alleged to be members of an al Qaeda cell will have to wait at least a week to learn whether they will be granted bail, although lawyers for the defendants argued that the government had not shown cause to detain them.

U.S. Magistrate H. Kenneth Schroeder, concluding three days of hearings on the bail issue, told a packed court room at the U.S. Court House that he was unlikely to make a decision before Oct. 1.

The six men -- Mukhtar al-Bakri, 22; Yasein Taher, 24; Faysal Galab, 26; Sahim Alwan, 29; Yahya Goba, 25 and Shafal Mosed, 24 -- have been charged with providing "material support" to al Qaeda, the militant Islamic network led by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden that the United States blames for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"I want to minimize as much as possible the temporary detention," said Schroeder. "I want to come up with a decision as quickly as possible, but not rushing for the sake of rushing."

Government lawyers had argued that the defendants must stay in jail to ensure public safety.

"The government and the American public just can't afford to let crime on the scale of al Qaeda ever happen again," Assistant U.S. Attorney William Hochul said, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks which the United States blames on the militant Islamic network led by Osama bin Laden.

Defense lawyers were adamant in their rebuttal: "The government has not shown a single bad act that would indicate any dangerousness," said John Molloy, who represents Bakri.

"There's a gaping hole in their proffer concerning any acts either of any commission of any violence or even acts in preparation of any act of violence from June 2001 up until the time they were arrested," said Joseph LaTona, attorney for Galab.

"The facts alleged in the complaint and even set out in this proffer, do not constitute a violation of this statute as it was intended, as it was enacted, and as it has been interpreted," LaTona said.

Defender William Clauss, representing Goba, appealed to Judge Schroeder. "The government, because of 9/11, wants everyone, including you to speculate."

Attorney James Harrington, who represents Alwan, said: "Each of our clients deny he was ever a member of al Qaeda, is now a member of al Qaeda or ever intends to become a member of al Qaeda."

Although the six men had no direct connection to the attacks, investigators alleged they were trained to use assault rifles and other weapons in an al Qaeda-run camp in Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 2001, just months before the attacks that killed more than 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in western Pennsylvania.

The specific charges against the suspects -- providing, attempting to provide and conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist group -- carry a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

"I will attempt to show that if you connect all the dots ... they do not present an imminent danger to the community," Bakri's attorney, John Molloy, told Reuters.

Hochul said Wednesday the men, all residents of a small Yemeni community in the upstate New York town of Lackawanna near Buffalo, posed a threat of flight and should be held without bail.

Investigators said in court papers that July 18 Bakri sent an e-mail to another of the alleged al Qaeda supporters with a message investigators believe referred to a possible attack. The recipient of the e-mail is still at large.

Titled "The Big Meal," the e-mail said, "No one will be able to withstand it, except those with faith."

"I don't know where they got that translation," Molloy said. "If you read the translation that was given to us, it doesn't say anything about America."

Defense attorneys argued that the e-mail was actually the result of a conversation in a restaurant in Saudi Arabia that referred to an attack on that country.

Federal authorities have said Bakri admitted to FBI agents that the defendants attended the al Qaeda training camp near Kandahar known as al Farooq, the same one attended by John Walker Lindh, a U.S. citizen who was captured in Afghanistan as a Taliban fighter.

In an interview in Bahrain before he was arrested, Bakri told FBI agents he received training in the use of assault rifles and other weapons at the camp and that bin Laden gave a speech there to all the trainees, court papers said.

Bakri was arrested in Bahrain as he was preparing for his marriage there and flown back to the U.S. earlier this week. The five other men were arrested over the weekend.

Court papers said that another of the group, Alwan, told FBI agents on Sept. 12 that "he and his friends attended terrorist training in Afghanistan" in the spring and summer of 2001.

The U.S. Attorney for Western New York, Michael Battle, told the Washington Post earlier this week, without giving specific details, that the investigation into the group began early in the summer of 2001.

Two other men from Lackawanna, identified as Kamal Derwish and Jaber Elbaneh, are reported to be in Yemen. Authorities have said they believe Derwish was the group's ringleader, who encouraged the men to travel to Afghanistan for training.

In Washington Thursday, FBI Director Robert Mueller told a congressional hearing that the arrests of the six did not stem from Justice Department pressure to take people into custody this month.

"The FBI does not respond to entreaties to find someone to arrest," he said in response to a question from Rep. John LaFalce, a Democrat from Buffalo. who asked if the Justice Department had encouraged the arrests.

LaFalce asked whether a sufficient factual basis existed to support the charges against the six for providing "material support" to a "foreign terrorist organization." He said lawyers for some of the six say they thought they were attending a religious school, not an al Qaeda training camp.

Mueller replied he could not talk publicly about the evidence in the case. The hearing will continue Friday.