"I'm not surprised at all that the Government has dropped the old charges against our client and is alleging new charges against him," Mickum said in an interview. "That is their tried-and-true modus operandi. That's exactly what they did with my client Bisher al Rawi. He was initially charged with associating with a known al-Qaeda figure in London.
"Unfortunately, Bisher was associating
with him at the express request of Britain's MI5 [intelligence
service]. After we established that he [Bisher] worked for MI5, the U.S.
simply changed the charges against him, alleging that he had terrorist
training in Bosnia and Afghanistan.
"Once again, we were able to show those charges were utterly bogus
when we proved that Bisher had never left England from 1998 until his
fateful business trip to Africa, where he was arrested by the CIA,
rendered to the 'Dark Prison' in Afghanistan and tortured, tortured at
Bagram Air Force base and tortured in Guantanamo.
"What all these cases have in common is
torture, and [Zubaydah's] case has that in spades. Given, the
government's history, it is not likely they would simply let him go and
apologize. No, when their case falls apart, they re-jigger the
evidence, and come up with new charges and [say] "we will defend the
new charges with the same zeal we defended the earlier bogus charges.'"
Zubaydah's attorneys argued in his initial petition for habeas corpus
filed in February 2008 that he was not a member of al-Qaeda, that he
had no knowledge of any terrorist operations, and that the military
camp he was alleged to be affiliated with, Khaldan, was closed by the
Afghan Taliban after refusing to let it go under the formal control of
bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
"We have never deviated from that position, and now the government
admits that we were correct all along," Mickum said.
Indeed, the Justice Department's response agrees that Khaldan was
"organizationally and operationally independent" of al-Qaeda's camps.
The filing also backed off other claims made by Bush administration
officials that Zubaydah knew the identities of specific individuals who
trained at Khaldan and later went on to al-Qaeda-operated camps and
allegedly took part in terrorist activities.
"The Government has not contended in this proceeding that Petitioner
selected or knew the identities of specific persons who were selected to
leave Khaldan for training at al-Qaida camps," the filing states.
Undermining 9/11 Report
The U.S. government's new position also undercuts the 9/11 Commission's report
as it relates to Zubaydah. The report called him the leader of
Khaldan.
The 9/11 report added that Zubaydah was a "major figure" in the "Millennium
plot," claiming he was a mastermind behind a plan to bomb a hotel
in Jordan and Los Angeles International Airport.
The 9/11 report cited several
intelligence memoranda from then-counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke
that Zubaydah was planning "a series of major terrorist attacks" on
Israeli and possibly U.S. targets and was working closely with bin
Laden. Clarke declined numerous requests for comment.
Terrorist suspicions about Zubaydah predated the 9/11 attacks. Indeed,
in the infamous Aug. 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Brief titled, "Bin Laden
Determined to Strike in US," he was identified as bin Laden's
"lieutenant" and alleged to have "helped facilitate" the plot to
detonate a bomb at LAX.
FBI officials obtained that information from Ahmed Ressam, who was convicted in the LAX plot in April 2001. In exchange for a lighter sentence, Ressam apparently made up stories about Zubaydah's role at Khaldan and his connections to bin Laden. Ressam also said Zubdaydah told him in 1998 that, independent of bin Laden, he was preparing his own attack against the United States. However, Ressam later recanted those claims.
When asked about what the 9/11 Commission
was told regarding Zubaydah, Mickum suggested that the panel was lied
to by the CIA.
"After torturing our client, the CIA knew he was never a member of
al-Qaeda and that he had no knowledge of any al-Qaeda terrorist
activities," Mickum said. "And this fact was confirmed after other
members of al-Qaeda like [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] and the [alleged
mastermind of the USS Cole bombing]al-Nashiri were tortured."
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