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Deadlocked jury forces 2nd mistrial in Miami terrorism case

By Associated Press | Wednesday, April 16, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | U.S./ South Region
MIAMI - The second trial of six men accused of plotting attacks on Chicago’s Sears Tower and FBI offices ended with a second hung jury Wednesday, an embarrassing blow to a case the Bush administration had cited as an example of nipping a devastating terrorist attack in the bud.

U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard declared a mistrial when jurors reported they were deadlocked after 13 days of deliberations in the case of the so-called "Liberty City Seven."

The first trial ended in December in a hung jury for the same six defendants and the acquittal of a seventh. Lenard set an April 23 hearing where federal prosecutors say they will announce whether they will pursue another trial.

"There’s no way to spin this other than to say this is another stunning defeat for the government," said Matthew Orwig, former U.S. attorney in Texas who served on a Justice Department terrorism and national security panel.

The defendants were arrested in a June 2006 operation hailed by the Bush administration as a prime example of the post-Sept. 11 strategy of preventing terrorism plots in the earliest possible stages. Yet there was no evidence the group ever acquired explosives or took concrete steps toward staging the attacks; they did have a handgun and a few machetes.

The case was built on hundreds of FBI audio and video recordings and the testimony of two paid FBI informants, one of whom posed as an al-Qaida operative sent from overseas to help the group put together its plan. One key video recording showed the informant, known to the group as Brother Mohammed, having the men make an oath of allegiance to al-Qaida.

But the group’s alleged ringleader, Narseal Batiste, testified that he was faking interest in the plots in hopes of conning $50,000 out of Mohammed, whose real name is Elie Assad.

The six could have faced up to 70 years in prison if convicted of four conspiracy charges.

It’s rare for federal prosecutors to lose at all, with a conviction rate of over 90 percent across the country. It’s rarer still for a case to endure two mistrials and go to trial a third time.

Defense lawyers indicated in court they would seek to have the men released on bail at next week’s hearing.

Jurors in this trial first reported a stalemate last Friday and sent out a second note reporting an impasse on Tuesday. Each time, Lenard ordered the seven-man, five-woman jury to keep trying.

"They’ve deliberated. They’ve discussed this case inside and out," said Rod Vereen, who represents defendant Stanley Phanor. "At this point, enough is enough."

The jury refused media requests for interviews. Their identities are being kept secret under Lenard’s orders, and deputy U.S. marshals barred reporters from speaking directly with the jurors after the mistrial was announced.

Batiste led a sect called the Moorish Science Temple that blends elements of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and does not recognize the authority of the U.S. government. The group met at a building called "the Embassy" and later at a warehouse wired for eavesdropping by the FBI.

Batiste, the only defendant to testify, said his group was focused on doing charitable works in the impoverished Liberty City neighborhood and on helping their construction business. Prosecutors said the group was plotting to wage war on the U.S.

Some defendants took pictures of the FBI office and other federal buildings in Miami, which prosecutors called surveillance for future attacks.

Batiste is overheard on the tapes comparing the U.S. government to Satan and talking about mounting "a full ground war," but he insisted on the stand that he wasn’t serious.

Batiste attorney Ana M. Jhones told jurors the group was set up by the FBI informants and the case was pursued only because of the Bush administration’s zeal to make high-profile terrorism arrests in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

"This is about justifying the unjustifiable," Jhones said in closing arguments.

The man acquitted after the first trial, 33-year-old Lyglenson Lemorin, is facing deportation to Haiti over the same terrorism allegations. Only one of the remaining defendants is not a U.S. citizen.

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At a bond hearing on March 30, federal judge Steven Whalen expressed concern that the government's case was weak, noting of the evidence in the FBI's affidavit that "much of this information involves an expression of political opinion."

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The Real Charlie Wilson
From Playboy to Freedom Fighter, Charlie Wilson's Secret War in Afghanistan
Dec. 22, 2007 —


In the 1980s, Charlie Wilson seemed the unlikeliest of crusaders.

He was best known as the hard-drinking, hard-partying Texas Congressman with a penchant for beautiful women.

He is now lionized, however, in the new blockbuster "Charlie Wilson's War" as the one-man wrecking crew who helped defeat the Soviet army in Afghanistan. And the real life Charlie Wilson led a more flamboyant life than the star Tom Hanks who plays him on the screen.

"Charlie may have been the only believer in the United States that the Afghan people could actually expel the Soviets. He had his own personal jihad," said Lawrence Wright, author of "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11."

The real Charlie Wilson, now 74, has retired from both Congress and from his days of drinking. But he's as brazen as ever.

When ABC News' Bob Woodruff spoke with the former congressman on "Weekend Good Morning America" today about those days, decades ago, Wilson was asked about the reports of his cocaine use.

"Nobody knows the answer to that and I ain't telling," Wilson joked.

"How many dates did you have? How many women did you sleep with?" Woodruff followed up.

"Gosh I didn't keep count (Laughs)," Wilson replied.

But among Wilson's bevy of beauties was a tenacious Texas socialite named Joanne Herring -- played by Julia Roberts in the movie -- who opened Wilson's eyes to Soviet brutality in Afghanistan.

Once Wilson met Herring and she told him about the horrors of the Afghan war, he says he got more serious. "Mines that looked like they were toys would blow apart, blow off [children's] hands," Wilson recalls learning from Herring.

"Charlie said this had to stop. Not only does it have to stop, but it has to stop there before it comes here," Herring said.


Charlie's Covert War
Although the CIA was funding Afghan Muslims to fight the Soviet Union, Wilson wanted more money and more weapons because he thought the communists could be beaten faster. As the head of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, responsible for funding CIA operations, he was in a position to help do that under the public's radar.

With Wilson's support, nearly a billion dollars was allocated to help the Afghan Mujadhideen's jihad to expel the Soviets, including a key $17 million for stinger missiles to shoot down Soviet attack helicopters.

The Soviet army called it quits in Afghanistan in 1989, striking a major blow to the empire. Within one year the Berlin Wall fell and Wilson remembers that day vividly.

"I believe that was the most electrifying moment of my life," Wilson says. "I watched Peter Jennnings. I had a bottle of champagne I was saving for such an occasion and I broke it open. And gave [the Mujahideen] a little toast."


Aftermath
The U.S. cut back support and money for Afghanistan after the Soviets' withdrawal and civil war broke out. Wilson regrets the pull back and says that if the U.S. had stayed, "We would have had a friend in the Muslim world which we could use."

With the U.S. and Soviets out, foreign terrorists moved in. Osama bin Laden who fought alongside the Mujahideen, returned to Afghanistan and contributed to the rise of the Taliban regime and 9/11.

Wilson doesn't blame 9/11 on the U.S. withdrawal though.

"We would have had something like 9/11 anyways. I think that bin Laden had his course pretty well set... But when you fight a war, you do what you think you need to do at the time. What seems right at the time is what you do," Wilson says.



Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

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