confinement
Document Sample
ARAB TIMES, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2012
INTERNATIONAL 15
WikiLeaks
No date for trial
Soldier defers
‘plea’ in case
FORT MEADE, Maryland, Feb 24,
(AP): An Army private declined to
enter a plea Thursday to charges he
engineered the biggest leak of clas-
sified information in US history.
Pfc Bradley Manning also
deferred a choice of whether to be
tried by a military jury or judge
alone.
Military judge Col Denise Lind
presided over the 50-minute hear-
ing at Fort
Meade near
Baltimore. She
didn’t set a
trial date but
scheduled
another court
session for
March 15-16.
Defense
attorney David
Coombs pro-
Manning posed a trial
date sometime
in April. He said the government’s
proposed calendar could push the
start of the trial to Aug 3, a date that
Coombs said could jeopardize his
client’s right to a speedy trial.
Manning has been in pretrial
confinement since May 2010. He
faces 22 counts, including aiding
the enemy. That charge carries a
maximum penalty of life in prison.
The others carry a combined maxi-
mum of more than 150 years. In this Feb 17, 2006, file photo a group organized by a Muslim leader protest against a Danish newspaper’s publication of inflammatory cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) outside the Danish
The 24-year-old native of Consulate in New York, while around the world Muslim communities erupted in outrage. (AP)
Oklahoma allegedly gave the anti-
secrecy website more than 700,000
documents and video clips.
Defense lawyers say Manning Intelligence
was emotionally troubled and
shouldn’t have had access to classi-
fied material nor have been sent to
Iraq for a tour of duty.
A court-martial defendant can NYPD defends ‘tactics’
defer entering a plea until the start
of the trial and defer choosing a
Records detail ‘mosques’ spying
judge or jury until shortly before
the trial date. Doing so could buy
the defense more time to investi-
gate the background of prospective
jurors or negotiate a deal, said
Eugene R. Fidell, a former Coast NEW YORK, Feb 24, (AP): The New
Guard judge advocate who teaches York Police Department targeted
law at Yale. Muslim mosques with tactics normal- ‘Crawlers’ gleaned info from inside the houses of worship
Formal ly reserved for criminal organizations,
The hearing — officially the start
of Manning’s court martial — was
more formal than his December
according to newly obtained police
documents that showed police collect-
ing the license plates of worshippers,
Mosques targeted with cameras, informants
monitoring them on surveillance cam- NEW YORK, Feb 24, (AP): When a other secret NYPD documents ■ Universities including Yale and
preliminary hearing in the same US President Barack Obama waves eras and cataloging sermons through a
courtroom. The defendant, his mili- as he walks on the South Lawn to Danish newspaper published obtained by The Associated Press, Columbia have criticized the
network of informants. inflammatory cartoons of Prophet they show police targeting department for infiltrating Muslim
tary lawyers and the prosecution board the Marine One helicopter to
leave the White House in The documents, obtained by The Muhammad in September 2005, mosques and their congregations student groups and trawling their
lawyers all appeared in military Associated Press, have come to light
Washington, DC, on Feb 23, en route Muslim communities around the with tactics normally reserved for websites. Police put the names of
dress uniform by agreement, as as the NYPD fends off criticism of its world erupted in outrage. Violent criminal organizations. students and academics in reports
opposed to the camouflage field to Miami, Florida. (AFP)
monitoring of Muslim student groups mobs took to the streets in the They did so in ways that brushed even when they were not suspect-
uniforms they all wore in and its cataloging of mosques and Middle East. A Somali man even against — and civil rights lawyers ed of wrongdoing.
December. Muslim businesses in nearby Newark, broke into the cartoonist’s house in say at times violated — a federal ■ In Newark, New Jersey, Mayor
Manning stood when the judge Denmark with an ax. court order restricting how police Cory Booker said he was offended
asked him for his plea, then let America New Jersey.
The NYPD’s spokesman, Paul In New York, thousands of miles can gather intelligence. by the NYPD’s secret surveillance
Coombs answer that he would not Browne, forcefully defended the legal- (kilometers) away, it was a different The NYPD Intelligence Division of his city’s Muslims.
be entering one Thursday. Aside ity of those efforts Thursday, telling story. At the Masjid Al-Falah in snapped pictures and collected On Thursday, US Sen Bob
from that, Manning appeared calm Holder defends record: US Attorney reporters that its officers may go wher- Queens, one leader condemned license plate numbers of congre- Menendez asked federal authori-
as he sat at the defense table, large- General Eric Holder on Thursday defend- ever the public goes and collect intel- the cartoons but said Muslims gants as they arrived to pray. ties to investigate the NYPD’s sur-
ly motionless and expressionless. ed the Justice Department’s record of should not to resort to violence. Police mounted cameras on light veillance of New Jersey’s Muslim
ligence, even outside city limits. Speaking at the Masjid Dawudi poles and aimed them at mosques. communities.
He looked directly at the judge financial crime enforcement, while The new documents, prepared for
when she spoke to him and occa- acknowledging that some of the behavior mosque in Brooklyn, another called Plainclothes detectives mapped Later, NYPD spokesman Paul
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, on Muslims to speak out against and photographed mosques and Browne insisted that Newark police
sionally at defense and prosecution that sparked the financial crisis did not
rise to the level of criminality.
show how the NYPD’s roster of paid the cartoons, but peacefully. listed the ethnic makeup of those were fully aware of the operation.
lawyers as they stood to address the informants monitored conversations
court. Speaking before an audience of about The sermons, all protected under who prayed there. He did not get into specifics on the
400 students and professors at Columbia and sermons inside mosques. The the First Amendment to the The documents provide a fuller case.
Manning spoke only a half- records offer the first glimpse of what Constitution, were reported back to picture of the NYPD’s unapologetic “In this particular case, (the
dozen times, answering firmly and University, where he received both under-
graduate and law school degrees, Holder those informants, known informally as the NYPD by the department’s net- approach to protecting the city from department) did notify Newark offi-
clearly, “Yes, your honor,” and, “mosque crawlers,” gleaned from work of mosque informants. They terrorism. cials, before and after, and … a
“No, your honor,” when asked if he said the Justice Department has taken
“bold, unprecedented steps” toward com- inside the houses of worship. were compiled in police intelligence The AP has reported for months Newark liaison officer was
understood the proceedings or had batting financial crime. reports and summarized for Police that the NYPD infiltrated mosques, assigned to the NYPD personnel
any questions. Inflammatory Commissioner Raymond Kelly. eavesdropped in cafes and moni- when they were in there,” he told
The Obama administration has been
Compared to the full courtroom criticized for not bringing more high-pro- For instance, when a Danish news- Those documents offer the first tored Muslim neighborhoods. New reporters.
at Manning’s preliminary hearing, file prosecutions in the aftermath of the paper published inflammatory car- glimpse of what the NYPD’s Muslim converts who took Arabic Earlier, Browne had denied the
Thursday’s session drew only about financial crisis. toons of Prophet Muhammad in informants — known informally as names were compiled in police NYPD used mosque crawlers or
20 courtroom observers, including “We’ve found that much of the conduct September 2005, Muslim communi- “mosque crawlers” — gleaned from databases. that there was a secret
a half-dozen journalists and some that led to the financial crisis was unethi- ties around the world erupted in out- inside the houses of worship. And, Recently, the NYPD has come Demographics Unit that monitored
Manning supporters. Observers cal and irresponsible,” Holder said in pre- rage. Violent mobs took to the streets along with hundreds of pages of under fire for its tactics. daily life in Muslim communities.
were warned before the hearing not pared remarks. (RTRS) in the Middle East. A Somali man even
to fidget, wear sunglasses or sleep ❑ ❑ ❑ broke into the cartoonist’s house in planning a demonstration, one of the try. He said police do not violate those The officials spoke on condition of
during the hearing — a likely refer- Denmark with an ax. people involved in the discussion rules. anonymity because they were not
ence to the preliminary hearing, Armenian payments law tossed: In New York, thousands of miles
A federal appeals court on Thursday about how to get a permit was, in fact, His statements were intended to authorized to discuss the secret pro-
when Manning supporters did all away, it was a different story. Muslim working for the NYPD. calm a controversy over a 2007 opera- grams. But the documents support
those things in the audience section struck down a controversial California law
that allowed descendants of 1.5 million leaders preached peace and urged peo- “It seems horrible to me that the tion in which the NYPD mapped and their claims.
of wooden court benches. About Armenians who perished in Turkey nearly ple to protest lawfully. Write letters to NYPD is treating an entire religious
another dozen journalists watched photographed all of Newark’s The effort highlights one of the
a century ago to file claims against life politicians, they said. Some advocated community as potential terrorists,” said mosques and eavesdropped on Muslim most difficult aspects of policing in
the proceeding on closed-circuit insurance companies accused of reneging boycotting Danish products, burning civil rights lawyer Jethro Eisenstein,
television in a nearby building. businesses. Newark Mayor Cory the age of terrorism. Solving crimes
on policies. flags and holding rallies. who reviewed some of the documents
The only outburst was as the All of that was permissible under Booker said he was never told about isn’t enough; police are expected to
The move came when a specially con- and is involved in a decades-old class- the surveillance, which he said offend- identify would-be terrorists and move
judge adjourned the hearing. vened 11-judge panel of the 9th Circuit law and protected by the Constitution. action lawsuit against the police
“Judge, isn’t a soldier required to Court of Appeals unanimously tossed out All was reported to the NYPD by its ed him. in before they can attack.
department for spying on protesters Booker and his police director There are no universally agreed upon
report a war crime?” protester a class action lawsuit filed against Munich mosque crawlers and made its way and political dissidents.
David Eberhardt of Baltimore said Re after two of its subsidiaries refused to into police files for Kelly. accused the NYPD of misleading them warning signs for terrorism. Terrorists
loudly. She didn’t respond. pay claims. “Imam Shamsi Ali brought up the Lawsuit by not revealing exactly what they have used Internet cafes, stayed in hos-
A 70-year-old member of the The ruling, written by Judge Susan topic of the cartoon, condemning The lawsuit is known as the were doing. Had they known, they tels, worked out at gyms, visited travel
anti-war group Code Pink, Graber, said the California law trampled them. He announced a rally that was to Handschu case, and a court order in said it never would have been permit- agencies, attended student groups and
Eberhardt was referring to on US foreign policy — the exclusive take place on Sunday (02/05/06) near that case governs how the NYPD may ted. But Browne said Newark police prayed at mosques. So the NYPD mon-
Manning’s alleged leaking of a jurisdiction of the federal government. the United Nations. He asked that collect intelligence. were told before and after the opera- itored those areas. In doing so, they
video showing the 2007 Apache The California Legislature labeled the everyone to attend if possible and Eisenstein said the documents prove tion and knew exactly what it entailed. monitored many innocent people as
helicopter attack in Iraq that killed Armenian deaths as genocide, a term the reminded everyone to keep their poise the NYPD has violated those rules. Kelly, the police commissioner, and they went about their daily lives.
a Reuters news photographer and Turkish government vehemently argued Mayor Michael Bloomberg have been Using plainclothes officers from the
was wrongly applied during a time of civil if they can make it,” one report read. “This is a flat-out violation,”
his driver. The government says it At the Muslim Center of New York Eisenstein said. “This is a smoking emphatic that police only follow legit- squad known as the Demographics
unrest in the country. imate leads of criminal activity and do Unit, police swept Muslim neighbor-
was accidental. The court noted the issue is so fraught in Queens, the report said, gun.”
The judge, Col Denise Lind, also with politics that President Barack “Mohammad Tariq Sherwani led the Browne, the NYPD spokesman, did not conduct preventive surveillance in hoods and catalogued the location of
presided over the court martial in Obama studiously avoided using the word prayer service and urged those in not discuss specific investigations ethnic communities. mosques. The ethnic makeup of each
2010 of Lt Col Terrence Lakin, a “genocide” during a commemorative attendance to participate in a demon- Thursday but told reporters that, Former and current law enforce- congregation was logged as police
doctor who was convicted of refus- speech in April 2010 noting the Armenian stration at the United Nations on because of the Handschu case, the ment officials either involved in or fanned out across the city and outside
ing to obey orders after he refused deaths. Sunday.” NYPD operates under stricter rules with direct knowledge of these pro- their jurisdiction, into suburban Long
to deploy to Afghanistan because The tortured legal saga began in 2000 When one Muslim leader suggested than any other department in the coun- grams say they did not follow leads. Island and areas of New Jersey.
he questioned whether President when the California Legislature passed a
Barack Obama was born in the law enabling Armenian heirs to file claims
United States. with insurance companies for policies
At the a preliminary hearing in sold around the turn of the 20th century. It
December, cmilitary prosecutors gave the heirs until 2010 to file lawsuits
over unpaid insurance benefits. (AP) over the tape and other personal items the of a North Carolina courthouse. Hunter although it was mutually agreed that cer-
produced evidence that Manning couple said she left in a box of trash while has long wanted the tapes destroyed. tain materials should, per the court’s
downloaded and electronically ❑ ❑ ❑ they were helping her hide out as the for- “We are very pleased that this settle- order, be destroyed,” lawyer David Pishko
transferred to WikiLeaks nearly Sex tape to be destroyed: The pur- mer North Carolina senator ran for the ment achieved all that she had ever hoped said.
half a million sensitive battlefield ported sex tape of former presidential can- White House. to achieve with this lawsuit,” said Allison The Youngs also agreed not to talk pub-
reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, didate John Edwards and his mistress Hunter lived with the Youngs while she Van Laningham, one of Hunter’s lawyers. licly about the tape or the other items,
hundreds of thousands of diplomat- will be destroyed within 30 days after a was pregnant with Edwards’ baby, and A lawyer for the Youngs said they were which include photos of Hunter in a bikini
ic cables, and the video from the lawsuit over who owned the tape was set- Young initially said he was the father. pleased with the settlement. as well as picture of her with her child.
Army helicopter, which WikiLeaks tled Thursday. In the settlement, the Youngs agreed to “There were no ‘winners’ as such, in There is also a tape of Frances Quinn
dubbed “Collateral Murder.” Rielle Hunter sued former Edwards give up their claim on the tape and other that each side had returned back to it that Hunter’s birth. She turns 4 years old on
aide Andrew Young and his wife in 2010 property, which has been held in the vault Holder Edwards which it believed was its own property, Monday. (AP)
