Suspected al Qaeda operative charged in U.S. court

[Americanhero1]

PEORIA, Illinois (Reuters) – Suspected al Qaeda operative Ali al-Marri was charged Friday with conspiracy and material support for terrorism, and President Barack Obama ordered his transfer into the U.S. legal system after 5-1/2 years at a military prison in South Carolina.

The Obama administration's decision to move Marri into the U.S. court system marked a significant policy shift from the Bush administration, which had argued that Marri could be held indefinitely without being charged.

Marri is the last of three terrorism suspects who had been held by the military in the United States without charges as an "enemy combatant."

The case could signify that the Obama administration will prosecute in the U.S. court system at least some of the terrorism suspects held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. There are 245 detainees at Guantanamo.

The Obama administration planned to ask the U.S. Supreme Court Friday to dismiss Marri's appeal challenging his indefinite imprisonment by the military without charges, officials said.

Administration officials said Obama signed a memo ordering the Defense Department to transfer Marri to the Justice Department. They said they would wait for the Supreme Court to approve the transfer.

Andrew Savage, one of Marri's lawyers, said of the indictment, "We are pleased that after more than seven years of detention, Mr. Marri will finally have his day in court."

The indictment, handed up by a federal grand jury in Peoria, Illinois, Thursday and unsealed Friday, charged Marri with one count of conspiracy to provide material support and resources to al Qaeda and a second count of providing such support and resources.

Marri, 43, could face up to 15 years in prison on each count. He was in the United States legally, and is a national of Qatar.

The four-paragraph indictment provided no new details about Marri's alleged activities that began at least as early as July of 2001 and continued until his arrest in December that year.

Marri is suspected of being an al Qaeda "sleeper" agent sent by Osama bin Laden and by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, to disrupt the U.S. financial system by hacking into bank computers.

INTRODUCE EVIDENCE AT TRIAL

Asked why the indictment did not contain such details, Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said, "We will introduce our evidence at trial and intend to prove our case there."

It was not immediately clear what would happen to Marri's Supreme Court appeal. Justice Department attorneys planned to tell the Supreme Court Friday that the case should be dismissed as moot, officials said.

But Marri's lawyer has said the Supreme Court still should review the case and make clear that an indefinite detention by the military in this country without charges is illegal.

The Supreme Court will have to decide whether to still hear arguments in the case in April.

The indictment represented the latest step in a long legal odyssey for Marri, who entered the United States on September 10, 2001, and was said by a captured al Qaeda member to have come to help operatives plotting a second wave of attacks after the hijacked plane attacks on September 11.

Marri was initially detained in December 2001 in the investigation of the September 11 attacks.

He was later indicted in Illinois, where he had attended school, for credit card fraud, making false statements to the FBI and other charges. Marri pleaded not guilty.

The U.S. government dropped the criminal charges in June 2003, when then-President George W. Bush designated Marri an enemy combatant and he was taken to the military prison in Charleston.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090227/ts_nm/us_usa_security_combatant