US man in Bush murder plot gets 30 years in jail

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a U.S. man convicted of plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush and conspiring with al Qaeda to 30 years in prison.

In November, Abu Ali was found guilty of all charges in a nine-count indictment, including conspiracy to assassinate Bush, conspiring to support al Qaeda and conspiracy to hijack aircraft.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-03-29T203922Z_01_N29275080_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-ABUALI.xml&archived=False

more than if that man had succeeded.

The confessions should have been thrown out and the man tried by real evidence.

That's the thing in many of these cases...real evidence can't be produced....because it simply doesn't exist....

This torture route will blowback in the US face....this is only the tip of the iceberg!!

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Doesn't that reflect on the leader's reputation in the World community?

I can't remember any leader in the last 5 decades that was despised across the globe so much.

A little more on Abu Ali:

The curious case of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is really a hybrid of the four biggest terror-law cases to arise since Sept. 11, 2001. It's a little bit John Walker Lindh, the so-called "American Taliban." It's a little bit Zacarias Moussaoui, the al Qaeda foot soldier the feds still can't get to trial. It's a little bit Yaser Esam Hamdi, the "enemy combatant" who last June won a big ruling from the Supreme Court. And it's a little bit Guantanamo Bay, where detainees are fighting to have federal courts recognize whatever rights they may have.

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Because it purportedly involves a plot against the President, because it involves many of the issues left unresolved by the early terror law cases, and because the defendant was the valedictorian of his religious school class in Virginia, the Abu Ali case shapes up to be not just one of the more interesting cases since the terror attacks on America, but also one of the most important. Will the executive branch regain the initiative in the legal fight against terrorism or will the federal courts continue their recent streak of siding with individual suspects over government power? Will Saudi intelligence officials be required to testify in some fashion about their treatment of Abu Ali? After all, the young man was apprehended and interrogated by them first. What about U.S. officials, here or abroad?

Will the Abu Ali case finally turn the judiciary's focus upon "extraordinary rendition," the practice whereby the U.S. may turn a blind eye to the abuse of terror suspects at the hands of foreign governments? If a U.S. citizen is tortured abroad, either with or without the government's consent, can he be successfully prosecuted here at home? Will the courts be able, finally, to balance the constitutional rights of citizens with the government's national security interests in a manner that reasonably satisfies both sides? The Abu Ali case could answer these questions, especially if it generates the sort of heat and light that gains the attention of the Supreme Court.

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I just don't see an American judge allowing prosecutors to get to trial with a case that has even a scintilla of a suggestion that the defendant was tortured into confessing. But I would love to hear what the feds have to say as way of explanation for why they were so slow in coming to Abu Ali's rescue, even after the Saudis apparently said they had no interest in prosecuting him themselves. Are the feds bluffing? Are they hoping that by prosecuting Abu Ali they will force him to cave, a la John Walker Lindh? Or are they confident still that they will never have to offer details about how Abu Ali was treated? If Abu Ali wasn't treated poorly, why did a federal judge already order the government to reveal more about the matter? And if he was treated poorly, and if the government was indeed on the fence about charging him in the first place, why is there a criminal case at all?

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