U.S. Court Dismisses Landmark Terror Convictions

U.S. Court Dismisses Landmark Terror Convictions
Thu Sep 2, 2004 05:52 PM ET


DETROIT (Reuters) - A U.S. court on Thursday dismissed the convictions of two Arab men, the first to be prosecuted and tried on terror-related charges following the Sept. 11 attacks, after the government conceded errors in handling the case.
A U.S. District Court Judge in Michigan granted the wish of the U.S. Justice Department, which said in a filing this week that prosecutors "committed a pattern of mistakes and oversights" that hindered the defendants from reviewing evidence used against them.

"The prosecution's understandable sense of mission and its zeal to obtain a conviction overcame not only its professional judgment, but its broader obligations to the justice system and the rule of law," Judge Gerald Rosen of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan wrote in a ruling.

Prosecutors accused four original defendants of belonging to a "sleeper operational combat cell" conspiring to launch attacks in the United States, Jordan and Turkey.



http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=TWTFB5RU5VY52CRBAEZSFEY?type=domesticNews&storyID=6139662

thinking that the "all-powerful OZ" can make anything stick... truth be told, all he can do is label everyone enemy combatants and let them rot in prison, guilty or not. what a bunch of malarkey... the rule of law lost to a complete blithering idiot and his gang of wild-eyed cronies.

unless they stand on a brick, and even then, the odds are better than 50/50 they'll miss.

:evilfrown:

Just like the understandable zeal of the SS when they rounded up the Jews.