Yassin Aref's Struggle for Justice in Police State America - by Stephen Lendman
Yassin Aref is a 37 year old Albany, New York resident and one of many Muslim victims of police state justice in post-9/11 America. They've been hunted down, rounded up, held in detention, kept in isolation, denied bail, restricted in their right to counsel, tried on secret evidence and trumped-up charges, then incarcerated as political prisoners or deported to where they face possible arrest and torture.
Because of his faith and ethnicity, Aref was victimized by US "justice" in a post-9/11 climate of fear. He's an Iraqi Kurd who emigrated to the US as a UN refugee in 1999 with his wife and three young children. He's now in federal prison but committed no crime. He's also the author of a poignant memoir/autobiography titled "Son of Mountains: My Life as a Kurd and a Terror Suspect." He wrote it in custody at Troy, New York's Rensselaer County Jail after his wrongful conviction in October 2006.
It's his story in prose and poetry covering much more than his arrest, conviction and imprisonment. It's an account of an early life in poverty, his struggle to survive, his time in exile, of a two-time immigrant, and a UN refugee who sought peace and freedom in America but instead was persecuted. It's his story of wrongful conviction, of grave injustice, of a militarized state, of his constitutional rights denied, of despotism run amuck, of a nation where no one is safe, where many hundreds like him are imprisoned, and where we're all Yassins in police state America.
The story concludes with a powerful essay by pro bono lawyer, Stephen Downs, that details how Yassin was framed and wrongfully convicted. It explains how he "never before in (his) professional life (of over 35 years) encountered a deliberate frame-up. (He) was familiar with prosecutorial abuses" wrongful convictions, "sloppy police work, concealment of errors, hubris and arrogance, but what happened to Yassin was (much) different."
The government deliberately fabricated bogus charges and plotted to convict a man they knew was innocent. It was a "cold, calculating plan carried out over a long period of time, costing millions of dollars and involving dozens of agents, prosecutors, and the acquiescence of high-level officials, to convict two men of terrorism who had no involvement or interest in (it)....I could not adapt....to this new reality. For me, Yassin's case (won't end) until (his) injustice (is) corrected. Besides, (he's) now my brother." Today, we're all Yassin's brothers and sisters and must stand with him for justice.
The FBI Plot
In August 2004, FBI agents arrested Aref and Mohammed Hossain as part of a counterterrorism sting operation based on an unsubstantiated claim: that his name, address and phone number were in a notebook in a "bombed out Iraqi encampment." The information was classified and unavailable to his defense counsel even though he's cleared for security. The government first claimed Aref was called "commander." It then admitted there was a "mistranslation" and the Kurdish word "kak" means brother and is a common term of respect.
Aref originates from Iraqi Kurdistan where his grandfather was a famous imam, and Aref was known and respected in the area. No information is available on the target was bombed, whether a notebook really exists, or what's in it if it does. Its "contents" are classified and kept under wraps, so that automatically raises suspicions about their authenticity or existence.
Nonetheless, the FBI claims Aref was tied to Mullar Krekar, Ansar al-Islam's founder. It's a Kurdish Sunni group that supposedly promotes radical Islamic and Jihad views. Since 1991, Krekar lived in Norway as a political refugee. While there, police investigated him for seven months, found incriminating evidence, and in April 2003 the country's Supreme Court acquitted him of terrorism charges. In spite of it, US authorities recharged him with consorting with Ansar to carry out 2003 suicide bombings in northern Iraq.
Norwegian police then reopened their investigation, went to Iraq, and what they learned was disquieting. The key witness (Didar Khalan) was in Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) custody, and his statement was obtained through torture. He subsequently retracted it, said he never met Krekar, and Norwegian authorities dropped all charges they believed had no basis in fact.
The real issue is this. In mid-2002, US officials sought Ansar's support for its planned Iraq invasion. When Krekar refused, Washington targeted him and his group. It got Jordan to demand his extradition on drugs-smuggling charges with no substantiating evidence. It also called Ansar the "missing link" between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and the New York Times mysteriously uncovered evidence of the group's tie to bin Laden. The PUK was the rest of the "link" on a trumped up Ansar- Baathist connection. It was all untrue, but in February 2003, the State Department designated Ansar a "foreign terrorist organization (FTO)," claimed it was "one of the leading groups (against) Coalition (forces) in Iraq," and accused Krekar as the group's founder.
It also got Aref in trouble with trumped-up charges of his ties to Krekar and secret "evidence" supposedly proving it. After marrying, Aref left Iraq in 1994 and lived for five years in Syria. While there, the UN approved his refugee status and right to emigrate that allowed him to come to America. While still in Syria, he worked as a gardener, lost his job in 1998, and was hired by the Damascus office of an Islamic Kurdish US ally opposed to Saddam Hussein - the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan (IMK). Krekar was an IMK official. In 2001, two years after Aref left Syria, he formed Ansar al-Islam. Aref briefly met him in Damascus but neither knew him or espoused his views.
In 1999, Aref and his family came to America and worked as a hospital janitor and ambulance driver. A year later he became the Masjid As Salam Mosque's imam. Aref's troubles began when FBI agents targeted him in a 2003 sting operation that his lawyers call a frame-up. They convinced a Pakistani informant (facing a long prison sentence and deportation on fraud charges) to approach Aref's friend, Mohammed Mosharref Hossain (a Bangladesh immigrant and US citizen), as a way to target him.
Shahed Hussein was the informant, he was known as Malik, and here's the essence of the scheme:
-- Malik was wired to secretly record all conversations with his targets;
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
The U.S. is perilously close to being a lawless state. When will the first foreign country refuse to extradite individuals based on this inability to guarantee a fair trial? Will that finally open up everyone's eyes or will the common retort be "they hate us because of our freedoms". Such garbage, when will Americans grow up? We don't live on an island you know. We do have to interact with "others". Why can't we just let justice not only be done but be seen to be done?
by
Archie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 817 comments)
on Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 10:34:04 AM
Aref's situation differs only in context from that of hundreds of thousands of other Americans who are incarcerated in a society that has perfected incarceration to the point it is torture per se. Those Americans, who have suffered under the Rhenquist Court's vast expansion of police powers, know that the Patriot Act has taken nothing that was not already missing. From making roadblock spot check searches to making failure to give consent to search a ground for further search, among many other pro-state rulings, the Rhenquist Court long ago took away the Fourth Amendment Right to be free of unreasonable search and seizures.
Only on television and in the movies, does a trial court suppress evidence, with rare exceptions. Much better, considers the elected trial judge, to allow the evidence in, and make the appellate court deal with the issue later. But, of course, appellate courts almost never overrule the discretion of a trial court.
There are now approximately three million Americans in some kind of prison facility nation-wide. That is one in every one hundred Americans. But if you break that number down to adults, say 20-50, and male, the number is by my guess more like one in every twenty-five. Hence, approximately one in every twenty-five American males has been and is living in tortuous conditions--subject to rape at any time, HIV infection, spontaeous violence, forced segregation, arbitrary isolation, overcrowding, and guard brutality.
And most of these Americans either committed non-violent offenses, victimless crimes, or are innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. Long before they came for the Muslims, they were already coming for us.
by
W.M.L. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 256 comments)
on Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 6:00:56 PM
