Be afraid... be very afraid....
Al-Qaeda trial lands FBI in dock for criminal ineptitude
The Times
March 25, 2006
THEY filed into court three weeks ago — the grieving families, the press, the curious public, the jury — expecting to see the Bush Administration lay out in devastating detail why Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in the US for his connection to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, should be put to death.
What they have witnessed is a dark tragicomedy, a courtroom farce with the FBI and the Government revealed in excruciating detail as the Keystone Kops, and Moussaoui himself, hood-eyed, thickly bearded and constantly ranting, an onlooker as blunder has followed blunder.
Displaying an exceptional level of incompetence, prosecutors have managed to put the Government in the dock on charges of criminal ineptitude and cronyism, while the self-confessed al-Qaeda terrorist and disciple of Osama bin Laden they are desperate to execute sits on the sidelines, with every chance of reaching old age.
...
This week a wealth of new evidence of how the FBI bungled the Moussaoui investigation became so Pythonesque in its absurdity that even the victims’ families were roaring with laughter.
Into the witness box stepped Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui. He was called by the prosecution but became the star witness of the defence.
He said that he warned his supervisors more than 70 times that Moussaoui was an al-Qaeda operative who might be plotting to hijack an airplane and fly it into a building. He said that he was regularly thwarted by two superiors, David Frasca and Michael Maltbie, from obtaining a warrant to search Moussaoui’s flat. He accused the men of being criminally negligent.
Mr Maltbie told him that getting a warrant, which could be troublesome, might harm his — Maltbie’s — career prospects. Mr Maltbie has since been promoted.
No comments:
Post a Comment