WASHINGTON -- A U.S. citizen held in Saudi Arabia since June 2003 plotted to assassinate President Bush and aspired to plan Al Qaeda terrorist operations, according to a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday.
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, of Falls Church, Va., did not enter a plea during an initial appearance in federal court in Alexandria, Va., but said through his lawyer that he had been tortured while in Saudi custody.
A six-count, 16-page indictment accuses Abu Ali of conspiring to kill Bush, either by getting "close enough to the president to shoot him on the street" or by detonating a car bomb. Abu Ali "obtained a religious blessing . . . to assassinate Bush," the indictment charged.
The indictment alleged that Abu Ali wanted to "become a planner of terrorist operations like Mohamed Atta and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, well-known Al Qaeda terrorists associated with the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001."
Abu Ali made contacts with Al Qaeda members between September 2002 and June 2003 and received training in the use of weapons including hand grenades and other explosives, as well as in document forgery, according to the indictment. It said he discussed an assassination attempt with at least two other conspirators, one of whom gave him the religious blessing.
He also allegedly tried to make his way to Afghanistan to fight against Americans but could not get there because he was denied a visa he needed to cross through Iran, the indictment said.
Abu Ali, who faces up to 80 years in prison if convicted of all the charges, "turned his back on America and joined the cause of Al Qaeda," U.S. Atty. Paul McNulty said in a statement. "He now stands charged with some of the most serious offenses our nation can bring against supporters of terrorism."
But for all the drama of the charges in the indictment, there is little in the way of explanation or detail.
The document refers to 11 co-conspirators who were in Saudi Arabia with Abu Ali, but neither their names nor their nationalities were disclosed.
According to the indictment, at least two of the 11 were on a public Saudi government list of 19 people suspected of plotting terrorist attacks in the kingdom. The list came out days before a series of bombings in May 2003 in Riyadh killed 34 people, including nine Americans.
Abu Ali was arrested by Saudi authorities on June 9, 2003, on suspicion of involvement in the bombings. He had been studying at the University of Medina.
Court papers give no indication of how developed the alleged assassination plot against Bush was or when it was supposed to occur.
An offer to show scars
At his court hearing, Abu Ali, speaking through his lawyer, Ashraf Nubani, said he had been tortured and offered to show U.S. Magistrate Liam O'Grady scars on his back.
"He was whipped. He was handcuffed for days at a time," Nubani told the court.
O'Grady declined the offer to see the scars and assured Abu Ali that he would be safe in the custody of U.S. marshals.
Edward MacMahon, another lawyer for Abu Ali, said his client would plead not guilty.
It is not clear from the indictment how evidence against Abu Ali was gathered.
David Cole, an attorney representing Abu Ali's family in a lawsuit against the U.S. government, said the government will have difficulty making a case against Abu Ali if it relies on evidence collected while he was under duress and in Saudi custody.
"I don't think anything they gained from the 20 months he was held incommunicado would be admissible," Cole said. "The question is, do they have evidence independent of that?"
Charges against Abu Ali were contained in a grand jury indictment handed up Feb. 3. A detention hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
Appearance unexpected
Abu Ali's appearance in the U.S. was a surprise because the government had not announced plans for his return and had aggressively defended itself against the suit by Abu Ali's family, which charged that the U.S. was behind his imprisonment and should return him to this country.
In December, the judge in that case rebuffed arguments that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction in Abu Ali's confinement in a foreign country. He ordered federal lawyers to explain what role the government had played in his detention.
Earlier this month, in a highly unusual move, government lawyers sought to get the parents' suit dismissed while keeping secret both the evidence and the reason for a dismissal.
A ruling on that request has not been made, but Abu Ali's return to the U.S. may nullify the suit.
Morton Sklar, one of the family's attorneys, said bringing Abu Ali back to the U.S. is a welcome development but leaves unanswered questions about the U.S. government's role in keeping him in Saudi custody.
The practice of sending terrorism suspects to other countries where they might be tortured, known as rendition, has come under increasing scrutiny in recent months as more cases come to light.
Bringing Abu Ali back to the U.S. "was the only way [the government] could avoid getting into factual issues like the degree of U.S. involvement in his detention," said Sklar, who also is executive director of the World Organization Against Torture USA.
Abu Ali was born in Houston to Jordanian immigrants and raised in Virginia near Washington. According to accounts in The Washington Post, he was valedictorian of his class at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria. A school official could not be reached for comment.
An FBI search of his home in Falls Church shortly after his June 2003 arrest turned up Arabic audiotapes promoting violent jihad and the killing of Jews; an undated, two-page document praising Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and the Sept. 11 attacks; a book written by Al Qaeda chieftain Ayman al-Zawahiri, which characterizes democracy as a new religion that must be destroyed by war; and a copy of Handguns magazine with a subscription label bearing the name Ahmed Ali.
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