There are many lingering questions about the prosecution of Idaho grad student Sami Omar Al-Hussayen for ties to terror groups, but evidently they will not be answered: he is to be deported. From AP, with thanks to EPG:
BOISE, Idaho (AP) - The government agreed Wednesday to throw out all remaining charges against a Saudi graduate student whose terrorism case was seen as an important clash between free speech and the war on terror.The government agreed to dismiss the immigration charges against Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, 34, in return for his dropping an appeal of a deportation order.
"He's going back to Saudi Arabia," defense attorney David Nevin said. "This long ordeal has come to a close."
Al-Hussayen was acquitted in early June of using his computer skills to support terrorism, along with three other immigration violations. But the jury deadlocked on eight additional charges - all of which were dropped Wednesday.
Prosecutors said Al-Hussayen set up and ran Web sites that were used to recruit terrorists, raise money and disseminate inflammatory rhetoric.
But the defense claimed Al-Hussayen, a father of three and a devoted Muslim, was only volunteering his ability to maintain Web sites that were promoting Islam. Any radical material on the sites did not reflect Al-Hussayen's views and was protected by the Constitution, Nevin said.
"Any radical material on the sites did not reflect Al-Hussayen's views".
And what were his views? Did he counter any "radical material"? Was he thinking this was a good thing or a bad thing? If it was good he should have continued (which he did), if it was bad he should have stopped it. What part was a benefit to The United States?
Only in America.
One more back to the homeland (only a couple million left to go).
"Only in America"
Or more to the point, "Only to a Saudi".
How did this guy rate a deportation appeal hearing, since they were virtually eliminated by the 1996 Immigration Reform Act? It's not Free Speech that's clashing with the war on terror, it's the Justice Department's apparent blindspot: unequal enforcement of the law eventually renders the law unenforcable.Why does Ashcroft's apparent "I decide who's a terrorist" strategy seem so eerily reminiscent of Herrmann Goering's "I decide who's Jewish"?
And what were the other eight charges the jury deadlocked upon?
While we're at it, am I the only one who notices that even as supposed hotbeds of "liberalism" like California have disproportionately high rates of "hate crimes" against Muslims, these Islamists and Jihadists operate in far-right bastions like Austin, Texas and Boise, Idaho virtually unmolested?