By Debbie Schlussel
Remember the 1993 World Trade Center bombing? Well, I have to ask because it seems far too many Americans have already forgotten the 9/11/01 WTC bombing.
Well, now a group of Denver law students are fighting for the bombers' "rights" in the Supermax federal prison. But it's not just any "rights" they are fighting for.
'93 WTC convicts Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima, and Mohammad Salameh sent a series of letters from their Supermax cells to jihadists in Spain, recruiting them for suicide bombings there. The jihadists were linked to the March 2004 Madrid train bombings. Incompetent Supermax and Federal Bureau of Prisons officials did nothing to stop more than 90 such letters that Ayyad, Abouhalima, and Salameh sent, including one that was found in the possession of Mohamed Achraf, leader of the cell charged with plotting to blow up the National Court in downtown Madrid.
Mahmud Abouhalima, Nidal Ayyad: Denver Law Students Fight for '93 WTC Terrorists' Right to Spread Jihad After the letters were discovered, Federal and Supermax officials put in place new rules. These three inmates can only receive certain newspapers, but with editorial-page letters and classified ads removed. And their letters are delayed for weeks while they are translated and analyzed. They are now only allowed to send letters to immediate family members. So sad, too bad.
Sounds like a reasonable policy. Right? Wrong. At least, according to University of Denver law students representing them under the supervision of law professor Laura Rovner.
They are challenging the restrictions in court on behalf of the three '93 WTC terrorists. It's despicable.
And the silly response of the feds: They are opposing the students' representation of them on the grounds that the students are not yet lawyers and won't face penalties if they pass on to third parties calls for jihad by their clients.
Because Lynn Stewart, er . . . real, licensed attorneys would never ever do that. Right?
The feds' arguments are a waste of time. If these disgusting students are kicked off the case, I guarantee you that some creepy left-wing attorney will take their place. Either way, the case will go on.
I find these students to be extremely loathsome. They could use their partial legal training to help poor American criminal defendants who might have been wrongly convicted and can't afford an attorney and who didn't try to blow up thousands of Americans on behalf of a group bent on this country's destruction. Or they could provide free legal services of a civil nature to indigent Americans. But they choose to help these scumbags from Al-Qaeda, instead. It's nauseating.
Still, the real issue here is the incompetence of the Federal Bureau of Prisons under President Bush. They did nothing to stop over 90 letters from these guys, running international Al-Qaeda ops from behind this supposedly airtight model federal prison. They didn't carefully translate the letters and read them. They just gave them carte blanche to play penpal with their buds in Spain.
And the other issue is that the new steps the Supermax has taken against these three are legit and reasonable to respond to the behaviors these three have engaged in behind bars. Why won't the feds go forth and argue that?
Well, the answer, sadly, is that the feds constantly lose these cases against terrorists because they really don't care. And they're preparing for the same result this time, rather than fighting to make sure that doesn't happen. They botch the cases because they're not prepared to vigorously prosecute the national security interests of the American people. We've already seen that in the half-assed cases they brought against Sami Al-Arian, the Holy Land Foundation, HAMAS defendants in Illinois. All of these defendants beat the charges, and the charges were only brought after many years under pressure from the likes of FBI agent Robert Wright's media appearances.
My prediction: The students will be allowed to continue to represent the '93 WTC bombers. That's one win. And then the feds will lose on the other issues. The terrorists will get the right to once again send letters to jihadists around the world to engage in more attacks. That's another win.
Remember, the WTC members' Qaeda recruiting letters weren't discovered by our guys, but by the Spanish guys, after train bombings there and thwarted further plots were uncovered.
America is losing in court left and right and, outside of court, by officials' own incompetence. And the wardens and the losing prosecuting attorneys just move on to the next payday, the next case.
Another day, another dollar, another jihadist victory, another attack.