Man Indicted in Plot to Kill the President

A former Virginia high school valedictorian held in a Saudi Arabian prison for 20 months was accused in federal court Tuesday of conspiring with Al Qaeda to assassinate President Bush.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, an American citizen, and at least 10 unidentified co-conspirators allegedly planned in 2002 and 2003 to kill Bush either by shooting him or by detonating a car bomb, according to an indictment released at a hearing before a U.S. magistrate judge in Alexandria, Va.

The six-count indictment also alleges that Abu Ali and one of the co-conspirators discussed ways he could conduct a terrorist operation and establish an Al Qaeda cell in the United States.

According to U.S. officials, Abu Ali was arrested June 9, 2003, in Medina, Saudi Arabia, during a crackdown by Saudi authorities on alleged terrorist cells blamed for bombings a month earlier that killed 34, including nine Americans, in three residential compounds in Riyadh.

He was detained in a Saudi prison and was flown to Washington Dulles International Airport only hours before Tuesday’s hearing in U.S. District Court. He is scheduled to appear in court again Thursday.

“After the devastating terrorist attack and murders of Sept. 11, the defendant turned his back on America and joined the cause of Al Qaeda,” U.S. Atty. Paul J. McNulty said in a statement. “He now stands charged with some of the most serious offenses our nation can bring against supporters of terrorism.”

Abu Ali is charged with providing material support and resources to Al Qaeda, providing material support to terrorists, contributing services to Al Qaeda, receiving funds and services from Al Qaeda, and two counts of conspiracy. If convicted on all charges, he could be sentenced to up to 80 years in prison.

Lawyers for Abu Ali, who graduated at the top of his class from the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria, said he would plead not guilty. Raised in nearby Falls Church, Va., he was enrolled at a university in Medina when he was arrested.

Signaling that defense attorneys suspected that prosecutors would seek to use statements by the defendant to support their case, Abu Ali’s lawyers said that while in Saudi custody he was handcuffed for days at a time and whipped, so any statements he made during that time would, under U.S. treaty agreements, be inadmissible in court.

“There is evidence of torture on his back. I saw it myself and I told the judge that he had been tortured,” Abu Ali’s attorney, Ashraf Nubani, said in an interview after the hearing.

“Instead of apologizing and backing down and admitting that they’d made a mistake ... the arrogance of power has just caused them to go full-speed ahead. I don’t understand how the U.S. attorney’s office or anyone else says this with a straight face,” Nubani said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Liam O’Grady declined an offer to view Abu Ali’s scars.

“I can assure you, you will not suffer any torture or humiliation while in the marshals’ custody,” O’Grady said.

The case drew more than a hundred Abu Ali supporters to the Virginia courthouse, although most could not fit in the crowded room. Several laughed as the government’s charges were read.

“It’s lies. It’s all lies,” the accused man’s father, Omar Abu Ali of Falls Church, told reporters after the hearing. “The government lied from the very first day.”

His family says Saudi authorities arrested and tortured Abu Ali at the behest of the U.S. government.

According to the grand jury indictment, items found at Abu Ali’s home in Falls Church a week after his arrest included a six-page document on how to avoid government and private surveillance and a document praising Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Also found were a copy of Handguns magazine with the name Ahmed Ali on the subscription label, audiotapes promoting violent holy war and the killing of Jews, and a book by Al Qaeda deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri criticizing democracy.

Two of the co-conspirators mentioned in the indictment were among the 19 men the Saudi government named in May 2003 as suspected of planning terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia.

None of the co-conspirators was identified by name in the indictment.

Prosecutors said Abu Ali lived with one of the co-conspirators while he studied in Medina in 2001 and told his former roommate in September 2002 that he wanted to join Al Qaeda, hoping to become a planner of terrorist attacks like Mohamed Atta and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who are believed responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Sometime between late 2002 and mid-2003, Abu Ali and another co-conspirator discussed plans to assassinate Bush in a shooting or a car bombing, prosecutors said. A third co-conspirator allegedly gave the men a religious blessing for their mission.

Abu Ali was introduced to the fourth co-conspirator about the same time and secretly met with him on several occasions, the indictment said. It was with this co-conspirator that Abu Ali discussed plans for a terrorist cell in the United States, according to the indictment.

After an aborted attempt to fight against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, the indictment said, Abu Ali moved in with six co-conspirators whom he knew to be associated with Al Qaeda.

One gave him 6,750 Saudi riyals ($1,800) to buy a laptop computer, a mobile phone and books, the indictment said, and two trained him to forge documents and use grenades, bombs and other weapons, according to the charges.

Defense attorneys will probably cite international treaties barring the use of information obtained through torture and to assail Saudi-style justice.

“I think the charges should be considered in light of the fact that they reference people and events in Saudi Arabia, and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has the worst human rights record in the world,” said a second attorney for Abu Ali, Edward B. MacMahon Jr.