The Clipboard: Mistake jeopardizes FBI sting

From an article¹:

A word found in a notebook identifying an Albany imam as a "commander" was misinterpreted by Army intelligence experts after it was recovered from a bombed-out camp in Iraq, according to records obtained by the Times Union.

The entry, written in Kurdish, actually means "brother," according to a letter acknowledging the mistake sent by federal authorities to U.S. Magistrate Judge David R. Homer.

The discrepancy may call into question the foundation of search warrants and affidavits in support of an FBI sting that resulted in the Aug. 5 arrests of two Albany men, Yassin M. Aref, a 34-year-old imam at a Central Avenue mosque, and Mohammed Mosharref Hossain, a 49-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant who owns an Albany pizza shop. It also raises questions about whether the government overstated allegations of ties between the defendants and terrorist organizations. (link)

There are also questions about whether the camp in question is even a "terrorist training camp" in the first place. We seem to be seeing a lot of these overhyped arrests that later turn out to be rather less than they first appeared. Also, there seem to be a lot of sting operations where the suspects wouldn't even have been doing anything at all if the agents weren't trying to lure them to. I'm not really clear on how this is the best example of counter-terrorism operations. But I suppose that they have to be doing something to keep us fearful of the "fifth column".

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Complete text of the article, Mistake jeopardizes FBI sting, by Brendan Lyons

A word found in a notebook identifying an Albany imam as a "commander" was misinterpreted by Army intelligence experts after it was recovered from a bombed-out camp in Iraq, according to records obtained by the Times Union.
The entry, written in Kurdish, actually means "brother," according to a letter acknowledging the mistake sent by federal authorities to U.S. Magistrate Judge David R. Homer.

The discrepancy may call into question the foundation of search warrants and affidavits in support of an FBI sting that resulted in the Aug. 5 arrests of two Albany men, Yassin M. Aref, a 34-year-old imam at a Central Avenue mosque, and Mohammed Mosharref Hossain, a 49-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant who owns an Albany pizza shop. It also raises questions about whether the government overstated allegations of ties between the defendants and terrorist organizations.

Neither U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby of New York's Northern District nor Assistant U.S. Attorney David M. Grable, the lead prosecutor, returned telephone calls seeking comment.

Aref and Hossain are accused of taking part in a scheme to launder money from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile in a fictitious terrorist plot created by the FBI.

At a federal court detention hearing last week, Grable used the mistaken "commander" translation in arguing that the men are dangerous and should remain jailed while their case is pending.

Grable said FBI agents questioned Aref about his alleged connection to the camp in Iraq, which the Department of Defense has called a "terrorist camp."

According to Pentagon briefings last year, the camp appeared to have been a hide-out for insurgents who were attacking U.S. troops. The notebook was recovered, along with weapons and other debris, by U.S. troops after the insurgent band was wiped out. However, no evidence has been revealed to support the hide-out's description as a terrorist training camp.

Kevin Luibrand, Hossain's attorney, lashed out Monday at the government, saying the mistake undermines the entire case.

"They started out calling this a terrorist camp that they got this material from," Luibrand said. "Now that we see this, we want to see the whole book. The affidavit now is inaccurate and there's statements in the affidavits that are now false statements."

The FBI used an undercover informant -- a Pakistani immigrant who pleaded guilty to mail fraud in an unrelated case -- to get close to the pair in Albany. The investigation began in July 2003, about a month after the notebook was recovered in Iraq, though it's not clear if the timing was connected.

The sting was set into motion when Hossain asked the informant, Albany businessman Shahed Hussain, if he could borrow some money. The informant, at the FBI's direction, approached Hossain about making money by laundering through his pizza shop the proceeds from the sale of a missile that was to be used in a terrorist attack in New York City.

At Hossain's suggestion, Aref was enlisted as a witness to the transaction, according to the FBI.

Luibrand contends the FBI singled out Hossain and Aref, who is spiritual leader at the Masjid Al-Salam Mosque at 278 Central Ave.

"They targeted these Albany residents, by their own words, because they had a notebook obtained from Iraq that had Aref's name and the phrase 'commander,' " Luibrand said. "That notebook has been in the government's possession for 14 months, and now they report to us they were mistaken and the word is not 'commander.' "

The notebook was recovered after a U.S. raid on June 11, 2003, near the village of Rawah. The Army destroyed the encampment during a nighttime attack, killing almost 80 men and leaving two survivors.

Department of Defense accounts last year describe the encampment as a mixed group of insurgents, some from Syria or other Middle Eastern nations, who were on the run and roaming the region 200 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The group had set up a makeshift camp in an isolated area just north of the small village. The insurgents allegedly had fought U.S. troops and may have shot down an Apache helicopter, U.S. officials said at the time. But no public evidence links the group to al-Qaida or Ansar al-Islam, an Iraqi-based faction of terrorists that U.S. authorities said has ties to the al-Qaida network.

"I will simply tell you that it was a camp area that was confirmed with bad guys, and specifically who the bad guys are will be determined as we exploit the site," Lt. Gen. David McKiernan said a day after the attack.

Troops scoured the site, removing "pocket litter, weapons manuals and weapons to include small arms, RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and SA-7 (surface-to-air) missiles," according to a Pentagon report.

The entry from the Pentagon's report, which was forwarded to the FBI, is not dated. But it identifies the site as a "Rawah terrorist camp in the western Iraqi desert near the Syrian border."

Items recovered by U.S. troops apparently included a notebook that listed Aref's name and address printed in English along with a notation that means "important," according to an FBI translation.

An out-of-date telephone number for Aref in Albany was written below his name in the notebook, also in what the FBI describes as Kurdish.

But while the Pentagon reported the word means "commander," prosecutors this week called it a translation error.

"After obtaining a copy of the original entry late yesterday, FBI translators who reviewed it concluded that the Kurdish-language word that precedes Aref's name in the second-to-last line of the entry is 'brother,' not 'commander,' as indicated in the (Army) teletype," prosecutors wrote in a letter to Homer, the federal magistrate.

Terence L. Kindlon, Aref's attorney, was traveling Monday and could not be reached for comment.

It's not clear whether the translation error will affect any part of the government's case against Hossain and Aref, or why the FBI waited 14 months to have the document translated by its own experts.

But federal authorities gave it much credence. In affidavits used to obtain search warrants in the Albany investigation, the FBI cited the notebook, along with evidence that Hossain might have connections to a political extremist group in Pakistan.

Luibrand, Hossain's lawyer, said any intelligence information gleaned from Pentagon reports may now be suspect.

"This whole investigation, the whole targeting of Aref and Hossain, was seemingly prompted by this document and it was wrong from the very beginning," Luibrand said.

Still, the crux of the 19-count indictment remains the alleged scheme in which Hossain and Aref agreed to help launder money from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile. They never balked at the scheme, even when the informant showed Hossain a shoulder-fired missile, and later showed both men a triggering device that was part of the weapon, prosecutors said.

Aref and Hossain are charged with money laundering, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, importing firearms without a license and conspiracy charges related to the sting.

Prosecutors have portrayed the defendants as willing participants in a terror plot. They contend that even when the government's sting grew more detailed and more sinister -- a plot to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat in New York City -- neither man backed out.

reference=http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=276691&category=REGION&newsdate=8/17/2004