McNabb in the News (6-10-06)

Senior Principal Douglas McNabb has been quoted in the Las Vegas Review-Journal concerning potential perjury sentencing enhancements for Dario Herrera and May Kincaid-Chauncey.

One expert predicted the adjustment would add at least eight months to the defendants' potential sentences. Without the adjustment, he said, both defendants face prison sentences of at least 33 months under the federal guidelines.

…

Douglas McNabb, … who specializes in federal criminal cases, said after their convictions that Herrera and Kincaid-Chauncey faced prison terms of at least 33 months under the federal sentencing guidelines.

…

If the judge finds that the bribes amounted to less than $120,000, the defendants' sentencing range will be between 33 and 41 months, McNabb said. The attorney said that range will be between 41 and 51 months if Hicks grants the adjustment prosecutors are seeking.

McNabb predicted that prosecutors will push for a sentence at the upper end of the guideline range.

"It doesn't make sense to argue for anything less than that if you're the government," he said.

McNabb said Hicks can hold the defendants responsible for the amount of all the bribes involved in the conspiracy.

…

McNabb said that amount results in a sentencing range of 51 to 63 months without the adjustment prosecutors are seeking and a range of 63 to 78 months with the adjustment.

McNabb said Hicks also could choose to increase the sentences if he finds that the defendants' conduct "was part of a systematic or pervasive corruption of a governmental function, process or office that may cause loss of public confidence in the government."^[1]

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[1] Carri Geer Thevenot, Prosecutors Want Ex-Commissioners’ Sentences Increased, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Jun. 10, 2006.

War on Drugs—Bahamas Pull-Out for War on Terrorism

Somewhat lost amidst the publicity surrounding the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi^[1] and the alleged Canadian terrorist cell, was the announcement that the United States is planning “to pull its Army resources out of the 20-year counter-drug programme” in the Bahamas.^[2] The seven Black Hawk helicopters stationed in the Bahamas “form the backbone of Operation Bahamas, Turks and Caicos [hereinafter OPBAT], which the U.S. [DEA] credits with helping drive cocaine and marijuana smugglers away from the Bahamas and its easy access to Florida.”^[3] The pullout from OPBAT would be completed by Oct. 1, 2007.^[4]

The plan has come under criticism by a number of lawmakers in both the United States and the Bahamas. The Bahamas’ ambassador, Joshua Sears, said that it “would clearly have negative consequences for the region as a whole, [because] the traffickers obviously would see that as a signal to increase their activity.”^[5] Five US House members, “including two Republican committee chairmen, said it would be a mistake to withdraw the helicopters.”^[6] And despite Sec. Rumsfeld’s request for Attorney General Gonzales to find another suitable agency to replace the helicopters, the Congressmen told him that “no other agency is capable of filling the void and another smuggling route will be significantly undermanned.”^[7]

According to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the withdrawal is necessary because OPBAT “now competes with resources necessary for the war on terrorism and other activities in support of our nation’s defense, with potential adverse effects on the military preparedness of the United States.”^[8]

It is perhaps a testament to how many resources are required and used up as a result of the war on terrorism, when the US Army apparently cannot even afford to have a seven-helicopter contingent stationed in the Bahamas. Military doctrine in the post-World War II era required the United States to have the capability to fight two major wars at the same time, much as it was able to wage war on Germany and Japan simultaneously during World War II.^[9] Terrorism, however, has resulted in Sec. Rumsfeld developing a formula known as 1-4-2-1, which means that the military must be able to defend the homeland, keep a presence capable of deterring conflict in four critical regions, fight and quickly win two major wars and “win so decisively in one of them as to remove the enemy regime.”^[10] Whether that strategy can persist with a protracted insurgency remains to be seen.

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[1] Patrick Quinn, Most-Wanted Iraq Terrorist al-Zarqawi Dead, AP (via Yahoo!), Jun. 8, 2006.
[2] Ianthia Smith, US Shock On Drugs War, Nassau Guardian, Jun. 8, 2006.
[3] Rumsfeld: Army Should Pull Out of Drug War in Bahamas, AP (via CNN.com), Jun.7, 2006.
[4] Curt Anderson, End of Army Support in Drug War Questioned, AP (via Yahoo!), Jun. 8, 2006.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Smith, supra note 2.
[9] Julian Borger, Iraq Insurgency Forces Pentagon Rethink on Ability to Fight Two Wars at Once, The Guardian, Jul. 6, 2005.
[10] Id.

Canadian Terrorism Allegations—UK Arrests

Authorities in the United Kingdom have arrested a 21-year-old Bradford man and a 16-year-old youth, both of whom, according to the BBC, are being questioned about possible relations to last weekend’s terrorism arrests in Canada.^[1] The 21-year-old was arrested at Manchester airport, and is believed to have recently been in Pakistan.^[2] He has been taken to a police station in West Yorkshire, where a spokesman called the BBC report “’speculation’ and would not comment further.”^[3] Police are also conducting searches at three locations.^[4]

At the moment, there are few details about the arrests, but there seems to be “a sense of heightened alert” in the UK as a number of arrests have been made over the past few weeks, including one in which a man was shot by police.^[5]

Canadian authorities have alleged that the suspected terrorists “planned to storm the nation’s Parliament, take politicians hostage, and behead Prime Minster Stephen Harper unless their demands for a withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan and release of Muslim prisoners were met.”^[6] There were also allegations that “the group planned to bomb power plants in Ontario and invade the downtown Toronto studios of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.”^[7] Reaction from politicians has been mixed with Joseph Cordiano, “a Liberal in Ontario’s provincial Parliament,” telling reporters that the plans sound quite “grandiose” and that he has “serious, serious doubts about their capacity to carry it out,” while Peter Van Loan, “a Conservative in Parliament representing Ontario,” said that “the plot was a very serious one, [and] I don’t expect this is the only threat out there.”^[8] The accusations were contained in a summary of charges presented to one of the arrestees’ attorney, who said that “the sensational allegations [are] an attempt by the government to frighten the public. … It appears to me that whether you are in Toronto or Ottawa or Crawford, Texas, or Washington, D.C., what is wanting to be instilled in the public is fear.”^[9]

In an apparently unrelated arrest, 26-year-old Syed Hashmi has been arrested under a provisional arrest warrant for a requested extradition to the United States.^[10] According to police, he is facing a charge “alleging that between January 1 and March 1, 2004, he received ‘military gear, intending that it should be used for the purpose of terrorism.’”^[11] He was indicted on May 24 in the Southern District of New York.^[12] The indictment was unsealed today, and the military gear is unidentified, but it is alleged that the gear was “to be used by al-Qaida to fight against United States forces in Afghanistan.”^[13] In addition to the “material support to terrorists” charge, he has been charged with conspiring to assist al-Qaida by “agreeing ‘to make and receive a contribution of funds, goods and services’ to the terrorist group.”^[14] He has refused to consent to extradition from the UK.^[15]

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[1] Teenager Held After Terror Arrest, BBC News, Jun. 7, 2006.
[2] Id.
[3] UK Terrorism Suspect Linked to Canadian Arrests, Reuters (via Yahoo!), Jun. 7, 2006.
[4] Tariq Panja, British Arrests May Be Tied to Canada Plot, AP (via ABC News), Jun. 7, 2006.
[5] British Terror Suspect Linked to Canada Arrests, CTV.ca, Jun. 7, 2006.
[6] Carol J. William, Canada Detainees Accused of Plot Against Parliament, LA Times, Jun. 7, 2006.
[7] Doug Struck, Terrorism Allegations Detailed in Canada, Wash. Post, Jun. 7, 2006.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10] Man, 26, to Face Extradition from Britain to US on Terrorism Charge, Agence France-Presse (via Yahoo!), Jun. 7, 2006.
[11] Id.
[12] Id.
[13] Id.
[14] Id.
[15] Id.

“Extremists”—Somalia

More than 11 years after UN peacekeepers fled from the country, and more than 12 years after the incidents that gave rise to the book and movie Black Hawk Down, Somalia is aflame in violence, and the results seem to be far from desired for the United States. “Islamic militias declared [yesterday] that they [have] taken control of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, defeating the warlords widely believed to be backed by the United States and raising questions about whether the country would head down an extremist path.”^[1] Those cries of victory, however, may be a little premature as “thousands of people allied with one of the country’s largest clans held a rally to protest” a plan by “the Islamic militants who seized control of Mogadishu” to “set up a religious state.”^[2]

The battle over control of Somalia “has been a proxy war, of sorts, in the Bush administration’s campaign against terrorism, with the warlords echoing Washington’s goal of rooting out radical Islam and the presence of Al Qaeda in the region.”^[3] The warlords have ruled Somalia in a state of anarchy since the peacekeepers fled, and the Islamic militias are organized around “the Islamic courts that have grown in influence” since then; the courts are composed “of a loose coalition of religious leaders who have put forward Islam, the predominant religion in Somalia, as the way out of the country’s long into anarchy.”^[4] In many ways, it is strikingly similar to what happened when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.

The United States role in the conflict is rumored to be one of support of the warlords, allegedly secretly financing the very people with whom the United States fought against in the early 1990s; the warlords have “fashioned themselves into a counterterrorism alliance to track down and apprehend Al Qaeda elements in Mogadishu.”^[5]

A specialist on Africa for the Congressional Research Service, Ted Dagne, downplays the role of Islam in the country. “Somalis are secular Muslims,” he says, “and the presence of the so-called Islamists is not an introduction of new ideology or religion.”^[6] A US official, however, has said that “Islamic leaders in Mogadishu are sheltering three [Al Qaeda] leaders indicted in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The same [Al Qaeda] cell is believed responsible for the 2002 suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya, which killed 15 people, and a simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner over Kenya.”^[7] That attempt led to the passage of MANPADS legislation in the United States.

The chairman of the Islamic Courts Alliance, one of the groups that has declared victory in Somalia, “categorically den[ies] and reject[s] any accusation that [they] are harboring any terrorists or supporters of terrorism in the areas where the courts operate.”^[8]

The warlords, for their part, have vowed not to give up control of the country.^[9] In four months of fighting, at least 347 people have been killed, and more than 1,500 have been wounded, and the violence may continue for some time.^[10]

Prior to this violence, Somalia was in the news primarily for that country’s pirates.

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[1] Marc Lacey, Somali Islamists Declare Victory; Warlords on Run, NY Times, Jun. 6, 2006.
[2] Marc Lacey, Tensions High in Somalia as Thousand Protest, NY Times, Jun. 6, 2006.
[3] Lacey, supra note 1.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Chris Tomlinson, Somalia’s Islamic Extremists Set U.S. Back, AP (via Yahoo!), Jun. 6, 2006.
[8] Lacey, supra note 2.
[9] Id.
[10] Ali Musa Abdi, Standoff as Warlords Resist Islamist Seizure of Capital, Agence France-Presse, Jun. 6, 2006.

Terrorism Arrests—Canada

Over the weekend, Canadian authorities arrested 17 individuals, 12 men and five youths, who are suspected of plotting to blow up landmarks in Canada. According to Canadian authorities, the specific targets remain a mystery, with Canadian papers offering a wide variety of locations: “the Star cited a CSIS building in downtown Toronto as a possible target, along with the Parliament buildings in Ottawa. The Globe and Mail also reported targets of the alleged plot included the Parliament Buildings and the Peace Tower in Ottawa, along with the CN Tower and the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Toronto CSIS office.”^[1] The Canadian Press, however, cites a source in Ottawa who “squelched talk Sunday that the heart of the federal government was a target, insisting that the alleged plotters had their sights on locales solely in southern Ontario.”^[2] The arrests were made after undercover agents delivered what was believed to be three tonnes of ammonium nitrate—one of the components of the bomb used by Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City—but was actually a harmless substance.^[3]

The investigation apparently began two years ago as “tech-savvy spies noticed some teens spending more and more time reading and posting to extremist websites.”^[4] The Integrated National Security Enforcement Team [hereinafter INSET]—which is comprised of more than 400 individuals from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, CSIS (Canada’s spy agency^[5]), and federal, provincial, and municipal police^[6]—spent “thousands of hours diligently conducting the investigation.”^[7] This type of surveillance was somewhat denied by Mike McDonnell, the RCMP’s assistant commissioner. Asked by NPR’s Steve Inskeep about the difficulties of monitoring “recent immigrants [and] people who are actually citizens,” Mr. McDonnell said “Well, actually, we don’t monitor recent immigrants. We don’t monitor the citizens, but we’re always looking for indications of criminality, and we pursue that. This is not a police state.”^[8] Last week, after the deputy director of the CSIS, Jack Hooper, told the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defense that some Canadian citizens had trained with Al Qaeda, questions remained about “what the agency was doing in relation to monitoring or possibly questioning and detaining potential terrorists.”^[9]

There have been reports that the individuals in Canada have been in contact with other people in a number of countries, including Great Britain, Denmark, Bangladesh, and the United States.^[10] When asked by Bob Schieffer on CBS’s Face the Nation whether there is a relation between the Canadian individuals and Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was noncommittal. She stated that the US doesn’t “know very much more about [the plot], and we certainly don’t believe that there’s any link to the United States.”^[11] Mr. Schieffer tried to press the point again during the interview, but Sec. Rice reiterated that the US doesn’t have any indication of a US plot but that there “is an ongoing operation—ongoing investigation” and that “it’s best not to talk about whatever details there may be.”^[12] After the arrests of Mssrs. Ahmed and Sadequee, US officials alleged that the two men traveled to Washington, DC to shoot “casing videos” of the Capitol building “and other potential targets.”^[13] Whether or not the weekend’s events will become part of the case against the two men remains to be seen.

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[1] Canadian Bombing Plot Two Years in the Making, Canadian Press (via the Chronicle Herald (Halifax)), Jun. 5, 2006.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] See Beth Duff-Brown, Canada: Some Citizens Al-Qaida Trained, AP (via Boston Globe), May 29, 2006.
[6] CP, supra note 1.
[7] Id.
[8] Morning Edition, Canada Arrests 17 in Alleged Bombing Plot, (NPR radio broadcast, Jun. 5, 2006).
[9] Duff-Brown, supra note 5.
[10] See Kathy Kiely, Officials: USA Wasn’t Target in Alleged Terror Plot in Canada, USA Today (via Yahoo!), Jun. 5, 2006; Josh Meyer et al., Multinational Inquiry Led to Canada Terror Arrests, LA Times, Jun. 5, 2006; NPR, supra note 7.
[11] Face the Nation (CBS television broadcast, Jun. 4, 2006).
[12] Id.
[13] Tom Hays, Prosecutors: Suspects Shot “Casing Videos,” AP (via WTOP), Apr. 29, 2006.