Wednesday, August 18, 2004
"It looks to me to be a two-bit frame-up"
Will anyone contend that humanities research and skills are not relevant to national security? Is there a single skill set deficiency in the entire Intelligence Community greater than that in language comprehension? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying understanding documents at the intersection of Urdu, Turkish and Arabic is easy. But without it, we get stories like the following. And we look stupid. And it costs us.
NYTimes:
Federal prosecutors acknowledged possible flaws yesterday in a major piece of evidence used in their case against two leaders of an Albany mosque on charges that they supported terrorism.
The two men, Yassin M. Aref, 34, and Mohammed M. Hossain, 49, were arrested after a yearlong sting operation in which they were led to believe that a government informer was really a terrorist who wanted them to launder money from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile that would be used in an attack on a Pakistani diplomat in New York City.
While the government presented no evidence during a bail hearing in Albany last week that Mr. Hossain had any ties with extremist groups, prosecutors did tell the judge that they had reason to believe Mr. Aref might be connected with a terrorist group known as Ansar al-Islam.
Prosecutors said they were given information from the Defense Department that a notebook with Mr. Aref's name and address had been found in what they said was a terrorist training camp in the western Iraqi desert near the Syrian border. They also said that a word in the notebook, written in Arabic, had referred to Mr. Aref as "commander."
As it turns out, the word is Kurdish, albeit written using the Arabic alphabet, and the translation may be incorrect. "Commander" could be translated as "brother," according to federal prosecutors.
Nijyar Shemdin, the United States representative for the Kurdistan Regional Government in Washington, reviewed a copy of the page at the request of The New York Times and said he did not see how a translation would have come up with the word "commander."
Mr. Shemdin said that Mr. Aref is referred to with the common honorific, "kak," which could mean brother or mister, depending on the level of formality...
Terence L. Kindlon, Mr. Aref's lawyer, said the mistake was emblematic of what he called deeper problems with the government's case.
"It looks to me to be a two-bit frame-up," Mr. Kindlon said. "In 30 years of practicing law, I have come to expect high standards from government prosecutors. This thing is just shabby. I suspect that there is something political driving this."
And from the Post, our man on the spot vows to forge on: "U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby said that authorities are unsure which translation is correct but that it does not change the case."
'Atta boy, Glenn.
Will anyone contend that humanities research and skills are not relevant to national security? Is there a single skill set deficiency in the entire Intelligence Community greater than that in language comprehension? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying understanding documents at the intersection of Urdu, Turkish and Arabic is easy. But without it, we get stories like the following. And we look stupid. And it costs us.
NYTimes:
Federal prosecutors acknowledged possible flaws yesterday in a major piece of evidence used in their case against two leaders of an Albany mosque on charges that they supported terrorism.
The two men, Yassin M. Aref, 34, and Mohammed M. Hossain, 49, were arrested after a yearlong sting operation in which they were led to believe that a government informer was really a terrorist who wanted them to launder money from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile that would be used in an attack on a Pakistani diplomat in New York City.
While the government presented no evidence during a bail hearing in Albany last week that Mr. Hossain had any ties with extremist groups, prosecutors did tell the judge that they had reason to believe Mr. Aref might be connected with a terrorist group known as Ansar al-Islam.
Prosecutors said they were given information from the Defense Department that a notebook with Mr. Aref's name and address had been found in what they said was a terrorist training camp in the western Iraqi desert near the Syrian border. They also said that a word in the notebook, written in Arabic, had referred to Mr. Aref as "commander."
As it turns out, the word is Kurdish, albeit written using the Arabic alphabet, and the translation may be incorrect. "Commander" could be translated as "brother," according to federal prosecutors.
Nijyar Shemdin, the United States representative for the Kurdistan Regional Government in Washington, reviewed a copy of the page at the request of The New York Times and said he did not see how a translation would have come up with the word "commander."
Mr. Shemdin said that Mr. Aref is referred to with the common honorific, "kak," which could mean brother or mister, depending on the level of formality...
Terence L. Kindlon, Mr. Aref's lawyer, said the mistake was emblematic of what he called deeper problems with the government's case.
"It looks to me to be a two-bit frame-up," Mr. Kindlon said. "In 30 years of practicing law, I have come to expect high standards from government prosecutors. This thing is just shabby. I suspect that there is something political driving this."
And from the Post, our man on the spot vows to forge on: "U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby said that authorities are unsure which translation is correct but that it does not change the case."
'Atta boy, Glenn.
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