After years of secrecy, al-Qaida member to appear in NYC courtroom for sentencing

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

After years of secrecy, al-Qaida member to appear in NYC courtroom for sentencing
By DAVID B. CARUSO

Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- He pleaded guilty more than five years ago to plotting bomb attacks on American embassies, but the case against al-Qaida member Mohammed Mansour Jabarah has been shrouded in secrecy until now.

Jabarah was to emerge from the shadows Friday to be sentenced, likely to life in prison, for his brief career in terror. It included training with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and unsuccessfully planning to bomb embassies in the Philippines and Singapore, prosecutors said in court papers.

The Canadian citizen's appearance in a Manhattan courtroom will be his first time in public since his detention in 2002. Thursday marked the first time the court system made public any details of his case, which has been under seal since his arrest.

Prosecutors said there was a good reason for the secrecy.

Jabarah, 26, initially worked as a government informant after he was brought to the U.S. from Canada in 2002 after his capture in Jordan. He pleaded guilty to the terror charges that summer in a secret proceeding, without mounting a defense, and briefly lived in an FBI-arranged housing facility rather than a prison while he worked as a collaborator.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.com/News/200801180095

[gratuitous]

1. Held incommunicado, pled guilty, secret proceeding

Somehow this doesn't inspire me to think that the constitutional guarantees of due process and access to independent legal counsel and against self-incrimination and cruel or unusual treatment were scrupulously observed.

But we've absolutely nailed a 26-year-old for something or other he's supposed to have done five or six or seven years ago.