Bill of Rights Defense Campaign

BILL OF RIGHTS Defense Committee - Working with communities to uphold the Bill of RightsWe the People
Working with communities to uphold the Bill of Rights
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Additional Notes from Brandon Mayfield

On October 24, 2007, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee hosted a conference call with Brandon Mayfield. During the call, he listed several innocent people who have been or are currently being falsely accused by the U.S. government of terror-related charges.

Chaplain James Yee was arrested and charged as a spy. After very publicly arresting Yee as a Guantánamo spy, the Army eventually resorted to maligning his good character with adultery charges, when it could find no evidence Yee had done anything wrong. His crime appears to be that he is a Muslim chaplain, and was ministering to Muslim men at Guantánamo.

Lt. Ehren Watada is the first officer in the Iraq war to publicly refuse to go to Iraq because he believes that it is an unjust war and that he would be committing war crimes if he obeyed the order. His court martial has been stayed until November 9.

Lynne Stewart is the civil rights attorney who defended the "blind sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman who was convicted in connection with the first World Trade Center bombing. Lynne received a sentence of 28 months in prison for too zealously defending her client. Howard Zinn leads off an evening benefit for Lynne Stewart in New York City on November 17. See Lynne Stewart's website for details. http://www.lynnestewart.org/

Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi and Karim Koubriti are two Detroit men accused by the government of operating a terrorist cell. The former prosecutor is now on trial for withholding evidence that could have helped the defense. The convictions of Elmardoudi and Koubriti have been overturned.

Sami al-Hussayan is a former Idaho graduate student accused of providing material support to terrorists by providing expertise in running websites for members of the Islamic Assembly of North America. He was found not guilty by a Boise jury in 2004. He had been in custody for more than a year. He worked on his doctorate from his cell, and returned to Saudi Arabia after being released.

Sami al-Arian is a Palestinian professor, formerly at the University of South Florida,who was arrested in February 2003 on 17 charges related to terrorism. In his December 2005 trial, the jury found him not guilty on most of the charges. Al-Arian pleaded guilty to one of the remaining charges hoping to end the nightmare of prison and leave the U.S. Instead, he is now being held in contempt of court for refusing to testify in front of a grand jury on charges against another Muslim organization. His plea agreement specifically stated his testimony would not be compelled by the U.S. government.