In June the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the conviction of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, an American citizen charged in 2005 with supporting and conspiring with Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. The details of the case were chilling–Ali had plotted to hijack airplanes, blow up nuclear plants, and assassinate President George W. Bush.
News coverage of the case was overshadowed by U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the habeas rights of Guantánamo Bay detainees, but the appellate court’s deci-sion was an unambiguous victory for the government. The three-judge panel not only affirmed Ali’s conviction, the majority also suggested that his 30-year sentence was too lenient. They dismissed the notion that Ali’s confession to Saudi authorities while in detention there was coerced and therefore inadmissible. Abu Ali was “no idle planner,” the judges wrote. “His goals were of the most serious and heinous sort.” And the appellate court was unusually blunt in defending the judiciary branch’s turf. “There should be no disagreement,” the judges wrote, “that the criminal justice system does retain an important place in the ongoing effort to deter and punish terrorist acts without the sacrifice of American constitutional norms and bedrock values.”
