The Terror Courts by Jess Bravin

Author:Jess Bravin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2013-09-28T16:00:00+00:00

10

Mr. Bean

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WASTED no time appealing Judge Robertson’s order. By holding the United States to its treaty obligations, Robertson had interfered with “important military determinations of the commander-in-chief during a time of active armed conflict,” the Justice Department said in a brief filed with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.1

Although the administration considered eventual legal victory certain, the appeal would take months. In the meantime, prosecutors were to work up new cases that would be ready to launch the moment the stay of proceedings was lifted.

Stu Couch was assigned the White House’s highest priority: satisfying John Howard, the Australian prime minister who had taken a political risk by approving the military prosecution of his citizens. Proceedings against David Hicks had begun, but nothing yet had transpired for the other Australian at Guantanamo, Mamdouh Habib. Canberra wanted him tried immediately after David Hicks, lest it be accused of favoring a young, Adelaide-born white Australian over an awkward, overweight, and often unpleasant forty-eight-year-old Egyptian immigrant.

But Habib, Couch realized, would be far more complicated to prosecute. Hicks was little more than Taliban cannon fodder, and his case involved nothing of national security significance. Habib, the files said, was in on the 9/11 plot. He had not only confessed to training the suicide terrorists in martial arts but also admitted planning to hijack a plane himself.

The proof was incontrovertible, Couch was told: The United States had intercepted a telephone call in which Habib described the attacks before they took place.

BY MANY MEASURES, MAMDOUH Habib was a misfit, “a bit of a blunderer,” his attorney said, “an Arab version of Mr. Bean,” the hapless character played by English comedian Rowan Atkinson.2 An assessment by British intelligence reached a similar conclusion, describing him as “a frigging idiot, a mope,” an official said.

Habib left Egypt about age twenty, after three years as an army conscript.3 He recounted journeys through Bulgaria, Iraq, and Yugoslavia, among other places, and such jobs as delivering gas cylinders, selling Scotch whisky, and tending elephants for a circus.4 Eventually, he reached Australia, where his brother and sister lived.

There, he met and married Maha, the Lebanese-born sister of his brother’s wife, and they had four children. “It was love at first sight, or something like this,” Maha recalled. In 1984, two years after he arrived, Habib obtained Australian citizenship.

But Australia proved no promised land. Habib learned a few random skills, such as tai chi and massage, but failed at several ventures over the years, including a cleaning business, a security service, and a café.5 Living in sketchy neighborhoods, neither fully accepted by other Muslims nor trusted by his adopted country, Habib grew frustrated and depressed. The government provided him a disability pension and a prescription for Prozac, but it wasn’t enough.6 He began finding solace in radical Islamic causes.

Visiting New York, where his sisters lived, Habib reconnected with school chums from Egypt who had relocated to the city. He visited the Statue of Liberty but spent more

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.