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Former Terrorism Suspect To Be Deported

Government Has No Evidence Of Terrorist Plots

DETROIT -- The man who the government once placed at the center of the local terrorism investigation was sentenced on an immigration violation Tuesday and ordered to be sent back to Syria.

Federal agents went to a house on Norman Street in southwest Detroit Sept. 17, 2001, looking for Nabil al-Marabh, 35. At the time, they considered Al-Marabh a terrorist suspect who allegedly had ties to Osama bin Laden and two hijackers who crashed passenger jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Al-Marabh was not at the home at the time, but FBI agents did arrest Karim Koubriti, Ahmed Hannan and Farouk Ali-Haimoud after they reportedly found false passports and other identification, and diagrams for airport runways inside the house.

Al-Marabh was arrested in the Chicago area Sept. 30 and was sent to New York, where he remained jailed on immigration charges for 11 months. He was on the government's list of people wanted for interviews at the time, and Canadian authorities also identified him as being "connected to the bin Laden network."

Al-Marabh has denied any involvement in terrorist activities.

The government has no evidence "of any involvement by the defendant in any terrorist organization," prosecutor Paul Campana said in asking U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara to impose a mandatory sentence of two to eight months.

"There's something about this case that makes me uncomfortable. I don't feel I have enough information," responded Arcara, who had postponed sentencing on Aug. 16 because probation officers provided "a very sketchy sentencing report."

"I really don't know whether the sentence under the (federal) guidelines is appropriate," the judge added.

Arcara then imposed the maximum penalty on al-Marabh for a charge of conspiring with two men to illegally enter the United States at a crossing near Niagara Falls on June 27, 2001.

Defense attorneys tried unsuccessfully to persuade the judge to deport al-Marabh to Kuwait, where he was born and raised before his parents moved to Syria.

The judge expressed surprise that al-Marabh was found with $22,000 and gems worth $25,000.

"These are the things that kind of bother me," the judge said.

Defense attorney Marianne Mariano explained that al-Marabh had recently sold his share of a Toronto business to an uncle. However, she knew nothing about the amber stones. "Some people have those kinds of valuable items, some don't," she said.

Koubriti, Hannan, Ali-Haimoud and a fourth man known only as Abdella, were charged last week with conspiracy to provide material support or resources to terrorists and conspiracy to engage in fraud and misuse of visas and identification documents.

The federal indictment alleges the men "operated as a covert underground support unit for terrorist attacks within and outside the United States," as well as groups known as "sleeper" operational combat cells.

U.S. Attorney Mike Battle declined to explain why al-Marabh had once been considered a terrorist suspect. "I know the climate makes it difficult to think of him in any other way, but our job is to follow the evidence," he said.

-- Anonymous, September 03, 2002