AP Features, May 16th, 2007
The defense lawyer for a Florida doctor accused of pledging allegiance to al-Qaida urged a jury Wednesday to ignore references by prosecutors to al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden and terrorism and conclude that there is no real evidence against his client.
The lawyer, Ed Wilford, told jurors assessing the fate of Dr. Rafiq Abdus Sabir that they should reject the government's attempt to use innuendos, assumptions and inferences to convince them his client is guilty.
"What is it that Dr. Sabir actually did that supports these charges?" Wilford said during a three-hour summation in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. "With respect to Dr. Sabir, there's a dearth of evidence, actually an absence of evidence that Dr. Sabir provided material support to a terrorist organization."
Wilford said the government made repeated references to al-Qaida, bin Laden and terrorist events to taint his client.
"We have to adhere to our principles," he told the jury. "We are not going to succumb to fear."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Victor Hou, in a rebuttal summation, made no apologies for the government's handling of the case. He ended his remarks with bin Laden's picture on a video screen behind him as he said Sabir said "yes to Osama bin Laden, yes to al-Qaida and yes to providing material support to terrorists."
He said Sabir, of Boca Raton, Florida, took important medical skills to al-Qaida, whose injured fighters cannot go to hospitals for treatment.
Sabir, 52, is on trial by himself after his three co-defendants each pleaded guilty, agreeing to serve between 13 and 15 years in prison in deals with the government.
Sabir's former best friend, martial arts expert and jazz musician Tarik Shah, was among those who pleaded guilty. His name has surfaced as much as Sabir's during three weeks of trial as the government tried to show Sabir was just as willing as Shah to help al-Qaida.
On Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Karl Metzner delivered a closing argument in which he called Sabir and Shah "blood brothers" committed to helping al-Qaida and bin Laden further their goals.
He said the pair's dreams of promoting extremist Islamic views were interrupted only after the FBI sent Agent Ali Soufan to pose as an al-Qaida recruiter.
Soufan was so convincing that he managed to entice Shah and Sabir to pledge allegiance to al-Qaida and "Sheik Osama" during a secret pledge ceremony in May 2005 in Shah's Bronx apartment.
Sabir testified that he did not understand he was pledging allegiance to al-Qaida because Soufan more than a dozen times mispronounced the name of the group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and numerous other terrorist events over the last decade.
He also said he never thought "Sheik Osama" referred to bin Laden because bin Laden was not a sheik.
Hou, who had conducted the cross examination of Sabir during his five days on the witness stand, called it "preposterous" that Sabir would claim he did not know "Sheik Osama" meant bin Laden, "who has literally hijacked Islam, a religion of peace, and made it a religion of war."
During his closing argument, Wilford said the only evidence prosecutors offered was a small scrap of paper on which Sabir had written his phone number to be given to contacts in the Middle East.
If convicted, Sabir could face up to 30 years in prison.
Two other co-defendants, a Washington, D.C., cab driver and a Brooklyn bookstore owner, also have pleaded guilty in the case and face between 13 and 15 years in prison.
