US Judge Disallows FBI Terror Evidence

Judge Sterling Johnson ruled on Tuesday that prosecutors will not be able to present documents allegedly linking Shaikh Muhammad Ali al-Muayyad to suspected al-Qaida members in Afghanistan and Croatia.

The case of al-Muayyad and his Yemeni assistant Muhammad Zayid – who are charged in federal court in Brooklyn with supporting al-Qaida and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas – is to begin on Thursday.

If convicted, the 56-year-old al-Muayyad could face more than 60 years in prison. Zayid, 31, could also face more than 30 years.

The government had hoped to prove al-Muayyad’s ties to al-Qaida leader Usama bin Ladin with address books containing his name and phone number, which were confiscated from suspected al-Qaida fighters being expelled from the former Yugoslavia.

The government also planned to introduce an admission form for an al-Qaida Afghan training camp that used al-Muayyad as a reference.

But the judge called the Croatian evidence "so remote, I am going to preclude the government from using it".

He went on to exclude the Afghan evidence, apparently agreeing with a defence argument that the presence of al-Muayyad’s name on the form was not sufficient proof of wrongdoing.

"We don’t know who put this name in," the judge said.