“Terrorist’s case shows Yemen’s flexible justice”
Flexible Justice, what a good term from the IHT. Collusion, clemency, coddling, fabrication are other good terms found in the article.
Jaber Elbaneh has been one of the FBI’s most-wanted terrorist suspects ever since he escaped from a high-security prison two years ago in Sana, the capital of Yemen.
So when Elbaneh, a 41-year-old American citizen, walked freely into a Yemeni courthouse where his conviction was being appealed Feb. 23 , the judge and the prosecutor were stunned. They asked him to show identification, which he did.
Then the broad-shouldered, bearded convict – who is accused by American prosecutors of providing support to Al Qaeda – surprised them again: He gave a speech. “I’ve been sentenced to 10 years in this case, and three years in another,” he said. “But it’s wrong; I haven’t committed any crimes in this country or the United States.”
He added that after his prison escape he surrendered directly to Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who absolved him of any more jail time.
With the judge still sitting speechless, Elbaneh, who once worked in a cheese factory in Lackawanna, New York, then walked out of the courthouse. No one tried to stop him.
Elbaneh’s mysterious act of bravado, which prompted an angry protest from the State Department, cast an unusual light on the distinctive counterterrorism efforts of Yemen, a desperately poor south Arabian country that has long been viewed as a haven for jihadists. The Yemeni authorities often negotiate arrangements with suspects that are entirely separate from court verdicts.
Elbaneh, for instance, surrendered to the Yemeni authorities last May after 15 months on the run and a lengthy negotiation. The agreement, like many others of its kind, included a pledge by Elbaneh not to carry out any terrorist acts in Yemen. In exchange, the authorities promised that he would not be sent back to prison, and would not be sent to the United States, which has sought his extradition since 2002.
Six months later, when Elbaneh and 31 others were sentenced in connection with another crime – two suicide bombings that took place in 2006 – he apparently was allowed to stay home, under loose house arrest. It is not clear whether he will serve any time on that sentence, which is now being appealed.
Yemeni officials say that by showing clemency to figures like Elbaneh – often including help with money and jobs – they have co-opted many jihadists, who then agree to help track down other fugitives or to become informants. They say their approach is the only practical one in a country where the state is dependent on powerful tribes and conservative clerics.
American officials are skeptical, and often express indignation at the release of men like Elbaneh, or Jamal al-Badawi, who is wanted in the attack on the Cole in 2000 in Aden. Badawi, released in October on lenient terms similar to those offered to Elbaneh, was quickly put back in prison after the U.S. government threatened to withdraw aid.
In Yemen, terrorist charges are seen very differently. Many critics say that while the government does often coddle terrorist sympathizers, it also often manipulates or even fabricates terrorist charges as a political tool, whether to intimidate its enemies or to press the United States for more financing to fight terrorism.
“They frighten the U.S.A. with these guys, and they frighten these guys with the U.S.A.,” said Khaled Alansi, a lawyer in Sana who has represented men accused of terrorism. “If you’re a religious man, they will use the terrorist charge against you; they don’t need proof.”
Elbaneh’s case is unusual, even in Yemen. He is one of a group of Yemeni-American men from Lackawanna who attended a Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in 2001. Six others returned to the United States and were later convicted and sentenced on terrorism charges. By that time, Elbaneh was in Yemen. After American prosecutors indicted him in absentia, the Yemeni authorities arrested him and jailed him.
Two years later, in February 2006, he and 22 other suspected members of Al Qaeda broke out of a high-security prison in the Yemeni capital. Alarmed, the State Department soon offered $5 million for information leading to his arrest. Yemeni officials said the men tunneled their way from the prison to the bathroom of a neighboring mosque, but that account is viewed with great skepticism, both in the United States and Yemen.
Many in Yemen say the escape could not have taken place without assistance, whether from corrupt guards or through a higher-level plan.
Alansi, the lawyer, said Elbaneh’s family in Yemen had contacted him in late 2005 to ask if he would represent Elbaneh. Then, just before the escape, they called back with a surprise: he did not need a lawyer anymore.
Controversy and accusations of government collusion have also shadowed the September 2006 attacks in which Elbaneh and 35 others were accused of playing a role. In those two attacks, two separate sets of suicide bombers detonated their vehicles far from their targets, doing little damage.
The bombings – the first terrorist attacks in Yemen in years – came just days before Yemen’s presidential elections. Saleh, who has ruled Yemen since 1978, quickly used the attacks to suggest that his opponent – one of whose guards was immediately accused of being involved – was linked to terrorism. The guard was later acquitted.
Perhaps the greatest mystery surrounding Elbaneh is his decision to appear in court Feb. 23. The Yemeni government has generally instructed the jihadists with whom it arranges amnesty deals to avoid the press and keep low profiles. But Elbaneh deliberately spoke out in a public setting, with journalists present, and named the president in his brief remarks.
“This serves only one purpose: to humiliate the president,” said one Yemeni official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue. “It may be that his tribe used this as a way to put pressure on the government.”
