It’s a little dance that some lawyers play. Blame the system. Blame “the man”. “My client isn’t a terrorist, Mohammed and his bombs are just being racially profiled by homophobe neocons.” SaWING yer partner.
(Hat tip to PTBC reader Exile who helped scope this out a bit further…)
It’s interesting how Gary Batasar, the legal and apparent political ideology defender of one of the current Canadian terrorist suspects, uses mistrust of the process and, well, you guessed it, playing the George W. Bush card in building his (so far) P.R.-based defence of his alleged terrorist client in this morning’s dance with the media. (See here).
This isn’t the first time that a questionable terrorism charges-related client has been represented by Gary Batasar, the lawyer representing one of the latest Canadian terrorist suspects, who invoked President Bush’s home town in an almost embarrassing oozing of anti-Bush brain poo as part of his media event this morning (see same blog entry).
And just as with this case, his past tactics have also included claiming that the justice system is faulty *coughBush*, authorities are just racists *coughBush*, and that sort of thing *coughBush*.
Immediately after 9/11 2001, he represented Nageeb Abdul Jabar Mohamed al-Hadi, who was arrested in Toronto on September 11 2001. Gary probably called him “Steve” just as today he referred to his client, known as Abdul Shakur, as “Steven Chand”, as I reported earlier.
Back in 2001 it was covered, and covered, by the state-run CBC with even-handed moderate headlines such as:
“Held since Sept. 11, suspect yet to see lawyer”
and this:
“Handling of detained man deplorable: lawyer”.
…the stories replete with whines about how mistreated his client was from the lawyer Batasar —and the apparently on-side CBC “reporter”, who informed us in one one-sentence paragraph this little lament: “He can’t even speak to his client by phone.”
Can’t even!
But here’s some information on Nageeb Abdul Jabar Mohamed Al-Hadi from the CBC’s “RCI” division (Radio Canada International)—which is the state-run radio division of Canada’s liberals, which makes you wonder if the CBC’s TV subdivision secretariat shouldn’t just look at their other subdivision secretariats before presuming to educate Canadians with their so-called “fair and balanced” state “news” articles:
Nageeb Abdul Jabar Mohamed Al-Hadi
Nageeb Abdul Jabar Mohamed Al-Hadi, 34, a man believed to be a Lufthansa Airlines employee from Yemen was arrested in Canada on the day of the World Trade Center attacks when his flight to O’Hare Airport was diverted to Toronto and he was found to be in possession of three passports, each with a different name.
He was charged with using a false passport.
Al-Hadi was flying on nonstop Flight 430 from Germany to Chicago on Sept. 11 when U.S. airports were shut down because of the suicide-hijacking attacks on New York and Washington.
He was carrying three Yemenese passports, each bearing his photo, but each with a different passport number, date of issue and name. Two of the passports reflected different dates of birth. Al-Hadi had a Michigan driver’s license.
Lufthansa records showed three of Al-Hadi’s suitcases were checked from Yemen through Germany to O’Hare. The suitcases were taken on another flight to Chicago, where U.S. Customs Service investigators opened the luggage and found two Lufthansa crew uniforms and an ID card in Arabic sewn into the pocket of a pair of pants, the affidavit said.
The FBI later found a student ID from the Yemenese American Language Institute in Yemen, with an expiration date in 1993, in the name of Nageeb A. Jabber and a slip of paper with a sequence of English and Arabic numerals that didn’t appear to be telephone numbers. […]
Of course this information is devoid of concern to Batasar. In a CNews.com story:
[…] And it has all been for the sake of some relatively minor American charges, lawyer Gary Batasar told Trafford during an angry tirade against the U.S. Department of Justice.
Officials south of the border waited until the end of the 60-day period set out in Canada’s extradition treaty with the United States to submit the paperwork formalizing the request, Batasar said.
Those documents, filed last week and signed by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, “support my client’s position from day one: that Mr. Al-Hadi has absolutely no links whatsoever with anything to do remotely with any terrorist activity,” he said.
“That conduct does not reflect well on the U.S. justice system.”
Alamand left!
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