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Lawyer questions military's handling of terror suspect

by Doug Saunders

When terror suspect Sohiel Omar Kabir arrived in California last week, he had a broken bone in his face, cuts on his head and was suffering from memory loss, according to his attorney.

That attorney, Jeffrey Aaron, is now questioning authorities' handling of Kabir during his capture in Afghanistan and during the two weeks Kabir was held by the military before being turned over to the FBI.

"We think a lot of the injuries occurred during his arrest," Aaron said." "We're investigating what happened and why he wasn't hospitalized."

Federal prosecutors say Kabir, a naturalized American citizen, masterminded a plot to murder Americans abroad and to aid terrorist organizations. They have charged Kabir and three other local men in federal court.

All four defendants have pleaded not guilty.

While the other three suspects were arrested in Chino, Kabir was apprehended in Kabul, Afghanistan.

U.S. Army Special Operations Command officials said that Special Forces teams conducted a military operation known as a "snatch and grab" under the cover of darkness to take Kabir into custody on Nov.17.

The military held Kabir for as long as two weeks, turning him over to the FBI on Dec. 1 or Dec. 2, according to FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller.

Eimiller said Kabir's injuries were combat-related and that he was treated by U.S. military medical personnel and cleared to travel back to the United States to stand trial.

Kabir appeared in federal court in Riverside on Tuesday.

"He has staples in his head, a broken facial bone, a very long cut on his face and suffers from memory loss," Aaron said. "Also, his vision is agitated with intermittent flashes of lights and he has difficulty maintaining his balance."

Flashing lights and loss of balance could be symptoms of a severe concussion, which could last for days, weeks or even longer, according to the Mayo Clinic's website.

Aaron declined to say what his client had told him regarding his injuries.

Neither Eimiller nor military officials would provide further information as to the cause of Kabir's injuries.

"All I can share is that Kabir was captured Nov. 17 in an area of Kabul by a combined U.S.-Afghan force," said Lt. Col. Laurel Devine, Army public affairs officer.

The military conducts "snatch-and-grab" operations to capture high-priority individuals who are considered a threat to national security.

"Kabir was detained under the law of armed conflict, and U.S. military transferred him to FBI custody," Eimiller said. "Kabir was arrested by the FBI pursuant to the warrant and was brought back to the U.S. for prosecution for "providing material support to terrorists."

Eimiller declined further comment.

Aaron said he has requested additional information from the military and the FBI but has not received it yet.

"It's not like state courts," Aaron said. "There is no timeline that prosecutors have to meet to turn over the discovery evidence."

Aaron also challenges the case against his client.

"The allegations against him seem to be based on hearsay statements from the other defendants and an FBI snitch who we know is a convicted felon, and he's been paid a quarter of a million dollars by the U.S. government as an informant," Aaron said.

According to the complaint against Kabir and the three other men, the informant who provided information to investigators has been working with the government for four years and has received $250,000 and immigration benefits in exchange for his assistance. The complaint also notes that the informant has been convicted of drug trafficking.

Judge Oswald Parada in U.S. District Court ordered Kabir, who has not yet faced a grand jury or been indicted, be held without bond and scheduled a detention hearing for Tuesday.

Ralph Deleon, 23, of Ontario, Miguel Alejandro Vidriales Santana, 21, of Upland and Arifeen David Gojali, 21, of Riverside appeared before Parada on Wednesday.

Prosecutors allege the three had been planning for nearly a year to fly to Afghanistan to join al-Qaida, Kabir and the Taliban to carry out terrorist acts.

They had purchased plane tickets and were planning to depart to Afghanistan within a few days of their arrest on Nov. 16, according to a federal indictment.

They are also accused of "providing material support to terrorists."

Parada ordered the three men to return to court Jan. 14 for a pretrial hearing and then Jan. 22 for trial.

He assigned the case to Magistrate Judge Virginia A. Phillips in Riverside.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_22149545/lawyer-questions-militarys-handling-terror-suspect

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Pennsylvania

Lehigh University, Bethlehem police have worked together to serve the community

Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan recently proposed that some local nonprofit institutions, including Lehigh University, make cash payments to the city to partially make up for a structural deficit in the city's budget due, in large measure, to unfunded pension liabilities.

Part of the justification for this is that the Bethlehem Police Department responded to a number of calls regarding our students living off campus. The cost of the city's response was estimated to be approximately $54,000, according to news reports.

The Lehigh community has great respect for the work of the Bethlehem Police Department, which performs a difficult job with great professionalism. Further, there has been a high level of cooperation between the city's law enforcement community and our own state-accredited campus police force.

We would like to point out, however, that the Bethlehem Police Department does not respond to incidents on the Lehigh campus. Our own police department provides patrols 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on campus and in areas directly bordering our South Side campus. Students who live in off-campus housing pay rent directly to landlords, who pay property taxes to the city.

Lehigh has made significant investments to support safety initiatives on the campus and in the city. These include nearly $250,000 to fund the salaries and costs associated with a community policing effort, the expansion of surveillance coverage, and the provision of hardware and software to connect the camera surveillance system operated by Bethlehem Police Department and Lehigh. This has had a major impact in both deterring crime and making arrests.

This Community Policing Program places officers from the campus police department in the neighborhoods surrounding the university in an effort to promote safety and quality of life for both students and local residents.

The community policing model employs such partnerships to address issues that give rise to crime and other public safety problems such as noise, litter, parking, etc., and it has been employed with great success in cities across the country, including New York City, Detroit, Denver, Reno and others, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

By working in these neighborhoods, Lehigh police officers have been able to build trusting relationships with students and full-time residents. This includes children, who have come to see the officers as a familiar presence in their lives and who can now draw on an experience where the officers are seen as supportive allies.

When the program was first introduced, Mayor Callahan underscored the city's commitment to the community policing policy and hailed it as "a progressive concept in law enforcement and crime prevention that works for the entire community."

The highly effective policies and programs, as well as the cooperative spirit that characterizes the relationship between the city's police force and the university police department, could stand as a model for other cities and universities.

Throughout the university, there are many similar cooperative, highly effective programs that work to the benefit of the city and its residents. Even among these, the relationships between our Lehigh University Police Department and the city's law enforcement and public safety offices have proven to be particularly positive and productive.

More specifically, the Community Policing Program led to key convictions of several gang members who were targeting individuals in the neighborhoods where many Lehigh students live. At a news conference announcing the arrests in December 2010, Mayor Callahan again lauded the cooperative effort between city and university police forces, as well as the effectiveness of the city's camera surveillance system.

Like the officers and administration of the city police force, we take a great deal of pride in our duty to serve and protect the community. We are equally proud of the strong, supportive relationships we've built and sustained with the law enforcement professionals in the city of Bethlehem, and we look forward to continuing to work cooperatively with them for the benefit of the entire community.

John W. Smeaton is vice provost for student affairs at Lehigh University.

http://articles.mcall.com/2012-12-05/opinion/mc-bethlehem-lehigh-university-smeaton-yv-1206-20121205_1_lehigh-campus-lehigh-police-officers-campus-police

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Florida

New Flowery Branch police chief puts focus on compassion

by Emma Witman

Compassion and empathy may not be the first two words that come to mind when people think of law enforcement.

But those two concepts are an important part of new Flowery Branch Police Chief David Spillers' community policing philosophy.

“A lot of police officer-citizen encounters are initially formed around a conflict,” he said. “The person may be accused of doing something, accused of a crime, a traffic violation, or people are arguing and the police are called to intervene and keep peace.

“Necessarily, those relationships start from a conflict point of view. Sometimes that can't be helped; they can only be resolved in conflict. But I think the majority of time they can be resolved with a bit more compassion, a bit more empathy.”

And it's a philosophy that works, Spillers said.

“It's so much more successful, the experiences that I've had through the (Hall County) sheriff's office and my six years here,” he said. “The outcomes have been far more beneficial to people when they're handled that way, than contrarily.”

He listed Hall County's Drug Court as a prime example of how that approach can help.

“The answer is not always to lock somebody up and throw away the key,” he said.

Spillers has served as chief in the interim position since Aug. 23, when former Chief Gerald Lanich retired. Spillers began his career in 1982 with the Hall County Sheriff's Office.

Flowery Branch City Manager Bill Andrew said Spillers was right for the job.

“With a small department you either get a young guy who's in his 30s and has got a master's degree and wants to change the world, and gets here and doesn't realize we're a small community policing oriented group — we don't have a fancy investigative unit or K-9 unit or all that kind of thing,” he said. “Or you get someone who's retired from another department, but that is just serving out his time to get Social Security or whatever and all that,” he added, with a laugh.

With Spillers they get something better, he said, but his role as interim chief didn't make the job automatic.

“He and I met at least once a week to just review how things were going and all that. There was a sincere process to see if we felt he matched what we needed, and he did,” Andrew said.

Spillers said that as a small department, officers are always prepared to wear different hats.

“The people who work here at least have two different jobs. One is their own and one is the next job above them, whatever that responsibility might be,” he said. “Chief Lanich had trained me to act as his replacement in the event that he could not serve as some point in time.”

He attended Chief's Association School as part of that training, he said, as will the sergeant under him now.

He has high hopes for the department under his command.

“We want to move the police department closer to a community-oriented police department,” he said, a continuation of goals Lanich had worked on for a number of years.

And in the end, compassion is just an outgrowth of that philosophy.

“It's about better rapport with the citizens, with me. I want the officers that work here to know the people that live here by name. I want them to know their families. I want them to be able to provide a service beyond the occasional speeding ticket and window tint ticket,” he said. “I want them to be compassionate when there's something that requires compassion and empathy. Those things are very important as far as law enforcement-citizen encounters.”

http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/section/6/article/76801/

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From the FBI

Eco-Terrorist Surrenders -- Two Operation Backfire Fugitives Still at Large

After a decade as an international fugitive, Canadian citizen Rebecca Rubin gave up life on the run last week when she turned herself over to the FBI at the international border in Washington state.

The 39-year-old alleged member of the domestic terrorist cell called “The Family” will face federal arson charges for her role in the largest eco-terrorism case in U.S. history, known as Operation Backfire. With Rubin in custody, only two Family members remain at large.

Along with a dozen other conspirators, Rubin is charged with multiple crimes from 1996 through 2001 in the West and Pacific Northwest, including in Oregon, Colorado, and California. The Family committed an estimated $48 million worth of arson and vandalism under the names of the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front.

The cell's most notorious crime was the 1998 arson of a Vail, Colorado ski resort that caused more than $24 million in damages and drew international attention to eco-terrorists—those who break the law in the misguided attempt to protect the environment and animal rights. The FBI took the lead in the Vail investigation, working closely with local, state, and federal law enforcement partners, and in 2004, multiple eco-terrorism investigations were condensed into Operation Backfire.

In July 2011, one of Rubin's conspirators, Justin Solondz, was turned over to U.S. authorities by the Chinese government. Solondz had been imprisoned in China on drug charges. That leaves two Operation Backfire fugitives still at large, and there is a reward for information leading to their arrest.

“Two years ago we had four fugitives. Now we have two—so we are halfway there,” said Special Agent Tim Suttles, who works in our Portland Division and has been investigating the eco-terrorist group since 2005.

Although Suttles said it is “very satisfying” to see Rubin surrender and submit herself to the judicial process, the Operation Backfire investigation will not be closed until the last two fugitives—Joseph Dibee and Josephine Overaker—are in custody.

We need your help to locate these two individuals. A reward of up to $50,000 each is being offered for information leading to the arrest of Dibee and Overaker, both of whom are believed to be living abroad.

Here is what we know about the two:

• Dibee was indicted in 2006 on charges of arson, conspiracy, and animal enterprise terrorism. He was believed to be living in Syria with family members but may have fled the country due to the recent violence and upheaval there.
  
  
• Overaker was indicted in 2004 and 2006 for her involvement with the 1998 Vail arson and other crimes. She is believed to have spent time in Germany and may have settled in Spain. She speaks fluent Spanish.

Suttles believes Rubin may have surrendered because she was tired of life on the run. “She may have realized that being a fugitive meant she could never go home or could never have contact with her mom, who she is very close to.” Like many long-term fugitives, he added, “she may have come to the realization that coming in, admitting what you did, and taking your punishment will allow you to move on with your life.”

To date, Operation Backfire investigators have solved more than 40 criminal acts ranging from vandalism to arson. Seventeen individuals have been indicted, 15 of whom pled guilty and were sentenced in 2007 to jail time ranging from more than three years to 15 years.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/december/eco-terrorist-surrenders-two-fugitives-still-at-large/eco-terrorist-surrenders-two-fugitives-still-at-large