Benkahla Continues Quest Against 10-Year Perjury Sentence

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Written by Muslim Link Staff

Friday, 26 February 2010 10:54

Since the 9/11 attacks, no region of the United States has seen more high profile “war on terror” court cases involving Muslim men than Northern Virginia.

Most of the region’s Muslims consider these cases witch hunts, using the fear stoked by 9/11 to get juries to convict Muslims based on scant evidence and frail connections to “terrorists”. Muslim leaders in Northern Virginia are now conversant with the legal process – grand juries, indictments, verdicts, and appeals. With these cases, legal defense funds are now regular events in the local area.

On Saturday, February 13, 2010, family, friends, and supporters of Sabri Benkahla gathered at Dar Al-Hijrah in Falls Church, VA to raise money to continue challenging his imprisonment.

In June 2003, during his senior year as a sharia student at the Islamic University of Medina, Benkahla was detained by Saudi secret police at the behest of the United States. The US government extradited Benkahla back to Virginia and accused the now 34-year old US citizen and resident of Falls Church of aiding the Taliban. After a one day trial in March 2004, Judge Leonie Brinkema found Benkahla not guilty of all charges.

Despite his acquittal, the government continued pressure on Benkahla. FBI agents interviewed him, he was ordered to appear before grand juries and asked about the same things he was acquitted of, and his home and father’s business raided.

In early 2007 he was charged with perjury. After a trial where government prosecutors made continual references to 9/11 and terrorism over the objections of defense, a jury convicted him of all counts. The judge agreed with the government’s position to use a “terrorism enhancement” to increase his sentence for the perjury conviction – normally around 3 years – and imposed a 10-year sentence on Benkahla at an emotional July 24, 2007 hearing.

Since then, Benkahla appealed to the Fourth Circuit and to the US Supreme Court; both were denied.

Sabri Benkahla, like virtually all Muslim men caught up in the ‘war on terror’, is serving his sentence at a federal “control management unit” – federal prison units which separate incarcerated inmates from the general population and allow for close monitoring of all communication between them and persons outside the prison. Even legal mail is monitored.

About 100 people attended the fundraiser, held in Dar Al-Hijrah’s courtyard.

After a welcome from program head Sheikh Shaker Elsayyed and recitation from the Qur’an by Bilal Elsayyed, Benkahla’s appeal lawyer John Sheldon gave an overview of what happened to the young man who many in the audience knew since he was in his early teens.

Reading from a copy of the Muslim Link newspaper which contained an article highlighting a non-Muslim, white Maryland youth who received just 5-years for conspiring to assassinate President Obama, Sheldon compared the sentence to that of Benkahla.
“The judge [in that case] said no one was killed, no one was injured … [but] this applies equally to Sabri’s case,” said Sheldon, who was also the appeal lawyer for convicted Washington DC sniper John Allen Muhammad and who is also president of the board for Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

“The government contends that Sabri went to Northwest Pakistan and fired a weapon at a camp … there is nothing illegal about that … even if he did it, [the organization running the camp] was not designated a terrorist organization at that time,” explained Sheldon. Sabri was acquitted, and “then the second nightmare started.”

The government accused Benkahla of perjury – lying under oath – by asking him “did you commit the crime you were just acquitted of?” Perjury has never been used in US courts in this manner, said Sheldon.

Because the government’s case was so weak and lacking evidence, prosecutors spent half of the time talking about 9/11 and overseas “terrorist” groups in front the jury. Al-Qaeda was mentioned more than 65 times, Osama Bin Laden over 50 times, and prosecutors played videos of the Kenya embassy and USS Cole bombings. None of the material was relevant to Sabri’s case.

There was so much “irrelevant, prejudicial information …. when I tell other lawyers [about this], they don’t believe me,” said Sheldon. “This is by far the most unjust case I’ve ever worked on, or that any lawyer I know has worked on,” admitted Sheldon.

Sheikh Muhammad Al-Hanooti gave a brief address after Sheldon, saying the Benkahla family’s closeness to Allah resulting from their hardship “is a big gain.”

Dr. Jamal Badawi delivered the keynote address, examining the concept of justice in Islam.

Justice is “part and parcel of the Prophetic message”, and must be universal and impartial, explained Dr. Badawi. He cited a verse from the Qur’an containing a warning about being prejudicial and having “impure intentions” when executing the law. Some laws today are “tailor made” for specific groups in order to discriminate he said, citing a recent law passed in France targeting the hijab but which never mentioned “Muslim” or “hijab” in the text of the law.

Rodwan Saleh conducted the fundraising, securing a $2,000 commitment from the sisters section as the first donation of the evening. “Show the family you care,” he urged the gathering.

To donate to Sabri Benkahla’s legal fund, visit www.universal-justice.net.