The full text of the US Government indictment against Babar Ahmad (.pdf), the British IT support person at Imperial College in London, who is in the process of being extradited to the USA, rather than being put on trial here in the UK, makes interesting reading.
It seems to show that Babar Ahmad paid for and administered the "Azzam Publications" website, hosted in the USA, which ran a bulletiin board discussion forum, in which alleged Islamic fundamentalists discussed support for the Taleban in Afghanistan and the groups fighting for the independence of Chechnya from Russia.
It is hard to see how any of this was illegal in the UK, or even the USA, back in the late 1990's, before September 11th 2001.
Neither the Taleban nor the particular group of Chechen rebels were proscribed terrorist organisations at the time. Even today, for some unfathomable reason or other, they are not on the list of proscribed terrorist groups published by the Home Office i.e. it is not illegal to support them with money for "humanitarian relief" or "charitable" purposes etc.
There is nothing in the indictment which alleges that the Azzam Publications website actually collected any money online through credit cards, PayPal etc. or that any that Babar Ahmad was actually sending any money to Chechnya or Afghanistan himself.
There may well have been illegal activities by the people who used the Azzam Publications website and email accounts e.g. someone actually in the USA (not Babar Ahmad himself) sending money to Afghanistan, which was under economic sanctions put in place by President Clinton in 1999.
It is clear from the indictment, that despite Babar Ahmad working in IT support, he did not hack in to US Navy systems to obtain a classified US Navy document, as some of the media hype has given the impression.
The "accurate", but rapidly out of date information, circa April 2001, in his possession about the composition of a "US Navy battle group" patrolling the Persian Gulf, and its continued vulnerability to attacks like that on the USS Cole, came, apparently, from some emails from an "enlisted serviceman" on a US Navy warship, the USS Benfold. The fate of this individual, is deliberately not made clear in the indictment. Is he now being held in Guantanamo Bay without trial or is he facing a proper court martial ? Was this all a false "intelligence" entrapment operation, or an amateur attempt to try to contact Islamic fundamentalists by a bored US Navy serviceman ?
If this "US Navy enlisted serviceman" is not available to be questioned in person as a witness in court, then any charges against Babar Ahmad regarding this alleged "Naval intelligence" must be unfair, since an email can be so easily faked, even one in which was allegedly sent from the actual USS Benfold itself, hardly the action of a trained spy or terrorist.
Why did the UK and USA authorities not simply continue to monitor the website and email traffic rather than arrest Babar Ahmad ? After all, this had already uncovered a security risk on active service aboard a US warship.
The interesting part of the indictment, from the point of view of those people like ourselves who value our privacy is the use of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption by Babar Ahmad.
It seems that a PGP private signing keyring and a public encryption keyring were recovered from Babar Ahmad's computers seized in his office at Imperial College.
The indictment tries to paint the use of a PGP keyring and digital signature with respect to the domain registration details for the Azzam Publications website as something sinister, when in fact it is a standard security feature used to prevent the hijacking of .com domain names by people who forge faxes , letterheads and emails, purporting to come from the true owners of a domain name.
There is no mention in the indictment of any actual PGP encrypted emails to and from Babar Ahmad.
There is mention of a PGP Disk volume, which seems to have been decrypted and deleted directories and files recovered, which were postings and pages which had been published on the Azzam Publications website using the website design and upload tool Dreamweaver i.e. they had already been made public to the whole internet.
There is no mention of whether or not Babar Ahmad supplied the PGP passphrase to decrypt the PGP Disk volume or if brute force or dictionary attack or other methods were used.
The legal situation regarding the seizure of encryption keys in the UK is still unsatisfactory, because, even though this area is addressed in Part III "Investigation of electronic data protected by encryption etc." of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, this part of the Act has still not yet been brought into force, nearly 4 years after it was passed into law.
Given that Babar Ahmad was arrested in December 2003 under the Terrorism Act, and was released without charge, is this extradition to the USA simply an exercise in "jurisdiction shopping" in order to convict a British citizen of activities which are not actually illegal in the United Kingdom ?
We do not support either the Taleban or Chechen rebels, but they do not really represent a military or terrorist threat to the United Kingdom, a view which seems to be borne out by the Home Office, which does not bother to list them as proscribed terrorist organisations.
You write as though this guy hasn't been accused of doing anything wrong that is actually "wrong" morally.
I agree that the UK government should stick to its own rules - to do otherwise merely re-inforces the extremists negative view of the UK. I also agree that the UK is apparently responding to pressure from the US not to do so,
Appendix B of the indictement seems to reflect a well handled investigation and cites specific evidence. Yes the UK has made a massive blunder in presecuting him, effectively forgetting to make supporting the Taliban a crime, but lets not paint him as a victim either.
Some hobgoblins are real, SJG
Babar Ahmad and the notorious Abu Hamza al-Masri, are both British citizens who, it would seem, the UK Government does not have enough evidence to charge with any crime in the UK, despite having had them in custody under the Terrorism Act, so they are being extradited to the USA.
Farid Hilali although held under immigration offences, is in a similar postion - not enough evidence for a trial in the UK, but he is being extradited to Spain under the new European Arrest Warrant.
In all these cases the only "evidence" against them seems to be purely electronic computer and or mobile phone and alleged "voice analysis" evidence, which can be easily and undetectably faked. There is no evidence of weapons or explosives or toxins etc.
They are all being extradited to another country to face charges about alleged activities in third or fourth countries. How can that be justice ?
Why can't they be tried in the UK ? Surely our anti-terrorism laws cannot be made any more draconian or catch all ?
It really does not matter what crimes they are alleged to have committed, or if they are guilty of them or not, it is the legal precedent that these extraditions on such flimsy evidence sets for all the rest of us living in the UK, that is the most worrying aspect of these cases.
excellent points, keep up the hard work!
this man must not be allowed to win the seat of North Brent London in the coming election
Is he actually standing in the election ?
Since he has not been convicted of anything in the UK, technically, he probably could stand
Didn't nominations close yesterday ?
Winning the seat seems an unlikely possability.
The BBC seems to have a report on this,so it must be true 8-)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4465683.stm
Hilarious really. Look at the U.S. and anyone suspects the rest of the world isn't as corrupt. You've all been mistaken there.
Background Info to this tory is at Cryptome.
Babar Ahmad was linked to New Jersey Imam Mazan Mokhtar. The link contains cached versions of the website which sought to garner support/donations for the Taleban or Chechen rebels.
This is a similar case to that of Sakina Security Services, a 'honeypot' Jihadist website that enlisted British Muslims to train in the US at camps owned/operated by ex UK Forces Mark Yates.
The enlisting of Muslim 'Patsies' was undertaken around 1999-early 2001, and one can only guess what these poor souls got involved with (91177).
Questions were asked in the British House of Commons re Sakina/Yates, but check the answers for yourself.