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Prosecution shares phone evidence in case
| Monday, Oct 30 2006 9:55 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Oct 30 2006 9:59 PM
FRESNO -- Copies of more than 100 phone calls intercepted by the government were handed over Monday to the defense attorney representing Amen Ahmed Ali, the Bakersfield man accused of trying to acquire and sell defense secrets and stolen military equipment.
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The calls are part of the prosecution's evidence against Ali and were recorded under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The act allows a secret court in Washington, D.C., to authorize electronic surveillance on people suspected of engaging in espionage or terrorism.
Carl Faller, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, believes this is the first time evidence collected under FISA has been presented in a case in U.S. District Court, Fresno.
Five taped phone conversations were also given to Rick Berman, the lawyer for Ibrahim Omer, a Sudanese-born, naturalized citizen also charged in the case.
Omer was released from custody earlier this month on a $150,000 bond. Ali was denied bail in a previous hearing due to his alleged ties with a convicted terrorist financier. Ali's lawyer, David Torres, said he plans to ask the judge to reconsider bail, but Torres wants to review the intercepted calls first.
Monday's batch of phone calls came in addition to recorded conversations allegedly between Ali and a government informant that had previously been turned over to the defense.
In those calls, the informants were the ones attacking the government, Torres said.
Torres said the government's informants were two men posing as members of Ali's Delano mosque.
"They were probably motivated by the almighty dollar," he said, referring to an anti-terrorism case in Lodi.
In that case, the government paid a 33-year-old man $235,000 to pose as an Islamic radical and infiltrate a local mosque, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Faller declined to comment on the identity of the undercover agents, but said: "Nobody here is charged with saying bad things about the government. The defendants are charged with ... what they did."
The case will return to court for a motions hearing Jan. 16.