Consultant gives limited testimony
BOISE – A controversial anti-terrorism activist and author who was widely expected to provide dramatic testimony against Sami Al-Hussayen left the witness stand this week after a single day of anticlimactic testimony.
Rita Katz, author of the book “Terrorist Hunter,” is the director of the SITE Institute, which stands for Search for International Terrorist Entities. The nonprofit institute, founded in July 2002, seeks to expose terrorist front groups through everything from monitoring the Internet to scouring public records and going undercover to infiltrate the groups.
“We attend events, go to mosques,” Katz told the court earlier. “We dress like them, look like them. We try also to be wired when we do that.”
Katz, a paid consultant for the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s office who played a central role in their investigation of Al-Hussayen, saw her testimony cut short weeks ago after Judge Edward Lodge ruled that the prosecution hadn’t yet shown any connection between Al-Hussayen, a University of Idaho graduate student from Saudi Arabia, and Web sites Katz planned to testify about. Now, weeks later, when Katz returned on Friday, she was able to read the jury portions of four fatwas on suicide attacks that had been posted on a Web site Al-Hussayen helped maintain, but little else.
After Katz read from those incendiary religious treatises Thursday, additional testimony from her about how various Web sites are related through links was repeatedly interrupted by objections that she was not an expert witness.
Jean McNeil, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Idaho, said, “She is a fact witness. Fact witnesses may have expertise in certain areas, like Arabic language, how to get around on the Internet.”
Expert witnesses are given more leeway to testify about their opinions, rather than just about facts.
But prosecutors, in the end, didn’t opt to include Katz among the three expert witnesses on terrorism they plan to have testify against Al-Hussayen. One of those experts, Israeli researcher Reuven Paz, is scheduled to begin testifying as soon as Monday. Another, Islamic scholar Sheikh Ahmed Subhy Mansour, already has testified, but may return.
Katz is among an “eclectic new breed of terrorism expert that has surfaced since Sept. 11, 2001,” the Los Angeles Times reported in an article last month, “young, Internet-savvy and schooled outside the intelligence establishment.”
The Times article mentioned Katz along with several other unconventional experts, including a 25-year-old law student and computer whiz named Evan Kohlmann, who the article said has picked up the nickname “the Doogie Howser of terrorism.”
A civilian group known as ‘‘7 Seas Global Intelligence” was central to the arrest of a former Washington State University student who stands accused of trying to pass military information to al Qaeda.
Katz, by her own account, is an Iraqi-born Jew and the daughter of a wealthy Iraqi businessman who was suddenly arrested after Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party seized power in 1968. Accused of spying for Israel, her father was publicly hanged in 1969, and the family later fled to Iran, and then to Israel.
Katz moved to the United States with her physician husband and young children in 1997 and, though her previous work had been in the marketing field, went to work at the Investigative Project, a counterterrorism think tank. Fluent in Arabic, Katz began working to expose extremist groups operating in the United States.
Katz’s book, which tells her story, initially was published anonymously, but after she went on “60 Minutes” in disguise to discuss her experiences, several of the organizations she named as terrorist fronts sued her, and exposed her identity. Despite her allegations, they had never been charged.
In 2003, Katz wrote an article for the conservative magazine National Review titled “Terror Tools,” in which she charged that both the Saudi government and the Islamic Assembly of North America are helping al Qaeda by waging a propaganda campaign in support of terrorism.
“Backed with copious Saudi funding, IANA has created a series of web sites respected by al Qaeda members from around the world,” Katz wrote in an article co-authored by SITE Institute analyst Josh Devon.
IANA is the Islamic charity and religious outreach organization for which Al-Hussayen was a board member, contributor and Web site operator.
Katz said in her article, “For the most part, IANA has attempted to mask its vitriolic propaganda, publishing its most radical content solely in Arabic.”
The four fatwas from which Katz read to jurors, which were posted in Arabic on the Alasr.ws Web site, have been dubbed the “core of the case” against Al-Hussayen by attorneys on both sides. Prosecutors say they show that the University of Idaho graduate student knew he was helping terrorists by working on Web sites, while the defense says they show nothing more than religious and political debate protected by the First Amendment. They also say the fatwas don’t represent Al-Hussayen’s views; each was written by a different Islamic cleric.
The four documents debate the religious justifications for suicide attacks, despite the prohibition of suicide in the Quran. All four conclude that such attacks are permissible against Jews in Israel and Russians in Chechnya.
Al-Hussayen, 34, faces charges of providing material support to terrorists by funneling money to Islamic organizations and helping operate and maintain a series of Web sites for the groups. He also faces immigration charges for engaging in those activities while in the country on a student visa.
Katz’s testimony ended Friday with questioning about her own visa problems when she entered the United States. Katz testified that as a new immigrant in 1997, she misunderstood work permit requirements related to her visa and was employed, in at least one job and possibly two, before she was legally authorized to work. Under cross-examination, she acknowledged that she detailed those problems in her autobiographical book, in which she expressed disgust for burdensome government requirements.
Katz also acknowledged that her contract with the government calls for her to be paid up to $180,000, and that she already has been paid more than $130,000 for her work on the case.