*NEW YORK: A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday voided the November 2005conviction of a Pakistani man for conspiring to help an Al Qaeda operativeenter the United States, saying new evidence cast doubt on the defendant’sguilt.*
Uzair Paracha, 38, has been serving a 30-year prison term for allegedlyhelping Majid Khan obtain travel documents, after Khan plotted with AlQaeda leaders to bomb underground storage tanks at Maryland gas stations.
But US District Judge Sidney Stein said newly discovered statements made byKhan, al Qaeda operative Ammar al Baluchi and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, theaccused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, called into questionwhether Paracha knew he was helping al Qaeda.
Stein, who oversaw Paracha’s trial and imposed his sentence, called it a“manifest injustice” to let the conviction stand and granted Paracha’srequest, made in November 2008, for a new trial.
The new evidence “would yield a fundamentally different trial and likelycreate a reasonable doubt favouring Paracha’s theory of the case over thegovernment’s,” Stein wrote.
Paracha had said he knew Khan but was ignorant of his Al Qaeda ties, andthat he made incriminating statements before trial out of fear and amisguided hope that cooperating would help
James Margolin, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, declined todiscuss the decision or a possible retrial. Paracha is housed at thefederal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
“We’re gratified by the decision,” his lawyer Joshua Dratel said in aninterview. “It shows that having access to witnesses can make all thedifference at trial.”
Prosecutors said Paracha had impersonated Khan in phone calls with U.S.immigration authorities and by using his credit card, to make it appearthat Khan was in the United States.
They also said Paracha and his father discussed with Khan and al Baluchireceiving $200,000 in al Qaeda funds to support their businesses inexchange for aiding Khan’s reentry efforts.
In Tuesday’s decision, Stein pointed to statements made by Khan, al Baluchiand Mohammed to government agents at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they weredetained.
These included Khan’s “new, repeated, and unambiguous assertions ofdefendant’s innocence,” and Mohammed’s failure to mention Paracha or hisfather even as he “freely” implicated other al Qaeda members in dozens ofcrimes and plots.
Stein ruled after Paracha, in a handwritten letter dated Feb. 7, called histhen 110-month wait for a ruling a “clear abuse” of the “orderly, efficientadministration of justice.”