Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi

Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi is a businessman who has been designated a terrorist by the American government. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi was involved in multiple lawsuits concerning his alleged involvement in that as well as other terrorist activities.

The legal actions taken by Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi commenced in December of 2001. At this time, he filed a lawsuit challenging the validity of being labeled a terrorist suspect by the American government. In this lawsuit, Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi also challenged the freezing of his assets by the European Union on the grounds that this had occurred without due process of the law. In 2004, his request to have his terrorist label removed was rejected by the American government, which cited numerous evidence of his funding of terrorist activities. The European Union also rejected his request to be delisted in 2005.

In November of 2002, Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi was added to the list of defendants in a lawsuit that had been initiated in August of that year by relatives of victims of the events of September 11. The case would eventually be heard in Federal Criminal Court in Switzerland. In it, Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi was charged with funding the construction of student housing at a Yemen university while aware that the money being contributed was being repurposed for use in the attacks of September 11. In 2005, the Federal Criminal Court found Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi innocent of these charges.

In 2007 Switzerland concluded a six year investigation regarding Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi and concluded that he was not a terrorist. He was therefore removed from the list of terrorists maintained separately by Switzerland, which is not a member nation of the European Union.

In 2008, Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi was successful in obtaining a ruling from the European Court of Justice that overturned sanctions which had been placed against him. The court agreed with the claims of the attorneys of Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi that the sanctions had been undertaken without due process, including failure to disclose the steps being taken or to share the evidence being taken into consideration. Following this ruling, the European Union provided Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi with a summary of the evidence against him and reinstated the sanctions.

In 2009, Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi filed a lawsuit against the American Department of Treasury, again alleging that the steps that agency took to freeze his assets ignored his right to due process. That same year, he filed a second challenge to the European Union's sanctions. The European Court of Justice ruled in his favor, citing the lack of due process.

In March of 2012, the lawsuit filed by Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi against the Department of Treasury was dismissed. In issuing this ruling, the presiding judge noted that the evidence assembled against Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi was in excess of 2,000 pages justified his being labeled a terrorist.

Drew Peterson

Drew Peterson is a former police officer convicted of the murder of his third wife in 2012. The prominence accorded to his case led to a great deal of media attention, as well as new legislation in the state of Illinois.

The legal problems surrounding Drew Peterson began following the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, in 2004. When her corpse was found in a bathtub, an autopsy determined that her death was the result of accidental drowning. The year prior, Drew Peterson had married his fourth wife, Stacy Ann Cales. When she disappeared in 2007, the body of Kathleen Savio received a second autopsy, which resulted in the conclusion that she had been deliberately drowned.

In 2009, Drew Peterson was indicted by a grand jury in the murder of Kathleen Savio. Subsequently, bail was set at $20 million. Drew Peterson attempted to use a home-equity credit line issued by the bank JP Morgan Chase to pay this bail, but instead the credit line was revoked. A subsequent decision by the presiding judge ruled that Drew Peterson would remain in custody as a flight risk.

In 2008, the Illinois legislature passed a new law allowing for "hearsay" evidence to be used in cases where someone who was killed or disappeared to prevent their testimony spoke to a witness available to indirectly report their evidence. However, in pretrial hearings, defense attorneys for Drew Peterson that there was not sufficient direct evidence to prosecute and convict him. The prosecution had built its case around statements from witnesses who had spoken with Kathleen Savio and Stacy Cales prior to their respective death and disappearance. At those times, Savio had expressed fear for her life, while Cales had spoken about her knowledge of the role Drew Peterson played in the death of Kathleen Savio. The prosecution appealed, and in April of 2012 it was ruled by a state appeals court that the prosecution could introduce this hearsay evidence.

In the subsequent trial, jurors cited two such statements of hearsay evidence by witnesses as crucial in their decision to convict Drew Peterson. One was the testimony of the pastor of Stacy Cales, who spoke about how she had told him about various pieces of evidence indicting Drew Peterson in the death of his third wife. Another was the testimony of a divorce attorney who had been in contact with Stacy Cales prior to her disappearance, who had similar evidence to report.

In September of 2012, Drew Peterson was found guilty by a jury of the murder of Kathleen Savio. Drew Peterson appealed the verdict. In October of 2012, Drew Peterson dismissed his attorney Joel Brodsky and filed a motion for a new trial listing 14 alleged instances of malpractice. In particular, the motion singled out the decision to call the divorce attorney to the stand as a defense witness despite Drew Peterson's desire not to do so.

Wilfred Von der Ahe

Wilfred Von der Ahe co-founded the Vons supermarket chain, often cited as the first super market. The first such location was opened in 1948. A decade later they had become the third largest supermarket chain in the Los Angeles area. In 1960 Vons acquired a competitor, Shopping Food Bag Stores.

This purchase made by the company of Wilfred Von der Ahe was challenged by the Federal Trade Commission, which alleged that this purchase was a violation of section 7 of the Clayton Act, an important piece of anti-trust legislation. The case eventually was heard by the Supreme Court, which ruled on the case in 1966.

In considering United States v. Von's Grocery Store, the Supreme Court had to rule upon whether the action taken by the company of Wilfred Von der Ahe had violated section 7. When Vons and Shopping Food Bag Stores were combined, the total market share was just less than eight percent. Five of the justices agreed that this combined market share was a violation of section 7 and posed antitrust problems, while two justices dissented, one wrote a separate concurring opinion, and one abstained.

In ruling against Wilfred Von der Ahe, the majority opinion wrote that Section 7 was explicitly intended to guard against companies gaining excessive control of a particular market share. The majority opinion went on to note that this was especially the case in markets which were continuously consolidating the number of competitors, creating an anti-competitive, monopolistic market. In his separate concurrence, justice Byron White noted that the consolidation of market shares in Southern California gave eight firms control over more than 40% of the market. Therefore, he continued, any merger involving one of these eight leading companies was subject challenge under Section 7.

In their dissenting opinion, two justices outlined several reasons why they felt the acquisition was not subject to legal challenge. Among other details, the company noted that half of the stores owned by Wilfred Von der Ahe and his company were not in a geographical position to compete with Shopping Food Bag Stores in other ways. The dissenting opinion went on to express a concern that restricting these type of mergers might itself create an anti-competitive market environment.

As a result of the majority opinion's ruling, Wilfred Von der Ahe's company was ordered to sell off all of the Shopping Bag Food Stores it had acquired. Following this verdict, the Supreme Court was subjected to criticism from businesses which claimed the precedent set made any merger vulnerable to this type of challenge. As a partial result of this criticism, in 1968 the Department of Justice issued its first set of Horizontal Merger Guidelines, which set specific thresholds, thereby codifying a system for evaluating the legality of a proposed merger. These guidelines also stipulated that mergers which resulted in a market share of less than eight percent were unlikely to be challenged. These guidelines were revised and issued in 1992, and again in 2010.

How was the Aryan Brotherhood formed?

According the FBI and NPR, the Aryan Brotherhood was formed in the San Quentin maximum-security prison in California in 1964.  Some rumors indicate the brotherhood start as early as the 1950s, but a group of Irish bikers officially formed the brotherhood to retaliate against members of the Black Guerrilla Family. 

History of the Aryan Brotherhood

Throughout its history, the brotherhood has been made up of incarcerated white supremacists who retaliated against Mexican and black prisoners.  Recently, the group has focused less on white supremacy and more on maintaining dominancy within the prison systems. 

The group experienced the most growth during the 1980s and operated at federal prisons in California and state prisons as well.  During the 1980s, two of the brotherhood’s most notorious members, Barry Mills and Tyler Bingham, begin to control the gangs in the prisons. 

The FBI warned prisons about the Aryan Brother in 1982 because the FBI suspected they were recruiting gang members from more prisons in other states.  Subsequently, four prison guards were stabbed by brotherhood members at the U.S. Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois on October 22, 1983.  Two of the guards died, and it was the first time in U.S. history that two guards were killed in a federal prison on the same day. 

Starting in the 1990s, authorities began to relocate members of the brotherhood to maximum security prisons around the country where the prisoners were made to stay in a single cell for most of the day.  Even with increased security measures, the brotherhood continued to murder prisoners and traffic drugs in the prison. 

The gang went on to commit a large amount of murders and crimes during the 1990s.  For example, a strangulation occurred at the Lompoc federal prison in California in 1992, and Barry Mills and T.D. Bingham ordered a “race war” at a prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in 1997 that resulted in two black inmates dying.  In 1995, brotherhood member Robert Scully was released from prison and shot a police officer only six days later.  

In 1999, Barry Mills wrote letters to the majority of brotherhood members on parole, and he encouraged the members to try and extend the brotherhood outside of the prison system.    

Charges Against the Aryan Brotherhood Leaders

Charges were finally brought against leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood on August 28, 2002 by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Jessner.  The members were charged with murders by stabling, poisoning, strangulation and other crimes like extortion, narcotics trafficking, and more.

On March 14, 2006, Barry Mills, T.D. Bingham, Edgar Hevle, and Christopher Overton Gibson were brought to trial.  The four suspected leaders of the brotherhood were accused for their roles in 15 murders that occurred over the last 25 years.  Additionally, racketeering charges were brought against 40 members of the brotherhood and prosecutors presented evidence of the brotherhood’s involvement in 32 murders that occurred both in and out of the prison system.  The men were sentenced to additional life sentences without the chance of parole.

Source: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5558210

The Taguba Report investigated the alleged abuse and torture that occurred at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.  American soldiers with the 320^th Military Police Battalion were charged by the Department of Defense for the crimes, and a total of 11 soldiers faced courts martial and military prison time. 

The crimes listed in the Taguba report directly violated terms under the Geneva Conventions.  The Office of the Secretary of Defense and Joint Staff describes the violations in sections 6 and 8 of Part One of the AR-15 (Finding and Recommendations), aka the Taguba Report. 

Section 6 described the following crimes against prisoners of war:

·         punching, slapping and kicking, including jumping on their feet

·         taking pictures and video of name male and female prisoners

·         arranging detainees against their will in sexual positions

·         forcing detainees to remain naked for days in a row

·         making male detainees wear lady’s underwear

·         forcing males to masturbate while being recorded and photographed

·         placing naked males in piles and jumping on them

·         placing a naked male in a box with a sandbag on his head and wire attached to his phalanges and penis

·         writing the words “I am a Rapist” on the leg of a detainee and photographing the name naked

·         making a male detainee wear a dog leash and having a female solider pose next to the man

·         a male military police member had sex with a female detainee

·         threatening and intimidating detainees with non-muzzled work dogs

·         taking pictures of dead detainees

Section 8 describes other violations that include breaking chemical lights and pouring phosphoric on detainee, sodomizing a male detainee with a chemical light, repeated threats with work dogs, and more. 

The Taguba Report severely damaged the United State’s reputation in the eyes of local Iraqis and allies around the world as well.  The U.S. military saw a huge backlash from the Arab community after the report surfaced. 

According to the US National Library of Medicine, a pseudocommando “is a type of mass murderer who kills in public during the daytime, plans his offense well in advance, and comes prepared with a powerful arsenal of weapons.”  These murderers do not show signs of planned escape after the killings, and research shows that a pseudocommando is often motivated by extreme feelings of anger while trying to issue payback through his or her spree of killings. 

Some of these mass murderers may contact the public or news media, but the National Library of Medicine admits that little analysis has been devoted to analyzing the language and patterns of speech of the pseudocommando before he or she commits the crime.  

The majority of mass murders that qualify as a pseudocommando are males. 

In an article by James L. Knoll IV, MD in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Seung-Hui Cho is described as a pseudocommando.  Cho is the student at Virginia Tech who shot and killed 33 students and faculty, wounded 24 other people, and eventually committed suicide. 

Cho committed the mass murder on April 16, 2007, and he was analyzed by a psychologist on December 14, 2005 after campus students complained he harassed them.  The psychologist believed Cho was mentally ill but posed no risk to himself or the surrounding community. 

Cho did not cause any more trouble until the shootings on April 16, 2007.  On the same day, NBC received recorded video and 43 photographs from Cho.  He showed signs of mental illness, planned the attack, and contacted the media with a manifesto—all indicative of a pseudocommando. 

The most recent mass killing occurred on July 30, 2012 when James Eagan Holmes killed 12 people at a movie theater in Colorado.  Holmes also showed signs of mental illness and planned the attack in advance.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20305080

Napoleon Beazley was convicted by the State of Texas for the murder of John Luttig in 1994.  Beazley was 17 years old at the time of the crime, and his death by legal injection on May 28, 2002 sparked public outrage from a split community.  The two other defendants, Cedric Coleman and Donald Coleman, were 19 and 18 at the time of the crime and received life in prison instead of death by lethal injection. 

The details of the murder are provided below:

Napoleon Beazley took his mother’s car on the night of April 19, 1994 and picked up Cedric and Donald Coleman.  Beazley was carrying a .45-caliber pistol and a sawed-off shotgun and soon followed John and Bobbie Luttig home. 

Beazley took his .45-caliber pistol, ran toward the garage, and shot John Luttig in the side of the side.  John remained alive but stunned, and Beazley quickly ran around to the other side of the car to Mrs. Luttig.  He fired a shot at close range and missed, but Mrs. Luttig still fell to the ground.  Then, Beazley returned to where Mr. Luttig was sitting and shot him point blank in the head. 

Beazley proceeded to search Mr. Luttig’s pockets and found his Mercedes keys.  He escaped with the Mercedes but lost control and crashed the car into a retaining wall.  He soon regrouped with Cedric and Donald Coleman and abandoned the Mercedes. 

Napoleon Beazley and the two other defendants were eventually arrested.  Beazley was sentenced to death by lethal injection on March 17, 1995 and soon begun the appeal process.  Cedric and Donald Coleman received life in prison. 

On June 3, 1997, Beazley filed for state writ of habeas corpus, and the evidentiary hearing began on September 5, 1997.  He was eventually denied relief on January 21, 1998, and the process of denied relief and permission to appeal began.  Napoleon Beazley was eventually scheduled for execution, but he was granted a stay of execution on August 15, 2001.  The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals eventually threw out the stay of execution and Beazley was scheduled for execution on May 22, 2002. 

In a last effort to avoid execution, Beazley petitioned for certiorari review from the Supreme Court on May 22.  The petition was denied, and Beazley was executed on May 28, 2012.  He was the 19^th murderer under the age of 18 executed by the United States since 1976.  He was the 11^th in Texas alone. 

The media covered Napoleon Beazley’s case intensely—as is the case in any execution of a person who committed the crime when they were a juvenile.  The case also received a massive amount of media attention and reaction from the general public because of execution laws and statistics in the state of Texas compared to other states. 

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Texas allowed a total of 487 executions since 1976—more than four times the amount of death penalties granted by Virginia, the closest state with 109 total. 

Khobar Towers bombing

In 1996, a Saudi Arabia building complex housing American soldiers was the subject of a terrorist attack. This incident, known as the "Khobar Towers bombing," was the subject of considerable controversy as to who was responsible.

The Khobar Towers bombing of June 25, 1996 followed a similar 1995 car bombing in the city of Khobar. American forces in Saudi Arabia were already on heightened alert. Despite warnings from various Saudi citizens of plans being made for the Khobar Towers bombing, the American government and military failed to take steps to prepare and protect the facility. However, a soldier on sentry duty noticed the arrival of three vehicles and helped evacuate much of the building prior to the detonation of a truck bomb. 19 Americans were killed in the attack, as well as one Saudi citizen.

Following the Khobar Towers bombing, the American government conducted multiple reviews to determine what kind of new safety standards should be implemented. The FBI initiated an investigation concerning the Khobar Towers bombing. During their investigation, the CIA had already issued warnings that Iran's law enforcement was to be considered a hostile threat. In 1997, the "Washington Post" published a story about Hani al-Sayegh, who Saudi intelligence said drove the get-away vehicle following the Khobar Towers bombing. In 2009, later reports suggested that this story was false and that Hani al-Sayegh disclaimed any involvement in the Khobar Towers bombing.

In 2001, an indictment was issued as the result of the FBI investigation into the Khobar Towers bombing. This indictment named 14 men as participants in the conspiracy to organize the Khobar Towers bombing and stated that all were members of Hezbollah, a militant organization which the government claimed had been obtaining funding from the Iranian government. However, the indictment did not name any members of the Iranian government as being directly involved in the Khobar Towers bombing.

This indictment was issued just within the five year statute of limitations during which this could be returned. At the time of this indictment, a press conference was held in which the Attorney General, John Ashcroft, and the FBI's director, Louis Freeh, stated that the choice not to name any Iranian government members was not motivated by considerations about maintaining diplomatic relations. The government also claimed that some of those in the indictment were already in the custody of the American judicial system.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the committee investigating those attacks discovered evidence suggesting that the terrorist organization al Qaeda might have been behind the Khobar Towers bombing. Various government officials have since expressed the opinion that Iran was not responsible for instigating or financing the Khobar Towers bombing. None of the people named in the indictment concerning the Khobar Towers bombing received trials for their role in the attack. No official government position concerning who was responsible for the Khobar Towers bombing has been arrived at.