Maybe it’s something about all the terrorists on American soil.
A federal prosecutor who has led a series of investigations into Islamic militants and Muslim groups based in Virginia, Gordon Kromberg, may soon be facing a trial of sorts himself, if defense lawyers get their way.
Attorneys for a former Florida college professor who pleaded guilty two years ago to aiding Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami Al-Arian, are asking a federal judge to hold a hearing on whether anti-Muslim bias led to the government’s decision to obtain a new indictment of Al-Arian in June for contempt for refusing to testify before grand juries pursuing the Virginia organizations.
While the motion claims Muslim terrorism suspects are generally treated unfairly by the Justice Department, Al-Arian’s lawyers argue that Mr. Kromberg, 51, has a particularly egregious record of intemperate statements and actions in a series of terrorism-related cases and investigations.
“Defense attorneys have objected for years that Mr. Kromberg, the lead counsel in many of these cases, has been using the Eastern District of Virginia to mete out his own brand of justice for Muslim terrorism subjects, often openly displaying his personal animus,” Al-Arian’s lead counsel, Jonathan Turley, wrote. “This long and controversial record forms the backdrop for the allegation of selective and malicious prosecution in this case.”
Al-Arian’s lawyers claim that in 2006, when Mr. Kromberg moved to obtain new testimony from the former professor following his guilty plea in Florida, the prosecutor “became agitated” in response to a defense lawyer’s request that the testimony be put off until after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. “They can kill each other during Ramadan. They can appear before the grand jury; all they can’t do is eat before sunset,” Mr. Kromberg responded, according to a declaration written by one of Al-Arian’s attorneys, Jack Fernandez. Mr. Fernandez said the prosecutor described the request for a postponement as “all part of the attempted Islamization of the American justice system.” Mr. Fernandez wrote that he viewed the comments as exhibiting “apparent bias against Muslims.”
I’ve got bias against the cocksuckers, too. Especially when their religious doctrine involves killing the ‘infidel’.
Al-Arian received a four-year, nine month sentence for his role as leader for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in America.
……Al-Arian’s lawyers are also pointing to the arguments Mr. Kromberg made in the trial of a Virginia cancer researcher and Muslim preacher, Ali al-Timimi, who was accused of exhorting others to wage war against America by joining the Taliban. In the case, Mr. Kromberg argued that the religious beliefs of the defendant and other witnesses made it acceptable to lie to kaffirs, or nonbelievers in Islam. “If you are a kaffir, Timimi believes in time of war, he’s supposed to lie to you,” the prosecutor told jurors. Al-Timimi was convicted of treason and sentenced to life in prison.
“Kromberg argued to the jury that Timimi and the other Muslim witnesses — their testimony should be disregarded just on the basis of their religion,” al-Timimi’s defense lawyer, Edward MacMahon Jr., said. “I think it’s an outrageous thing to argue in the courtroom. Imagine that directed at any other religion.”
What’s outrageous is the defense of a terrorist whose religion advocates the violent acts that brought slugs like Timimi to trial in the first place.
……A lawyer and former federal prosecutor who has squared off with Mr. Kromberg in court, Henry FitzGerald, said the prosecutor has acquired a reputation for leaving no stone unturned in cases relating to terrorism or funding for Islamic militant groups.
“Kromberg is absolutely relentless in his pursuit of everything that could be pursued in the way of forfeiture or prosecutions in this area. He’s just indefatigable, relentless, tireless,” Mr. FitzGerald said. “If you say he’s doing the country’s work to fight terrorism, that’s good, he’s a good fighter, but a lot of people say it’s overkill, he doesn’t listen to reasonable arguments. Everything is black until somebody takes him to court to prove it’s white.”
Mr. FitzGerald said Mr. Kromberg, while unusually persistent, does not take quixotic stances. “Kromberg’s not a dumb man. He’s smart. He’s not going to go out and take an utterly groundless case, raise hell with it, and get himself in trouble. He just goes straight ahead, doesn’t look left or right and pushes to the absolute limit,” Mr. FitzGerald said.
Mr. Kromberg sought Al-Arian’s testimony as part of an investigation into the finances of a Herndon, Va.- based think tank, the International Institute of Islamic Thought. In 2002, federal authorities executed search warrants at IIIT’s headquarters and more than a dozen other locations, including residences of the organization’s officers. Court papers said prosecutors had evidence of financial transfers involving the think tank, nonprofit groups, including some run by Al-Arian, and terrorist movements abroad, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
……Some of the ire directed at Mr. Kromberg by the Muslim community stems from his vigorous prosecution of the so-called Paintball Eleven, a group of Muslims accused of training in Virginia to fight with a Pakistani militant group, Lashkar e-Taiba, against Indian forces in Kashmir. Nine of the eleven men were convicted at trial or pled guilty. Two were acquitted.
Of course the Left and Islamic sypathizers are going to scream “McCarthyism”:
…..”When you look at the prosecutions together, there is a pattern that really doesn’t make Mr. Kromberg look very good,” a Muslim scholar from Maryland who has been subpoenaed in the IIIT probe, Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, said. “It reminds me of the Red Scare. Communism was a serious problem for America, but some people seemed to think almost every liberal was a Communist. Mr. Kromberg and a handful of other people in the government seem to have the same approach when it comes to outspoken Muslims.”
Yeah, especially the ones who call for ‘death to America’ and recruit jihadists within our own borders.
……Still, Al-Arian may not get far with his argument that Mr. Kromberg used religion to win a tainted conviction against al-Timimi. Judge Brinkema, who will have to rule on the selective prosecution motion, presided over al-Timimi’s trial and rejected defense motions that Mr. Kromberg’s comments improperly invoked the defendant’s religion.
Link: http://www.nysun.com/national/a-prosecutor-is-called-relentless/82727/
Hopefully, this latest attempt by radical muslims to use our judicial system as part of their campaign for a world Calpihate, will be tossed out summarily.
Kromberg is doing his job as both a prosecutor and a protector of national security.
Stay relentless, Mr. Kromberg.