Judge Gets No Answers on Syrian: Former Toronto Suspect Jailed in U.S. for Border Breach

Judge Gets No Answers on Syrian: Former Toronto Suspect Jailed in U.S. for Border Breach

by Anne Marie Owens
The National Post
September 4, 2002

BUFFALO, N.Y. - A one-time Toronto resident once pinpointed as a key Canadian connection to the World Trade Center bombings has been given a minimal sentence for a routine immigration violation, despite the serious misgivings of a judge who said he worries there is more to the case.

Nabil al-Marabh, whose name appeared on an FBI watch list for terrorist suspects and whom CSIS described as someone "connected to the bin Laden network," was sentenced to eight months in jail yesterday after admitting he illegally smuggled himself into the United States aboard the sleeping compartment of a truck crossing the border from Canada.

The 35-year-old Syrian citizen, who was born in Kuwait and once owned a printing business with his uncle in Toronto, will be deported sometime after he has finished serving out his sentence.

District Judge Richard J. Arcara said he could not say "in good conscience" whether the sentence hammered out in a plea bargain between U.S. federal prosecutors and al-Marabh's lawyers was appropriate. "Something about this case makes me feel uncomfortable. I just don't have a lot of information," Judge Arcara said in court yesterday. Indeed, there are a number of lingering questions about what al-Marabh was doing during the past several years spent in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Boston, Detroit and Chicago.

The RCMP raided the print shop and later arrested Hassan Almrei, a Mississauga resident who is now facing deportation to Syria, largely because he knew al-Marabh.

One of the men to whom al-Marabh was connected was convicted of threatening to blow up a tourist hotel in Jordan and four of the men with whom he shared an apartment in Detroit were charged last week with running a sleeper terrorist cell after investigators uncovered documents suggesting they may have been plotting an attack on Disneyland or Las Vegas.

When U.S. authorities picked up al-Marabh in Chicago a week after last year's Sept. 11 attacks, the arrest was highly publicized and touted as part of the government's nationwide crackdown on terrorism.

Al-Marabh has maintained he is not a terrorist and is not linked to any terrorist organizations.

Last month, Judge Arcara refused to pass sentence on the lesser immigration charge against al-Marabh because of the spectre of terrorism hanging over the case.

Since then, federal prosecutors assured the judge in two letters there was no evidence "at this time" to suggest al-Marabh was involved in terrorist activities.

Despite those assurances, Judge Arcara remained unswayed yesterday. He questioned al-Marabh's "somewhat sporadic" employment and how he managed to amass the $22,000 in cash and $25,000 worth of amber jewels when he was arrested last year.

"These are the things that kind of bother me. It's kind of unusual, isn't it?" said the judge.

Al-Marabh's lawyer, Marianne Mariano of the public defender's office in Buffalo, explained the jewels had been in al-Marabh's family and said the cash came from the sale of his portion of Best Copy, the Toronto copying business he shared with his uncle, Ahmad Shehab.

Judge Arcara dismissed two concerns raised by Ms. Mariano as issues "that weigh most heavily" on al-Marabh: his deportation to Syria, a country in which he has spent so little of his life, and his sadness over his mother dying this year without knowing where her son was.

Al-Marabh has also complained he was mistreated while in custody and denied access to proper legal representation throughout much of his time in jail.

His lawyer had requested the judge consider al-Marabh's sentence as time already served, since he has been in custody for almost a year, some of it in a maximum security prison in Brooklyn under 23-hour lockdown.

Judge Arcara refused, and instead ordered that the maximum eight-month sentence would begin from May 22, when al-Marabh was first indicted on the immigration charge.

Michael Battle, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, admitted the case presented "an odd situation" because of al-Marabh's connections to high-profile terrorism cases.

"I can't go around charging people based on what's going on with other people," he said outside court. "His name and his identity gets linked to other things connected to terrorism.... How he gets linked, we don't know. We have to go on evidence we have."

Mr. Battle said although there is no evidence at this time of any terrorist links, he would not rule out the possibility evidence may arise in the months before al-Marabh is to be deported.

"I can tell you that if this defendant has any links to any terrorist group or any terrorist organization, we are prepared to pursue that evidence," he said.

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