Investigate the Ahmed Abu-Ali Case

To:  President of the United States

9/13/09

The Honorable Barack H. Obama,
President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington DC, 20500

The Honorable Barack Hussein Obama,
President of the United States
We, the undersigned, ask you to initiate an investigation of the case of Ahmed Abu-Ali, a fellow American who has been wrongly convicted and imprisoned on the basis of a confession video that he made under torture while in a Saudi prison.
Ahmed, a Muslim American Texan native, was arrested in the middle of an exam in June 2003 while he was studying abroad in Saudi Arabia at the behest of the United States government. He was held in jail for 20 months without charges or access to an attorney, and sent back to the United States, where he was tried and convicted of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism on the basis of a false confession that was elicited in a Saudi prison through torture.
The United States government ordered Saudi Arabia to arrest Ahmed Abu-Ali in an obvious attempt to connect him to a Virginia group. Apparently when it failed to do that, it ordered Saudi Arabia to extract from him whatever it can. Saudi Arabia tortured Ahmed and extracted a false confession that was then videotaped. Meanwhile, the family reached out to the State Department, the Justice Department, the FBI, and even the White House, which sent them a letter of good wishes. All of these efforts by the government were consistently in evasion of the family’s desperate inquiry into the fate of their son. When the family finally sued in Washington, after losing hope in getting a straight answer from the government, Judge John Bates ordered the government to show the court all related materials to their knowledge of or engagement in Ahmed’s arrest, detention, or treatment in Saudi Arabia. Instead of coming clean, the Justice Department fabricated an indictment, and in a two-month period from the judge’s order, the FBI brought him from Saudi Arabia to be tried on nothing more than the primary evidence they had: the false confession videotape.
Mr. President, this is one of those cases where the government did not have to do rendition; their subject was already in a country notorious for torture, and they only had to request his detention as the Saudis were eager to comply. During the trial, many serious errors were committed even by the admission of the appeals court, but they were conveniently dismissed as “harmless errors.” Ahmed Abu-Ali’s torturers testified via video conference with no potential penalty for perjury, and they swore audaciously in the court that Saudi Arabia does not torture, while the judge refused the defense’s request to show the jury State Department reports proving that Saudi Arabia is notorious for torture!
Mr. President, we appreciate the fact that you spoke and acted forcefully against torture, and we appreciate your principled stance on this and many other issues. While prohibiting future torture is a preventive remedy, it is no consolation to anyone in our prisons whose evidence was primarily obtained through the use of torture. We urge your good office to initiate a comprehensive review/investigation of all cases in which evidence was tainted by torture, starting with this case. We strongly urge you to send a stronger message that our nation is not only willing to stand to correct its course into the future, but is also willing to correct the wrongs that have been done as a result of torture.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Investigate the Ahmed Abu-Ali Case Petition to President of the United States was created by and written by Shaker Elsayed (universaljusticefoundation@gmail.com).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.