Suspected Al-Qaeda sleeper agent Ali al-Marri, the last "enemy combatant" held on US soil, pleaded not guilty in a federal court Monday to charges of conspiring to support terrorism.
"We would enter a plea of not guilty at this time and demand a jury," lawyer Lee Smith told the judge on behalf of Marri.
Mari has been held since Friday at the Pekin Federal Correctional Institute in Illinois, his first time held outside a military facility since president George W. Bush declared him an enemy combatant in 2003.
The 43-year-old dual Saudi-Qatari national had spent nearly six years in isolation in a military brig in South Carolina without charge.
Defense attorney Andrew Savage told reporters that Marri had no complaints about his care and treatment at the jail, where he is being held "pretty much in isolation" in a separate housing facility.
"He's not bitter at all like you might expect someone to be particularly after the treatment he received," Savage said after the brief hearing concluded.
Savage has said Marri was abused while in military custody.
"He harbors no ill will towards any of the people who had him in custody he harbors no ill will towards America."
Marri, wearing a long black beard, stepped into the high-ceiling courtroom dressed in a long white shirt, khaki pants and a white kufi, a traditional brimless cap.
His ankles were shackled, but his arms were free and Marri smiled and nodded at some of the 60 or so people seated in the courtroom's gallery as he shuffled to his seat.
US District Judge Michael Mihm called Marri to a podium and asked him a series of routine questions, including whether he spoke fluent English, to which Marri replied: "Good enough."
Marri also said he understood the charges against him, which carry up to 30 years in jail.
His presence in federal court here marked a return to Peoria for Marri, who entered the United States on September 10, 2001 with his wife and children to study at an Illinois university.
The next day Al-Qaeda launched its attacks, and Marri was arrested two months later in Illinois on credit card fraud charges.
Unlike the detainees held at the US Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Marri was a legal US resident when he was first arrested.
The Defense Intelligence Agency accused him of being a "sleeper agent" who met terror mastermind Osama bin Laden and was assigned to hack into US financial system computers.
His case was transferred to civil court on February 26 when he was formally indicted on charges of providing support to Al-Qaeda and conspiring with others to do the same.
Savage said the allegations are "very serious" but noted a "huge disconnect" between the man the government describes and the person he has come to know.
"The government has assured us the information they're giving us today will support the allegations they've made and we'll have to go through it," Savage told reporters.
"Once we start evaluating the evidence then we'll make decisions about what direction to go in."
Marri's wife and children are now living in Saudi Arabia, and are "very pleased that he has been taken out of the brig and put back in the federal court system," Savage said.
His family wants to come to Illinois for the trial -- which is expected to begin in November or December -- but it is unclear whether the US government will grant them visas.
The Supreme Court agreed in December to consider a petition by Marri's lawyers challenging Bush's authority to indefinitely hold US residents and citizens without charge or trial.
But President Barack Obama's administration earlier this month successfully sought to block the challenge, urging in papers filed before the high court that the case be dismissed because Marri had now been charged in the federal system.
Earlier this month, Obama's administration dropped the "enemy combatant" designation for terror suspects and vowed to draw on international law for its detention policy at Guantanamo.
Obama has vowed to shut the "war on terror" prison within a year, amid criticism over US interrogation tactics used on some terror suspects, including "waterboarding," or simulated drowning.
A procedural hearing for Marri is scheduled for April 14.
Copyright 2009 AFP American Edition
