NY trial set Jan. 7 for bin Laden son-in-law

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge has set a January trial date for a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden who was brought to the United States to face terrorism charges.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan announced the Jan. 7 date for Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (SOO'-lay-mahn AH'-boo GAYTH) in a one-sentence order filed in the case on Tuesday.

Kaplan said at a hearing Monday that it was "extremely troublesome" that a trial could not be held this fall because across-the-board federal budget cuts, known as sequestration, meant public defenders would not have enough time to prepare.

Ghaith was brought to the United States last month to face charges that he conspired to kill Americans in his role as al-Qaida's spokesman after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He has pleaded not guilty.

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Trial of bin Laden's son-in-law set for January in New York City

By Bernard Vaughan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal trial for a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden accused of conspiring to kill Americans will begin in January in Manhattan, a judge ruled on Tuesday.

Suleiman Abu Ghaith, who acted as an al Qaeda spokesman in videos, is one of the highest-ranking al Qaeda figures to face trial in the United States for crimes related to the September 11 attacks.

He was captured in Jordan on February 28 and brought secretly to the United States by the FBI on March 1.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled on Tuesday that the trial should begin on January 7, 2014. Abu Ghaith pleaded not guilty on March 8.

His attorneys Martin Cohen and Philip Weinstein were not immediately available to comment. Attorneys representing the government also were not immediately available.

(Reporting by Bernard Vaughan, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Dan Grebler)

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Bin Laden son-in-law detained overseas, brought to New York

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A son-in-law of Osama bin Laden who served as al Qaeda's spokesman has been arrested and detained in Jordan in an operation led by Jordanian authorities and the FBI, U.S. government sources said on Thursday.

The sources said Suleiman Abu Ghaith, a militant who had appeared in videos representing al Qaeda after the September 11, attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, had initially been picked up in Turkey.

The Turkish government then deported him to Jordan, said the sources, where local authorities and the FBI took custody of him.

Initial public confirmation of Abu Ghaith's capture came from Representative Peter King, a senior Republican member of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee and former chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

"I commend our CIA and FBI, our allies in Jordan, and President (Barack) Obama for their capture of al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith. I trust he received a vigorous interrogation, and will face swift and certain justice," King said in a statement.

"Propaganda statements in which Abu Ghaith and his late father-in-law, Osama bin Laden, praised the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 are alone enough to merit the most serious punishment."

U.S. sources indicated that, while a CIA role in the capture of Abu Ghaith could not be ruled out, the FBI took the lead role in the operation under the auspices of an interagency body known as the High-value Detainee Interrogation Group.

The group was created by Obama's administration after the president ordered the permanent shut down of a CIA program in which militant suspects were detained and held in a network of secret prisons, during the administration of President George W. Bush. The suspects were sometimes subjected to controversial and physically coercive "enhanced interrogation techniques," and also sometimes transferred without trial to third countries under a procedure known as "extraordinary rendition."

Precisely what the FBI and interrogation group now intend to do with Abu Ghaith was not immediately known. Sources said one possibility is that he could be brought to the United States for trial in an American court.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and Christopher Wilson)

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