Convicting Noorzai is a Small First Step

This article in the New York Times points to a flaw in our war on Drugs as well as our war on terrorism. It is a great thing to convict Haji Bashir Noorzai but it is in the greater scheme of things almost meaningless. Haji Bashir Noorzai is not the problem he was just a leader. the real problem is the 1 million member Noorzai tribe and its ties to Taliban, commerce in Afghanistan, Hawala money trade and heroin. The Noorzai must be treated as a criminal body in the same manner the LCN crime families are targeted. But at the same time they must also be reated militarily as Al Qaida is targeted. The Noorzai are effectively a fusion of organized crime and international terrorism. Thre is no meaningful difference between the man who funds a terrorist bomb and the man who explodes the bomb.
Best wishes,
Barry O'Connell



Manhattan Jury Convicts Man Linked to Taliban Leader in Drug Smuggling Case

Published: September 23, 2008

A federal jury in Manhattan found an Afghan tribal leader guilty on Tuesday of taking part in an international narcotics trafficking conspiracy that sent millions of dollars worth of heroin around the world, including into the United States.
Skip to next paragraph
Drug Enforcement Administration

Haji Bashir Noorzai faces a potential life sentence.

The jury deliberated for about three hours before returning its verdict against Haji Bashir Noorzai, whose case drew widespread attention because of his prominent role in the drug trade and his ties to one of the most wanted men in the world, Mullah Mohammad Omar, the fugitive Taliban leader.

“You have seen the defendant for what he is,” a federal prosecutor, David A. O’Neil, told the jury in closing arguments on Monday, “a drug dealer on a massive scale, a global heroin trafficker driven by greed for money and for power, a man who has made himself rich off the misery of others.”

Prosecutors had portrayed Mr. Noorzai as a businessman who would do anything to keep control of his lucrative heroin operations in Afghanistan, no matter who was in power.

They said Mr. Noorzai owned vast tracts of land in the southern province of Kandahar, on the Pakistan border, where he used hundreds of farmers to cultivate opium poppy plants, workers in remote labs to process them into heroin, and smugglers to ship drugs worldwide, including into New York City.

Mr. Noorzai’s lawyer, Ivan S. Fisher, did not flatly deny that his client was involved in the drug trade, but he said in closing arguments that the question was whether Mr. Noorzai had ever sent drugs to the United States — “intentionally, unintentionally, in any way at all.” Mr. Fisher made it clear that the answer was no.

“What is it we’re doing,” he told the jury, “running around the world going after every opium grower?”

As the jury foreman announced the verdict, Mr. Noorzai, who is in his 40s, listened impassively, just as he had shown little emotion throughout the trial.

After court, Mr. Fisher said his client would appeal.

“We are enormously disappointed by the verdict,” he said. “It must be very difficult for an American jury to give a defendant associated with high levels of the Taliban a fair trial. It is our view that this jury was unable to do that.”

Afterward, jurors said that the defendant’s connection to the Taliban had no bearing on their decision.

“I’m still intimidated by him — his looks, his demeanor,” one juror, Martha Ramos, said after the jury was dismissed.

Another juror, Monica Lopez, said, “He seemed very stoic throughout the trial.”

Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney, said that with the verdict, “Noorzai’s decades-long criminal career has finally ended, and one of Afghanistan’s most prolific heroin exporters now faces a potential life sentence to be served in a U.S. prison.”

Judge Denny Chin of Federal District Court said he would sentence Mr. Noorzai on Jan. 7.

Prosecutors said Mr. Noorzai developed a relationship with the Taliban, paying it 10 percent of his drug profits and turning over arms and fighters in return for being allowed to continue his drug operations even after the Taliban banned opium production in 2000.

Ms. Lopez and Ms. Ramos said that before deliberations, some jurors questioned the credibility of certain witnesses involved in the drug trade, and the strength of the case against Mr. Noorzai, who did not testify. But after the judge instructed them on the law, Ms. Lopez said, “There was no choice but to convict.”

Prosecutors built their case around testimony from several men who had been convicted in drug cases and who described Mr. Noorzai’s role in the conspiracy; on secretly recorded phone conversations; and on statements Mr. Noorzai gave to federal agents after he flew to New York in 2005.

A Drug Enforcement Administration agent, Patrick Hamlette, said that Mr. Noorzai admitted he was aware his heroin was carried into the United States concealed in suitcases and clothes.

Indeed, the fact that Mr. Noorzai, who has said he led an Afghan tribe of a million members, was even talking to the authorities after coming to America under murky circumstances, gave the trial much of its intrigue.

Before trial, Mr. Fisher had asked that charges be dismissed on the ground that Mr. Noorzai had been promised safe passage by American contractors if he agreed to provide information about the financing of terrorism.

But the court ruled that even if the government had used such tactics, they did not invalidate the charges and could not be used as a defense during trial.

Still, hints surfaced, as one did when an F.B.I. agent testified under cross-examination that Mr. Noorzai believed he was a “guest” of the United States.

One juror, Ms. Lopez, said jurors picked up on the issue, but added that it played no role.

“We weren’t allowed to consider that,” Ms. Lopez said. “Several of us thought he was tricked; people even used the word entrapment. But some of us thought there was no other way to prosecute individuals who violate the law outside the country.”

Judge Chin told jurors Mr. Noorzai’s arrest was “entirely lawful.”