FBI Whistle Blower Frederic Whitehurst testified yesterday for the defense in the Terry Nichols trial, and he said that another agent, Steven Burmeister, lied:

An F.B.I. whistle-blower testified Wednesday at the state murder trial of Terry L. Nichols that a government scientist lied when he said ammonium nitrate crystals found on debris from the Oklahoma City bombing had been embedded by the force of the blast. The whistle-blower, Frederic Whitehurst, testifying for the defense, said an F.B.I. forensic scientist he had trained, Steven Burmeister, also lied when he testified that the crystals came from the kind of fertilizer believed to have been used in the bombing.

Mr. Whitehurst said there was not enough evidence to support either of Mr. Burmeister's conclusions. "He is my student,'' Mr. Whitehurst said. "And I trust him like a brother. But he lied under oath. He lied."

Q-507. Pieces of crystal embedded in a piece of the truck. That was the exhibit introduced at Timothy McVeigh's trial. It was the only piece of direct evidence that linked the bomb to the Ryder truck:

Mr. Whitehurst's testimony focused on a shredded piece of plywood recovered two days after the bombing that the authorities believe came from the cargo container of the Ryder truck that delivered the bomb. The debris, found in a parking lot across the street from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, is the only direct evidence of the explosive used.

Mr. Whitehurst said that he saw the crystals through a microscope after Mr. Burmeister discovered them but that it was impossible to say whether they were embedded or the result of contamination. Mr. Whitehurst said ammonium nitrate could have been in the parking lot for several reasons.

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ABC News has some new Iraqi prisoner abuse photos. This one's a charmer.

ABCNEWS has obtained two new photos taken at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq showing Spc. Charles Graner and Spc. Sabrina Harman posing over the body of a detainee who was allegedly beaten to death by CIA or civilian interrogators in the prison's showers. The detainee's name was Manadel al-Jamadi.

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Law Professor Eric Muller of Is That Legal? reports that Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) is asking Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) to investigate the Department of Justice's misrepresentations to the Supreme Court at oral argument in the cases of uncharged detainees Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla.

The misrepresentations concerned Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement's responses to Justices' questions about the U.S. use of torture. Eric has put up Conyer's letter here. (pdf)

by TChris

The AP reports that U.S. helicopters fired on a wedding party in Iraq, killing more than 40 people.

Associated Press Television News footage showed a truck containing bloodied bodies, many wrapped in blankets, piled one atop the other. Several were children, one of whom had been decapitated.

Iraqis interviewed on the videotape said revelers had fired volleys of gunfire into the air in a traditional wedding celebration before the attack took place. American troops have sometimes mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire.

The AP report says the military is investigating. An anonymous source at the Pentagon told the AP that a military operation was being conducted about 15 miles from the wedding celebration.

If the report is accurate, this incident represents another blunder that will convince Iraqis that the U.S. places no value on innocent Iraqi lives. Now that Wolfowitz has admitted that the Pentagon "miscalculated" the strength and endurance of the resistence occupation forces were likely to encounter, will the Pentagon also admit that it only harms U.S. interests by continuing to kill the innocent?

This just in by e-mail from Law Professor Michael R. Masinter (Nova Southeastern University):

Late this afternoon, a Miami federal trial judge granted a judgment of acquittal to Greenpeace in the government's unprecedented prosecution of an advocacy organization for the nonviolent civil disobedience of its members. Greenpeace was indicted for the offense once known as sailor mongering, more specifically, for boarding a ship as it was "about to arrive at its destination" in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2279, and for conspiracy to violate that statute because its members boarded the ship to protest its cargo of unlawfully harvested mahogany.

As best as I can tell the court granted an MJOA because there was insufficient evidence from which the jury could find that the ship was "about to arrive at the place of her destination, before her actual arrival and before she has been completely moored," the actual language of the statute, or because the statute as applied to the facts shown (the ship was three miles from port) was unconstitutionally vague for lack of fair warning that it could apply three miles offshore.

by TChris

The First Amendment prevailed in a dispute over an Oklahoma school's attempt to prevent a 12-year-old Muslim student from wearing a head scarf to school. The Muskogee Public School District agreed to change its dress code to make exceptions for religious apparel. (TalkLeft's prior coverage of the dispute is here.)

There hasn't been much cause to praise John Ashcroft's Justice Department, but its civil rights division did the right thing by protecting the free exercise of religion in this case. The dress code was a rather broad attempt to deter gang members from wearing clothing identifying themselves as gang members, but was mindlessly enforced without regard to its purpose. Props to Justice for setting the school district straight.

Rudy Guliani was greeted with heckles by families of 9/11 victims today as he as he appeared for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission:

Outraged relatives of World Trade Center victims heckled former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Wednesday as their hopes that he would be grilled by the Sept. 11 commission faded in the face of gentle questioning and effusive praise from panel members. "My son was murdered because of your incompetence!" shouted Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son died in the trade center. Seated three rows behind Giuliani, she jabbed her finger at the former mayor and waved a sign that read "Fiction" as he gave the city's emergency response a glowing review.

Giuliani finished his testimony and abruptly left the auditorium minutes later, leaving many family members upset that they received few answers. Monica Gab*ielle, who lost her husband, Richard, called it a "lost opportunity." "This was not a time for Rudy Giuliani to talk about all the great things he did on 9/11," she said. "He can save that for his talking tours. He should have told us what went wrong and what we should do now."

Why are they so angry?

by TChris

The House rejected an ill-conceived effort to turn doctors into snitches. A bill proposed by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) would have denied emergency room care to undocumented immigrants (only citizens and legal visitors have the right to live when an appendix ruptures, after all, and it's much better to have illegal workers spreading communicable diseases than coming in for treatment). It also would have invaded physician-patient privilege by requiring doctors to report undocumented immigrants to immigration authorities, a move that would have dissuaded illegal workers from seeking the health care that the bill denies them anyway.

Dumping on the desparate workers who cross borders for jobs used to be politically popular, but not this year. The bill was defeated 331-88.

The Denver Post has examined Pentagon records and is reporting that :

• five prisoners have died at four detention camps (including Abu Ghraib) while undergoing interrogation by the U.S.

• at least one of the deaths was previously reported as being from natural causes

• the soldiers got off light, mostly without criminal charges.

Here's more:

As expected, Jeremy Sivits has pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate against other soldiers in exchange for a lesser sentence--he got a year in jail and a bad conduct discharge.

"I'd like to apologize to the Iraqi people and those detainees," Sivits said, breaking down in tears as he made his statement. "I should have protected those detainees, not taken the photos."

The Abu Ghraib prison scandal is still big news. We're putting the morning news here, as we're ready to move on to some other issues:

Three Key Witnesses in Abuse Scandal Refuse to Testify
Los Angeles Times

Military Justice Put on Trial in Iraq Abuse Scandal
Legal Times

U.S. Faces Growing Fear of Failure
Washington Post

3 to Be Arraigned in Prison Abuse
Washington Post

Officer Says Army Tried to Curb Red Cross Visits to Prison in Iraq
New York Times

Officers Say Colonel at Abu Ghraib Felt Pressure to Get Inmates to Talk
New York Times

News Agency Employees Detail Abuse by U.S. Forces
Reuters

Legal Review Could Have Halted Abuse, Lawyer Says
New York Times

Former Abu Ghraib Intel Staffer Says Army Concealed Involvement in Abuse Scandal
ABC News

For more articles, check out Cursor.