The Government springs another theory about what Zacarias Moussaoui was up to with Al Qaeda before September 11th. First, he was the "20th hijacker." Even Dick Cheney said so. Then he was to be a last resort in case something went wrong. Then he was supposed to be on a different mission, perhaps involving crop dusting planes.

Now, according to documents just unsealed, the Government has a new theory that Moussaoui was to pilot a 5th plane and crash it into the White House.

We think the Government is grasping at straws. Or playing us, the public, like a focus group--floating propositions of guilt and trying to see which one seems to catch on.

If there is one thing Moussaoui doesn't strike us as, it's a suicide bomber. He is fighting more to save his life than any other terrorism defendant we can think of. He speaks for himself, writes his own pleadings, attacks the Government and his own lawyers, and he won't cooperate or back down. He's a fighter. To the end. Are we really expected to believe that this man would fly an airplane on a suicide mission? No dice.

The Government said in court papers Monday it would keep Moussaoui's case in federal court. Today, the Fourth Circuit told the parties to work out a compromise on Moussaoui's judicially authorized interview of Ramzi Binalshibh. And now we learn the Government is considering switching theories for at least the third time.

Could it be the Government cannot figure out what Moussaoui's role was? Or is it tailoring the facts and its theory to fit within the charged conspiracy so it can get a conviction and death verdict against Moussaoui?

A federal judge today denied bail for Katrina Leung, accused of passing FBI secrets to the Chinese Government. The Judge determined that Leung posed a risk of flight, based upon her extensive foreign assets.

The defense argued that the FBI set Leung up, purposefully providing her with information to pass on to the Chinese. Two FBI agents have admitted long term affairs with Leung, who has been a respectable Los Angeles businesswoman and Republican Activist.

One of the two FBI agents romantically involved with Leung, James J. Smith, was supposed to be her "handler." Smith has been charged with "gross negligence in handling documents related to the national defense." He was released on $250,000. bail.

Leung is charged with "unauthorized copying of national defense information with the intent to injure the United States or benefit a foreign nation." Over the course of the past twenty years, the FBI paid Leung $1.7 million in fees and expenses. She took 71 overseas trips, mostly funded by the FBI.

The judge was not overly impressed with the Government's case.

The judge said the documents she is accused of passing to the Chinese government appear to be "innocuous" and "viewed alone the offense itself does not provide a substantial reason to flee." He said that the maximum sentence that Leung could draw on the current charges is 10 years in prison.

Leung offered to post $3 million in real estate to secure her bond. The Judge refused to accept her proposal, saying that sufficient details about her assets had not yet been revealed.

Leung's husband and other relatives appeared in court and volunteered to post their own property for her bond. Leung has a young son and substantial ties to the community. She knew about the investigation into her affairs since December and did not flee.

We think she should have gotten bail. The judge's comment "The court cannot conclude that the defendant does not pose a danger to the national security" is a far cry from the standard of "clear and convincing evidence" that the Government must produce to establish that a defendant is a danger to the community.

The federal bail statute provides with respect to the Government's burden at a detention hearing:

18 USC Section 3142(f)(2)(B): The facts the judicial officer uses to support a finding pursuant to subsection (e) that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the safety of any other person and the community shall be supported by clear and convincing evidence.

We don't see the difference between FBI agent Smith and Leung. If Smith, her "handler" is bailable, she should be too.

Bump and Update:

Ali is doing well after his first surgery.

Ali has arrived in Kuwait City, transported by the U.S. Military (MSNBC tv). Here's an update on his medical condition.

Plans are being made to fly twelve-year old Ali Ismaeel Abbas, who lost both arms and his family when his house in Iraq was bombed, to a Kuwait hospital for treatment. Doctors say that if he doesn't receive imminent treatment, he will die within the next few days.

There's only one problem: U.S. authorities in Kuwait say they don't know about the plans.

A spokesman for Ibn Sina hospital in Kuwait said U.S. forces were expected to fly Ali from Baghdad to an airfield in Kuwait, where an ambulance would be waiting for him. "It is already arranged and our people are waiting," hospital director Abudullatif al-Sahli told Reuters. However, a spokeswoman for U.S military forces in Kuwait said they did not know of any such operation.

Someone, help this boy, please. If the U.S. didn't know about the plans at the time of being interviewed for this article, it knows now. There is absolutely no excuse for the U.S. leaving this boy to die. Millions of people around the world have reacted with horror and sympathy to this boy's plight. Rumsfeld and Bush will have a black mark forever if they don't intervene in time.

Update: Yesterday the child accused the media of breaking its promise to him to get him help.

The autopsies have been completed on the bodies of a woman and baby boy that washed up on the California shore yesterday, but the coroner could not identify the bodies. They were badly decomposed and the woman's body is said to be skeletal. Thus, it is not known if the remains are of Laci Peterson and her child.

Police say yesterday's news reports that the woman was in maternity clothing are wrong. They have only recovered a "standard woman's bra."

Many news reports yesterday stated the baby was still attached to an umbilical cord. No word today on whether that is correct.

The bodies washed up two miles from the Berkeley Marina where Scott Peterson, Laci's husband, says he went fishing on Christmas Eve day. His lawyer today said that his client is "very concerned and broken up at the prospect that [the body] may be his wife."

Update: The police are saying they are going to consult with an expert on the decomposition of bodies in water. Here's a site where you can learn about it for yourselves.

Agence-France Presse reports that U.S. troops opened fire on a group of protesters in Mosul, Iraq, killing ten:

At least 10 people were killed and scores wounded in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul when US troops fired on a crowd angered by a speech by the new US-backed governor, witnesses reported. The charges were denied by a US military spokesman in the city Tuesday, who said troops had first come under fire from at least two gunmen and fired back, without aiming at the crowd.

Witnesses provide this account:

But witnesses charged that US troops fired into the crowd after it became increasingly hostile towards the new governor, Mashaan al-Juburi.

"They (the soldiers) climbed on top of the building and first fired at a building near the crowd, with the glass falling on the civilians. People started to throw stones, then the Americans fired at them," said Ayad Hassun, 37.

"Dozens of people fell," he said, his own shirt stained with blood.

"The people moved toward the government building, the children threw stones, the Americans started firing," another witness, Marwan Mohammed, 50, told AFP.

According to a third witness, Abdulrahman Ali, 49, the US soldiers opened fire when they saw the crowd running at the government building.

Meanwhile, as the process of determining future Iraqi leadership got underway in Nasiriyah in Southern Iraq, 20,000 marched in protest chanting, "Yes to freedom... Yes to Islam... No to America, No to Saddam." U.S. media censorship has emerged.

And US forces tried for the first time Tuesday to prevent the media from covering a third day of anti-US protests outside the hotel housing a US operations base in central Baghdad.

Update: Additional news sources on the incident:

New York Times

The Independent

Arab News

A class action has been filed against the city of Chicago by suspects who were held more than 48 hours before being brought before a judge or charged with a crime. The primary plaintiff in the civil rights case is Joseph Lopez who was held for five days, handcuffed to a wall in a police interview room, without mattress, blanket or pillows, so he could be interrogated about a murder. It later turned out someone else committed the crime. He filed suit after he was released. Subsequently, the Judge allowed to case to be brought as a class action and it is expected that hundreds, maybe thousands, of individuals kept more than 48 hours will be joining the case.

In the 1991 case of Riverside v. McLaughlin,

the Supreme Court said holding suspects longer than two days without judicial review is unconstitutional. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote ... in a 5-4 ruling, that a 48-hour rule would permit "a reasonable postponement of a probable-cause determination while the police cope with the everyday problems of processing suspects through an overburdened criminal justice system."

Chicago police are now considering implementing a 48 hour rule, but say the decision places them "between a rock and a hard place." Suffice it to say we are not sympathetic to the police.

"After nearly 18 months of deliberation, Pentagon officials are laying the final groundwork to hold military commissions for suspected al-Qaida members captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and elsewhere....behind the scenes, Department of Defense officials are mobilizing legal teams to prosecute and defend the cases. "

Reports are that "the Defense Department is strongly considering Army Col. Frederic Borch III for chief prosecutor and Air Force Col. Willie Gunn for chief defense counsel. Active duty and reserve judge advocates with all branches of the military have been identified to serve as assistant prosecutors and defense counsel."

A lot of questions remain unanswered, particularly concerning protections afforded to those on trial and their ability to have civilian defense counsel.

According to DOD regulations, defendants brought before military commissions are entitled to free military counsel and can request civilian defense counsel if it can be arranged at no expense to the government. Civilian lawyers must be U.S. citizens and obtain high-level security clearances.

Private defense lawyers say they are concerned that the Pentagon will bar them from contacting detainees or traveling to Guantanamo Bay. "The Pentagon has made it virtually impossible for any civilian attorney to take one of these cases," says Donald Rehkopf, co-chair of the military law committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"Any of us would take a case. It's very important to the system," says George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, who represented acquitted Navy officer Daniel King on espionage charges. "The problem is, the rules say defendants are entitled to civilian counsel, but the administration has barred attorneys' access to the detainees."

We're with Turley--let the private bar in.

If Saddam is in Syria, where might he be? On April 5, Debkafiles posted this report:

Exclusive Middle East sources have tracked down the top Iraqi leadership’s bolt-hole. It is a large 1,600-room luxury resort with 600 meters of private sandy beach in the Mediterranean coastal town of Latakiya called Cote d’Azur De Cham Resort, prepaid and chartered in toto by Baghdad. The group may include Saddam Hussein or his sons, but this is not confirmed. The hotel is located close to the Assad family villa. Top Iraqi officials are reported hiding there since March 23, four days after the US-led coalition invaded Iraq. They are guarded by a Syrian commando unit armed with anti-air missiles while Syrian naval missile boats secure the port.

Today Debka reports that Al Qaeda is poised for a comeback with a planned attack in Turkey over Passover:

Osama bin Laden’s organization is reported preparing to stage a comeback by a fresh terrorist assault in Turkey against American or Israel/Jewish targets over Passover this week or Easter, next.

Michael McAlister is serving a 35 year prison sentence in Virginia for attempted rape. He says he is innocent. The prosecutor and detective in his case agree. But he can't get a hearing. Why? Because Virginia doesn't allow claims of innocence based on new evidence to be made more than 21 days after sentencing unless the claim is based on DNA. There is no DNA in McAlister's case.

"Ninety percent of convictions don't involve biological evidence, but the same mistakes happen," said McAlister's attorney, Christopher Amolsch. "Mr. McAlister is a prime example of why we need to go back in front of a judge to prove claims of actual innocence."

McAlister's case and recent DNA exonerations have cast a spotlight on an emerging criminal justice issue: questionable or even faulty eyewitness identifications. In the 17 years McAlister has been in prison, DNA testing has cleared 127 people nationwide and seven in Virginia. Mistaken eyewitness testimony was to blame for most of the errors.

Julius Ruffin spent 21 years in a Virginia prison in a rape cape. Marvin Anderson served 15 years in another Virginia rape case. Bernard Webster was behind bars in Maryland for 20 years. In each case, DNA set the wrongly convicted men free; mistaken eyewitness testimony was what got them convicted.

This month, a Massachusetts man who spent 19 years in prison in a series of sexual assaults was cleared by DNA. Three women had identified him as their attacker.

Unless the Governor grants McAllister's petition for clemency, he will stay in jail.

In a pleading filed with the Court Monday, the Government indicated that it will not be moving the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui to a military tribunal after all. You can read the pleading here.

Anyone ever hear of Marks, Mississippi? Marks is a town in Quitman County, in the Mississippi Delta, about 60 miles south of Memphis. Quitman County is poor. Very poor. Too Poor to Defend the Poor. It has no money to provide the poor with lawyers. Here is an example of the kind of justice it provides:

Diana Brown met her court-appointed lawyer for the first time on the day she pleaded guilty to several serious crimes five years ago. They spent five minutes together and have not spoken since.

"You are guilty, lady," the lawyer, Thomas Pearson, told Ms. Brown, according to her sworn statement, as he met with her and nine other defendants as a group, rattling off the charges against them.

He told her she was facing 60 years in prison for assault, drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident, and should accept a deal for 10 years, court papers say. He gave her five minutes to decide. Offered no other defense, she took the deal.

But three cheers for Quitman County--it is suing the state of Mississippi.

The Guardian reports that Bush has vetoed preliminary planning for a war against Syria--plans Rumsfeld wanted to begin making.

In the past few weeks, the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, ordered contingency plans for a war on Syria to be reviewed following the fall of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, his undersecretary for policy, Doug Feith, and William Luti, the head of the Pentagon's office of special plans, were asked to put together a briefing paper on the case for war against Syria, outlining its role in supplying weapons to Saddam Hussein, its links with Middle East terrorist groups and its allegedly advanced chemical weapons programme. Mr Feith and Mr Luti were both instrumental in persuading the White House to go to war in Iraq.

....However, President George Bush, who faces re-election next year with two perilous nation-building projects, in Afghanistan and Iraq, on his hands, is said to have cut off discussion among his advisers about the possibility of taking the "war on terror" to Syria.

"The talk about Syria didn't go anywhere. Basically, the White House shut down the discussion," an intelligence source in Washington told the Guardian.