The inflammatory testimony:

The appeals court said the defendants were prejudiced by testimony from a Scottish law student who told of a deadly suicide bombing on a bus in Tel Aviv and by an American citizen of Yemeni heritage who attended an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan in 2001.

It said testimony about the camp and particularly the government's presentation of images of Osama bin Laden and a top aide was "highly inflammatory and irrelevant and should not have been permitted by the district court."

Background on the case and informant Mohamed Alanssi, who set himself on fire because he believed the FBI wasn't providing properly for him, is here, here here and here. An early New York Times article on the trial is here.

The reaction of Jonathan Marks, one of the defense lawyers:

Zayed's trial attorney Jonathan Marks called the prosecution "a public-relations stunt by the Bush administration against people who were essentially innocent of the charges." Marks said his client was "completely innocent and before this was a staunch anti-terrorist.

The reversal may be too late to help Zayed, who has been imprisoned at Supermax in Florence, Colorado:

"I am told that he has lost his mind," Marks said. "This has been a terrible ordeal.

Shame on former Attorney General John Ashcroft and the entire Bush Administration. John McCain will be four more years of the same.