Jury Convicts of Abu Ali

A jury convicted American Ahmed Omar Abu Ali of plotting to assassinate President Bush and other charges of conspiring with al Qaeda.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24, could be sentenced to life in prison on charges that include conspiracy to assassinate the president, conspiracy to hijack aircraft and providing support to al-Qaida.

Abu Ali confessed shortly after his arrest at a Medina, Saudi Arabia, university in June 2003 that he joined al-Qaida and discussed various terrorist plots, including a plan to personally assassinate Bush and to establish himself as a leader of an al-Qaida cell in the United States.

But the defense countered that he was whipped and tortured into a false confession by the Saudi security force known as the Mubahith.

The jury didn't buy the defense claims. The overriding question at the trial was whether Ali had been tortured into confessing the acts claimed by the prosecution. The defense had put on testimony from experts who claimed that Ali was tortured. However, prosecutors were able to rebut that evidence and the jury found the prosecution's case persuasive.

"The evidence overwhelmingly establishes that the defendant was recruited and trained to be an al Qaeda terrorist," Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Campbell told the jury yesterday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.

But defense attorneys said Abu Ali remained what he always was: an American student who went to Saudi Arabia only to pursue religious studies. They said a false confession was forced out of him by brutal whippings in a Saudi jail.

"He is not a raving al Qaeda terrorist. He's an American kid; he's a polite kid," defense attorney Khurrum Wahid said. "He's a kid who went overseas and knew a guy who knew a guy, and he ended up sitting here."

The clashing views of Abu Ali, 24, animated the final day of one of the highest-profile terrorism trials since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Abu Ali is charged with conspiracy to assassinate Bush and other counts of terrorism in what prosecutors say was a plot to carry out a Sept. 11-style attack inside the United States.