Judge orders terrorism suspect held

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A federal judge on Wednesday ordered a Maryland man held until his trial on charges of training to join an Islamic terrorist organization involved in attacks overseas, overturning a U.S. magistrate's decision to release him.

A few minutes after the ruling that Masoud Ahmad Khan should remain in custody, the magistrate ordered and then delayed the supervised release of four other members of a group of 11 men who prosecutors said wanted to join an organization that wants to drive India from Kashmir.

The Justice Department said it would immediately appeal the releases, setting up more legal confrontations over the rights of defendants in U.S. courts and the government's war on international terrorism.

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema said she was convinced that Khan, 31, was a risk to flee prosecution because his family has property in Pakistan and he has traveled extensively in the past. Prosecutors say he traveled to a Lashkar-e-Tayyaba camp in Pakistan shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The FBI also found assault weapons, shotguns and other firearms and a document called "The Terrorist's Handbook" -- it contains instructions on making explosives and dangerous chemicals --when agents in May searched Khan's home in Gaithersburg, Md.

That was sufficient to make Khan a danger to the community, Brinkema said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg also said that Khan and the others were told repeatedly by a Muslim spiritual adviser, identified only as "unindicted coconspirator No. 1" in court documents, that American soldiers could be attacked as part of a "jihad" and that the United States was Islam's greatest enemy.

"What this is about is people who wanted to die as martyrs," Kromberg said.

Lashkar-e-Tayyaba has claimed responsibility for the deaths of 14,000 Indian soldiers and the killing of more than 300 civilians. The group, which was placed the State Department's international terror list in late 2001, was behind the Dec. 13, 2001 attack on India's parliament that killed 12 people.

Khan's attorney, Danny Onorato, called the government's indictment a "trumped-up" case that raises the specter of terrorism for actions, such as shooting guns at target ranges and traveling to Pakistan, that are not illegal.

"What the government is trying to do is inflame the court, and inflame the public, by throwing around the T-word," Onorato said.

More than two dozen of Khan's family members and friends, including his mother and brother, attended the hearing in a show of support.

Brinkema's decision to keep Khan in custody overturns an earlier decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge T. Rawles Jones Jr., to release him if he wears an electronic monitoring device, stays in the Washington, D.C., area and surrenders his passports and other travel documents.

Jones decided Wednesday to order the release of four other defendants under those restrictions. But he delayed his ruling until Thursday, giving the government time to appeal.

Those ordered released Wednesday by Jones are: Caliph Basha Ibn Abdur-Raheem, 29; Donald Thomas Surratt, 30; Randall Todd Royer, 30; Hammad Abdur-Raheem, 29. All are residents of suburbs around Washington.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Laufman said the government is not opposing pretrial release for Surratt, but he did not explain why. Earlier, Kromberg said that several of the defendants had cooperated with the investigation.

All but three of the 11 charged are in federal custody. Those three are believed to be in Saudi Arabia, court documents say.

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