SOUTH

SUSPECTED AL QAEDA LOYALISTS DENIED BAIL

Two American citizens accused of being Al Qaeda loyalists were each ordered held without bail yesterday as they appeared in federal courtrooms in New York and Florida. Tarik Shah, 42, of New York, waved and smiled at supporters and appeared relaxed at his preliminary hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan before Magistrate Judge Theodore Katz.

In Fort Pierce, Fla., Dr. Rafiq Abdus Sabir, 50, told the U.S. district judge, James Hopkins, that he had yet to hire an attorney, and the judge set the next hearing in his case for June 6. Neither defendant had entered a plea on the single charge of conspiring to provide material support to Al Qaeda. Prosecutors say the two men swore a formal oath of loyalty to Al Qaeda as they conspired to use their skills in martial arts and medicine to aid international terrorism. The men were arrested Friday following a sting operation that the government said started in 2003. If convicted, each could face a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

– Associated Press

WASHINGTON

BORDER PATROL OFFICIALS DIDN’T ACT ON CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS

Top officials of the American Border Patrol failed to act on allegations they received in 2000 and 2001 of widespread kickbacks being paid to border agents in Arizona, and later investigations by the Department of Homeland Security avoided holding high-level officials responsible, said a new government report released yesterday.

The American Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency created to protect government whistleblowers, said in the report that the current head of the Border Patrol, David Aguilar, was informed as early as 2000, when he headed the agency in Arizona, that border agents temporarily assigned there were receiving kickbacks from area landlords, but he did not act. The report was sent to President Bush and Congress. Internal probes by the Justice and Homeland Security departments have found that high-level Border Patrol officials committed no wrongdoing and did not engage in any cover up. In all, of the 68 or so Border Patrol employees suspected of wrongdoing, 45 were punished in some fashion, although almost all were low-ranking agents.

The controversy harkens to 1999, when waves of undocumented Mexicans were pouring across the American border into Arizona every night. Over the next three years of Operation Safeguard, the Border Patrol dispatched more than 1,000 of its uniformed agents to Arizona for one- to three-month details to try to staunch the flow.

– The Washington Post

MIDWEST

INDIANA JUDGE: STATE CAN SEE PLANNED PARENTHOOD RECORDS ON MINORS

INDIANAPOLIS – An Indiana judge ruled yesterday that Planned Parenthood of Indiana must turn over to the state the medical records of its patients under 14.

The Marion county superior court judge, Kenneth Johnson, sided with the Indiana attorney general’s office in its quest to examine the medical records of 84 young patients. However, the state said it will not press the matter and seek the records until all appeals have run their course.

“It would be our intent to wait until the process has worked itself through,” a spokeswoman for Attorney General Steve Carter, Staci Schneider, said. Planned Parenthood tried to stop the seizure, arguing that investigators were on a “fishing expedition,” possibly to identify the partners of sexually active 12- and 13-year-olds. None of the 84 patients has received an abortion, according to Planned Parenthood.

– Associated Press