Friends and family say 23-year-old Ahmed Abu Ali had nothing to do with terrorism or an alleged assassination plot against the president of the United States. Speaking at the Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., Iman Abdul-Malik told News4, "Do I know whether he took money from al-Qaida, I don't know. I know the kind of young person he is, the kind of actions and commitments to community that I have observed from him."
According to federal indictment, Ali discussed a plan where someone would get close enough to President George W. Bush on the street to shoot him or use a car bomb to kill him.
But at the northern Virginia mosque where he grew up, there is a belief that he was tortured and a confession was coerced. "How do we let an American citizen languish 20 months in Saudi Arabia where he can be tortured and abused?" said Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society.
In federal court in Alexandria, Va., prosecutors accused Ali of turning his back on America, but after the hearing, family members and friends wept outside of the courthouse. The suspect's father, Omar Ali called the government's accusations "lies upon lies."
Omar Ali: Suspect's Father: "All of us there the government said is lies, upon lies." And his mother, Faten Ali said, "The truth will come and prevail and my son is innocent."
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