05/21/2004: 
Fraud & Conspiracy
FBI Wipes Egg Off Face, Releases Oregonian Held In Madrid Bombing
from Control Risks Group [$$$ required]
The FBI on 21 May released from custody Portland (Oregon)-based lawyer Brandon Mayfield. FBI agents on 6 May had arrested Mayfield – a convert to Islam – in connection with the 11 March bombings of three commuter trains in Madrid (Spain) by suspected Islamic extremists, which killed 191 people and injured around 2,000 others.
The FBI released Mayfield without charge after the Spanish authorities admitted that evidence that they had passed to the FBI, supposedly linking him to the Madrid attacks, proved to be false. The case will cause severe embarrassment to both the US and Spanish authorities, and will trigger accusations that their anti-terrorism efforts are discriminatory against Muslims. However, it is unlikely that the case will lead the US Department of Justice to abandon the use of so-called ‘material witness warrants' in terrorism-related cases. These warrants allow the FBI to hold people who are suspected of having direct knowledge about a crime indefinitely and without charge. The US authorities argue that their use is both limited and essential to prevent further terrorist attacks in the US.
