Federal prosecutors denied Wednesday that Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, the Falls Church man accused of plotting with Al-Qaeda to assassinate President Bush, was tortured in Saudi Arabia, but called him a "grave danger" to the United States and said he should be held without bail. In papers filed in the US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, US Attorney Paul McNulty said that Abu Ali saw a doctor Monday and that the physician found no evidence of torture or harm. Abu Ali never made any claims of abuse to Americans officials when he was being returned to the United States from more than a year's detention in Saudi Arabia on Monday, he said. The prosecutor added Abu Ali was allowed to play soccer and work out while in Saudi custody and called his allegations of mistreatment "an utter fabrication."A federal judge recently ordered the government to provide information on whether the US had a role in Abu Ali's detention. Abu Ali's attorney said in court this week that his client was whipped and handcuffed while detained in a Saudi prison from June 2003 until he was flown back to the US earlier this week. Abu Ali is the first person charged in this country with supporting Osama Bin Laden's organization in seven months.
A former Justice Department official in the Clinton administration, Michael Greenberger, said the case might not even have been prosecuted if not for a lawsuit, filed by Abu Ali's family against the government, seeking his return to the United States. Abu Ali, a US citizen, grew up in Falls Church and was active in Northern Virginia's Muslim community. His family denies the charges against him and describes him as a student of Islam who went to Saudi Arabia to pursue his studies. He was taking his final exams on Islam at the University of Madinah when Saudi authorities arrested him in class in June 2003, as part of a crackdown after the May 12, 2003 bombing of three Western residential compounds in Riyadh that killed 23 people.
Abu Ali's arrest has been complicated by the news that the only person who accused Abu Ali of terrorist ties is dead. The suspected member of Al-Qaeda, who was not named, was killed in a