Saudi Terrorism Link to Killing of Colorado’s Chief of Corrections?

Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. ^[2] (The flash dri­ve includes the anti-fas­cist books avail­able on this site.)

COMMENT: In the after­math of the assas­si­na­tion of Col­orado Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions Chief Tom Clements, observers are ask­ing if there are links to his recent han­dling of a high-pro­file case involv­ing a Sau­di accused of sex­u­al­ly abus­ing his Indone­sian house­keep­er.

Homaid­an al-Tur­ki had also been men­tioned in con­nec­tion with ter­ror­ism and was some­thing of a cause cele­bre in Sau­di Ara­bia, where both the sex­u­al abuse charges and ter­ror­ism alle­ga­tions were dis­missed as inci­dents of “Islam­o­pho­bia.”

In addi­tion to Sau­di roy­als, State Depart­ment per­son­nel and for­mer Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty chief Michael Chertoff ^[3] went to bat for al-Tur­ki.

Might some­one have been paid to elim­i­nate Clements? If so, who? Is there a link to Clements’ han­dling of the al-Tur­ki case?

“Tom Clements Dead: Col­orado Depart­ment Of Cor­rec­tions Chief Shot At Home, Gun­man On The Run” by P. Solomon Ban­da; Huff­in­g­ton Post; 3/21/2013. ^[4]

EXCERPT: Tom Clements, 58, was shot around 8:30 p.m. Tues­day in Mon­u­ment, north of Col­orado Springs, and a wit­ness report­ed a per­son dri­ving away in a dark-col­ored “boxy” car that had its engine run­ning at the time of the shoot­ing, author­i­ties said.

Inves­ti­ga­tors were explor­ing all pos­si­bil­i­ties, includ­ing that the shoot­ing could have been relat­ed to Clements’ job as exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Col­orado Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions, which he took after years work­ing in Mis­souri cor­rec­tions. . . .

. . . . While Clements gen­er­al­ly kept a low pro­file, his killing comes a week after he denied a request by a Sau­di nation­al to serve out the remain­der of a Col­orado prison sen­tence in Sau­di Ara­bia. He cit­ed al-Turk­i’s refusal to under­go sex offend­er treat­ment.

Homaid­an al-Tur­ki, a well-known mem­ber of Den­ver’s Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty, was con­vict­ed in state court in 2006 of unlaw­ful sex­u­al con­tact by use of force, theft and extor­tion and sen­tenced to 28 years to life in prison. Pros­e­cu­tors said he kept a house­keep­er a vir­tu­al slave for four years and sex­u­al­ly assault­ed her. A judge reduced the sen­tence to eight years to life.

Al-Tur­ki insist­ed the case was polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed. He owned a com­pa­ny that some years ago sold CDs of ser­mons record­ed by Anwar al-Awla­ki, killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

Al-Turk­i’s con­vic­tion angered Sau­di offi­cials and prompt­ed the U.S. State Depart­ment to send Col­orado Attor­ney Gen­er­al John Suthers to Sau­di Ara­bia to meet with King Abdul­lah, Crown Prince Sul­tan and al-Turk­i’s fam­i­ly.

After Clements’ shoot­ing, some­one with the State Depart­ment called the Col­orado Cor­rec­tions Depart­ment. . . .

“Homaid­an al-Tur­ki”; ^[5]Wikipedia ^[5]

EXCERPT: . . . . Defense argu­ment
Defense attor­ney John Richi­lano argued the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment only filed fraud­u­lent sex-slave charges after fail­ing to make a ter­ror­ism case against Al-Tur­ki. They claimed Mr. Al-Tur­ki was under FBI-inves­ti­ga­tion on pos­si­ble ter­ror­ism links before his arrest. Fed­er­al court doc­u­ments filed by the defense show that the Den­ver Joint Ter­ror­ism Task Force had Al-Tur­ki under a “full fledge inves­ti­ga­tion” sus­pect­ing “he is close­ly aligned to ter­ror­ists and may be pro­vid­ing mate­r­i­al sup­port to ter­ror­ism.” Evi­dence also indi­cat­ed a fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion of pro­ceeds from Al-Basheer Pub­li­ca­tions. They high­light­ed an inci­dent from April 2005 in Illi­nois, when state police stopped Al-Tur­ki on Inter­state 80 near LaSalle. A mes­sage on the nation­al crime infor­ma­tion com­put­er warned the offi­cers “ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion mem­ber — cau­tion, do not alert this indi­vid­ual to this notice.” His lawyers claim school doc­u­ments in his car were removed, copied and faxed by the Illi­nois State Police to the Den­ver FBI. The U.S. Attor­ney’s Office respond­ed by main­tain­ing that the ter­ror­ism inves­ti­ga­tion was total­ly unre­lat­ed to the vic­tims alle­ga­tions. . . .

. . . . The Homaid­an Al-Tur­ki case sparked con­tro­ver­sy and high-pro­file atten­tion from Mus­lims world­wide, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia, where local media por­trayed him as a vic­tim of bias against Mus­lims and said he would not have been con­vict­ed of these crimes had he been tried in his native coun­try.

For exam­ple, in a show of sup­port, the Sau­di gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed Al-Tur­ki with $400,000 to post bond. In Novem­ber 2006, Col­orado Attor­ney Gen­er­al John Suthers trav­elled to Sau­di Ara­bia where he vis­it­ed King Abdul­lah, Crown Prince Sul­tan, and Al-Turki’s fam­i­ly in an attempt to clear up “mis­per­cep­tions” about the U.S. judi­cial sys­tem and ease the Sau­di roy­al fam­i­ly’s con­cerns over whether Homaid­an Al-Tur­ki was treat­ed fairly.[19] Suthers went there at the request of the U.S. ambas­sador in Sau­di Ara­bia, who had the State Depart­ment con­tact Col­orado Gov­er­nor Bill Owens. The trip was spon­sored and paid for by the U.S. State Depart­ment.

Even years after the case was closed, the issue con­tin­ues to arouse pow­er­ful emo­tions in Sau­di Ara­bia and affect the del­i­cate bal­ance of Sau­di-US for­eign rela­tions. Saleh Bin-Humaid, chair­man of the Con­sul­ta­tive Assem­bly of Sau­di Ara­bia (Shoura Coun­cil), brought up Al-Turki’s case dur­ing an offi­cial meet­ing with the US Sec­re­tary of Home­land Secu­ri­ty Michael Chertoff in Riyadh on March 26, 2009, when he urged Amer­i­cans to review the top­ic. Accord­ing to a pub­lic state­ment from Bin-Humaid, “The Sau­di peo­ple sym­pa­thize with Homaid­an Al-Tur­ki and they close­ly fol­low up his case.”

In 2010, a cam­paign has been launched by the cit­i­zens of Sau­di Ara­bia, Homaid­an’s friends and fam­i­ly, and all those who hope for his release. . . .