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21. Shopping Mall Plot
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21 Shopping Mall Plot Late in the spring of 2004, Abdi found himself incarcerated at the Seneca County Jail in Tiffin, Ohio, a city of seventeen thousand about two hours north of Columbus. His then attorney, Doug Weigle, had visited him regularly when he was in the Pickaway County Jail in Circleville, just south of Columbus. On May 28, however, on a day that government agents were meeting with Abdi, Weigle couldn’t make the trip. Instead, he dispatched his colleague, Matt Benson, in his stead. But when Benson arrived at the jail, Abdi refused to speak to him. When Benson handed him his business card, Abdi took it and ate it.1 abdi had a special status in the Somali community in Columbus. Many looked up to the quiet, religiously devout man, the entrepreneur who spoke excellent English and Arabic, the husband and father of a growing family who was always respectful and never used inappropriate language. His arrest had sent shock waves through the community; most people were angry and in disbelief at the news. Defense lawyers knocked on the government’s door almost immediately . On November 30, a lawyer contacted ICE claiming to represent Abdi on behalf of his family. Abdi refused to speak with him. On December 5, another attorney faxed Medellin, saying Abdi’s wife had retained him; the same day, a third attorney left a voicemail for Medellin, saying she now represented Abdi. Abdi denied any of them was his lawyer and continued to consent to interviews without representation . On December 6, he told investigators, apparently for the first time, about a conspirator who was then unknown to them. On December 7, Abdi agreed to a polygraph test. In the middle of the procedure, Weigle, a Cincinnati lawyer with experience in immigration cases, arrived to say he now represented Abdi. The Somali accepted Weigle but decided to finish the test before meeting with him. Shopping Mall Plot Almost ten days after his arrest, with considerable water over the dam, Abdi finally had a lawyer.2 The pace of interrogations slowed. Abdi would undergo only four more interviews after December 7, during which he repeated much of what he’d already said. He still believed his cooperation would lead to his release. On December 15, 2003, after almost three weeks in his Kentucky detention cell, Abdi was moved back to Ohio, to Seneca County. Once there, in the ICE-approved jail on the outskirts of Tiffin, Abdi entered an anonymous solitude. Guards knew him only as “John Doe.” He was not allowed to know where he was, was not allowed to be around other prisoners, and for reading material was given only the Quran and USA Today. On December 26, in part to make it easier for Weigle to visit his client, Abdi was transferred again, this time to Pickaway County Jail in the small Ohio city of Circleville. He was now allowed a television.3 The winter passed with a series of interviews with the FBI and hearings over Abdi’s immigration status: that was, after all, the purported reason for his arrest in November. Abdi appeared before U.S. immigration judge Elizabeth Hacker in Detroit in late January, where she ordered his detention to continue on national security grounds. FBI agents interviewed him for the last time on February 17. On March 9, Abdi appeared again before Hacker. The small immigration court is tucked into a corner of the fourth floor of the Crain’s Brewery Park building, part of the redevelopment of the site where the Stroh Brewery Company once sat. Abdi’s wife, mother, sister, and brothers drove up from Columbus. A cousin flew from Virginia to testify on his behalf. Abdi’s family, barred from entering, waited outside the courtroom for six hours. They got a brief glimpse of Abdi as he was led into court, the first time they’d seen him in six months.4 During the hearing, Abdi gave a full accounting of his past, in hopes of avoiding deportation to Somalia. He paid people in San Diego, he said, to draw up an application for asylum because he needed the document to stay in the United States. “Other than your name and maybe some biographical details, is anything in this document true?” Hacker asked Abdi. “No, unfortunately,” he replied. Abdi also explained he told the FBI where al-Qaida operatives were training in Somalia and where those camps were. He acknowledged identifying and discussing al-Qaida...