Terrorist case against Denver family ended

By Bruce Finley Denver Post Staff Writer11/30/06 "Denver Post "

Family members whose lives were turned upside down simply wept. "We've lost everything," longtime Colorado restaurateur Abdul Qayyum said.

Chief U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock accepted plea deals with federal prosecutors who dropped and reduced immigration charges they pursued after their terrorism case fizzled against Qayyum, his daughter Saima Saima, wife Chris Warren and nephew Irfan Kamran.

Now only Haroon Rashid, Saima's husband, is jailed. Federal prosecutors dropped all charges against him, too. But Rashid, jailed for more than two years, still faces deportation after a misdemeanor assault on a gang member who hassled his family.

A federal appeals court on Nov. 20 temporarily blocked Rashid's deportation pending an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

FBI agents targeted this family of naturalized U.S. citizens from the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands based on secret evidence after the 9/11 attacks. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft trumpeted the case as aggressive action against terrorists.

"When the attorney general of the United States declares your family terrorists," the result is damage "far beyond anything this court can do," defense attorney Ray Moore told Babcock during one of two emotional hearings Wednesday.

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