Friday, January 20
It's not considered torture unless you're forced to ride "it's a small world":
FBI sent suspect to Disney World
When Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban's conspiracy trial ends, the cash-strapped defendant probably won't be going to Disney World.
He's already been there once, courtesy of the U.S. government.
During Thursday's testimony in Shaaban's federal trial, an FBI agent and one of Shaaban's former trucking company bosses testified about how federal agents helped send his family to Florida in October 2004 so the FBI could surreptitiously search his Greenfield home.
Shaaban could call himself today as the final witness in a trial that began Jan. 9 in U.S. District Court. He's accused of trying to sell names of U.S. covert operatives in Iraq to Saddam Hussein's government before the spring 2003 military invasion that toppled his regime.
During Shaaban's trip to Orlando with his wife and son, FBI agents entered Shaaban's home under a secret warrant for gathering foreign-intelligence information.
They took photographs, photocopied documents and copied his computer hard drive before departing. Shaaban was not told about the FBI search until after his arrest in March, when the FBI conducted a more public search of the home.
While in Florida, Shaaban thought he was on a vacation paid for by the trucking company that employed him at the time, according to testimony. Charles Mong, president of CLM Freight Lines, acknowledged he was asked by the FBI to tell Shaaban the vacation was a gift from him.
