[December 11, 2003] TAMPA - As embarrassing as it is for federal court officials, the erroneous shredding of thousands of files is not expected to be hugely disruptive to the justice system, several defense lawyers said Wednesday.
The shredding, which took place between 1998 and 2002, came to light this week when it was disclosed that original search warrants and affidavits in the Sami Al-Arian prosecution were destroyed.

U.S. Magistrate Thomas B. McCoun III has informed lawyers he intends to try to reconstruct the files relating to 1995 searches of Al-Arian's home and offices. Lawyers are researching the legal issues.

The legal community was abuzz Wednesday with talk about the unprecedented destruction of every magistrate file from mid-1996 and earlier. The files were wiped out by employees in the Tampa court clerk's office in a misguided effort to make room for new files, according to Sheryl Loesch, clerk of the court for the Middle District of Florida, which includes the Tampa courthouse.

"I can't imagine that files that have some relevancy to pending investigations would be shredded,'' said defense lawyer Barry Cohen. The shredding "seems to be to be an act of irresponsibility.''...........

"I think it will be just a few cases that will be affected, but they could be affected in a very significant way,'' said defense lawyer John Fitzgibbons, a former federal prosecutor. "I don't view dozens and dozens of cases being affected at this stage.''......

But one lawyer is worried about the harm this does to the local historic record, particularly since some of the files that were shredded were sealed by the court and had never been available for public viewing.

"No sealed records should ever be destroyed,'' said Rochelle A. Reback, who noted that there were public corruption investigations during the time in question. "Destruction of the record of facts or allegations or the results of investigations would be a monumental loss to the historical record.''

The files that were destroyed in the Al-Arian case were unsealed in 1996 after The Tampa Tribune requested they be made public.

Loesch said employees in the Tampa clerk's office shredded the files under the direction of local managers who misinterpreted official court policy governing the destruction of records. .........

Loesch said she doesn't know of any other case where this has happened. "I think we're paving the way,'' she said ruefully.

"Sheik Rahman...visited Al-Arian's home and spoke at his mosque, the affidavit says. But it offers no details on when the alleged visit occurred or why. ICP [Islamic Committee for Palestine] records show the sheik also spoke at one of the group's annual conferences."

"Western officials say [Sudanese diplomat Elfatih] Hassanein, who studied medicine in Yugoslavia and set up the Third World Relief Agency in 1987, apparently turned it into the chief broker of black-market weapons deals by Bosnia's Muslim-led government and the agent of money and influence in Bosnia for Islamic movements and governments around the world......
Investigators say the agency also had ties to Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a radical Egyptian cleric who was convicted of planning several terrorist bombings in New York and is linked to the group that carried out the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993. Intelligence agencies say they have tapes of telephone calls by Rahman to the agency's office, during which he discussed its commitment to sell the sheik's videotapes and sermons in mosques around Europe."