http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7037619/site/newsweek/

March 7 issue - The confession came quickly, and it sounded damning.
After a few days of allegedly rough interrogation, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali—a
soft-spoken high-school valedictorian from the Washington, D.C.,
suburbs—either cracked or simply told his questioners what they wanted
to hear. While studying in the holy city of Medina, Saudi Arabia, Abu
Ali said, he had met with a Qaeda operative and offered to set up a
sleeper cell in the United States to organize terror attacks. He wanted
to be like September 11 ringleader Muhammad Atta, Abu Ali added in his
confession. The young Muslim American even talked about an assassination
plot. The purported target: President George W. Bush. Abu Ali allegedly
suggested that Bush could either be shot on the street or blown up in a
car-bomb attack.

After searching his home in Falls Church, Va., and finding seemingly
incriminating documents (including a screed by Osama bin Laden's deputy
Ayman al-Zawahiri), federal agents became convinced that Abu Ali was
indeed "a really bad guy," as one put it. Yet even the top aides to the
then Attorney General John Ashcroft didn't think they had anything
resembling a solid criminal case. There was no indication the alleged
Bush assassination plot ever advanced beyond the talking phase. No FBI
agents were there when Abu Ali made his self-incriminating confession.
If the Saudis sent Abu Ali home—as they kept offering to do—Justice
officials fretted the videotape would likely get tossed out of court,
and Abu Ali would walk. "We didn't know what to do with this guy," one
former Justice official confided to NEWSWEEK.

So for the next 20 months, Justice let Abu Ali, a U.S. citizen, languish
in a Saudi jail cell. He had no access to a lawyer, and no charges were
filed against him. Critics say this is a prime example of how the Bush
administration has "outsourced" the detention of terror suspects to
cooperative Mideast countries with poor human-rights records. But Abu
Ali's Virginia-based parents—his father works as a computer analyst for
the Saudi Embassy—say their son was tortured into confessing to lies,
and sued the federal government last year. The judge in the civil case,
John Bates, grew impatient. Bates threatened to force Justice officials
to explain under oath what they knew about Abu Ali's detention. So the
department arranged to charge Abu Ali back in the United States with
providing material support to terrorists.