Iranian widow faces terror charges in US

In march 2003, Zeinab Taleb-Jedi, a widow, found herself trapped in a cold, dusty bunker in Iraq as invading US forces began blowing...

In march 2003, Zeinab Taleb-Jedi, a widow, found herself trapped in a cold, dusty bunker in Iraq as invading US forces began blowing up buildings all around her. 8220;The noise was overwhelming,8221; the Iran-born US citizen said recounting the air raids around Camp Ashraf, a stronghold for Iranian exiles near Baghdad.

Taleb-Jedi, 52, escaped serious harm. But more than five years later, she remains stuck in legal limbo in New York, facing federal terrorism charges labelling her a leader of a militant group.

Her protracted prosecution has outraged civil rights advocates, who accuse federal authorities of trampling free speech by overzealously enforcing laws against providing material support to terrorist groups. Defence attorney Justine Harris has questioned why 8220;the Government would want to put this woman in jail for associating with a group whose goal is regime change in Iran8221;.

Taleb-Jedi has been linked to People8217;s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran. Prosecutors say she became an English teacher in 1999 at its Iraq headquarters, Camp Ashraf, and that two informants have since identified her as a member of a leadership council. Meanwhile, Taleb-Jedi is free on 500,000 bond and living in a homeless shelter in Manhattan.

Born in Tehran, Taleb-Jedi came to the US on a student visa in 1978. Around the same time, her first marriage fell apart because her husband was 8216;very cruel8217;, FBI agents said she told them. She was granted political asylum in the mid-1980s. She remarried and moved to NYC with her husband in 1983. Her second husband left the US a few years later to join the People8217;s Mujahedeen at Camp Ashraf.

According to FBI reports, Taleb-Jedi said she visited her husband at Camp Ashraf in 1987. That year she also became a registered press officer for the group. She told FBI that she knew that the group had been designated as a terrorist outfit and considered the decision 8220;unfair8221;.

In 1996, Taleb-Jedi became a US citizen. A year later, she learned her husband had died in a bus bombing on a road between Camp Ashraf and Baghdad. Taleb-Jedi 8220;described herself as being extremely distraught about her husband8217;s assassination,8221; the FBI reports said.

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In March 2006, after waiting for more than a year for a renewed US passport, she flew from Jordan to New York to see her son, her lawyer said. FBI agents waiting at John F Kennedy International Airport arrested her.