Bad translation used against missile-money defendants
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 The FBI sting led to the arrests of two Muslim leaders.
 New York Gov. George Pataki says the probe took months.
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NEW YORK (CNN) -- Federal prosecutors said Tuesday they used a mistaken translation of a key piece of evidence last week in a terror case against two Muslims from Albany, New York.
Military translators erred in translating a notebook that allegedly referred to Yassin Aref, 34, as "commander." Instead, Aref was simply called "brother," according to documents issued Tuesday by Glenn Suddaby, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York.
The notebook had been discovered in an alleged terror camp in Iraq after it was destroyed by U.S. forces in June 2003.
"After obtaining a copy of the original entry late yesterday, FBI translators who reviewed it concluded that the Kurdish language word that precedes Aref's name in the second to last line of the entry is 'brother,' not 'commander'," Suddaby wrote.
Prosecutors had charged Aref and Mohammed Hossain, 49, with attempting to launder money from what the two thought was the sale of a shoulder-fired missile to be used in a New York City terror attack against Pakistan's U.N. ambassador.
The sale, in fact, was an FBI sting set in motion by a government informant posing as an arms dealer.
Aref is an imam, or prayer leader, at the As-Salam mosque in the New York capital. Both men were arrested this month during raids on their homes and the mosque.
Law enforcement sources said the men are believed to be connected to Ansar al-Islam, a terrorist organization previously based in northern Iraq with links to Jordanian terrorism suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whom U.S. officials believe has links to al Qaeda.
Lawyers for Aref and Hossain blasted the government's handling of the notebook.
In an August 10 detention hearing, the U.S. attorney's office had cited the "commander" reference, said to have been in Arabic, as a critical piece of evidence implicating Aref with the alleged terror conspiracy.
"What's troubling about this is they were in court talking about a document that they had never seen, and the information they gave turned out to be wrong. And that's very disturbing," said Terry Kindlon, Aref's lawyer.
In the hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge David Homer pointed to the "commander" reference as a factor in his decision to deny bail to Aref.
"If true, that evidence carries significant weight," Homer said in issuing his ruling to remand Aref to custody until trial, which could take place in six to eight months.
Homer directed the government to provide the page in question to Aref's defense by today.
But U.S. attorney Suddaby told CNN that the change in translation would not affect the case against Aref.
"It doesn't make a difference with regard to the detention or the evidence in this case," Suddaby said. "The proof of what they are charged with does not concern whether his name was in the book, which it was."
Asked how such a mistake could happen, Suddaby said FBI translators disagreed with military intelligence over the meaning of the terms and the language.
"Apparently the military translator said it means one thing. The FBI felt it means something else," Suddaby said. "Regardless of what the translation is, it doesn't change a thing."
Hossain's attorney, Kevin Luibrand, said the government failed to offer an explanation for the mistranslation of the notebook entry, which contained Aref's name and and former address.
"The entire predicate for the huge undertaking was on a document that the government never fully translated," Luibrand said. "That was the entire basis for the case against these two individuals."
He also said the destroyed camp was not used by terrorists, but rather by Saddam Hussein loyalists evading U.S. military forces.
"It was not a terror camp at all," he said.
Defense attorneys said the government's case is significantly weakened by the mistaken translation. They said both defendants will seek to be released on bail at the next hearing, on August 24.
