Opinion ID: 2551
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Abu Rida al Suri (a.k.a. Mohamed Loay Bayazid)

Text: Al-Fadl testified that Bayazid was a member of the delegation that Bin Laden sent overseas to investigate whether al Qaeda should consider relocating from Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Sudan, id. at 216-17. He also testified that, after al Qaeda relocated, Bayazid was involved in planning the transportation of Stinger missiles and anti-tank rockets from Afghanistan to Sudan. Id. at 272-73. b. The Admission into Evidence of Statements by El-Hage’s Co-Conspirators 62 In addition to challenging the District Court’s admission, through al-Fadl’s testimony, of statements made by the above declarants, El-Hage also challenges the District Court’s admission of statements from intercepted phone calls involving, inter alia, the following individuals: April Ray ElHage, Ahmed Tawhil (a.k.a. Ahmed Sheikh Adam), Ahmed Hassan, Abu Khadija, Ahmed Mohamed Hamed Ali (a.k.a. Ahmed the Egyptian), Fazul Mohammed (a.k.a. Harun), and an individual called “Saad.” See El-Hage Br. 94-100 (identifying statements in question). We have previously recognized that a statement is made “in furtherance” of the conspiracy if it “‘provide[s] reassurance, [or] serve[s] to maintain trust and cohesiveness among [the conspirators], . . . [or] inform[s] [other conspirators] of the current status of the conspiracy.’” United States v. Simmons, 923 F.2d 934, 945 (2d Cir. 1991) (quoting United States v. Rahme, 813 F.2d 31, 35-36 (2d Cir. 1987)). We have recognized also that “statements designed to induce a listener’s assistance [also] satisfy the requirements of [Rule] 801(d)(2)(E).” Id. “Though the Rule requires that both the declarant and the party against whom the statement is offered be members of the conspiracy, there is no requirement that the person to whom the statement is made also be a member.” Beech-Nut Nutrition Corp., 871 F.2d at 1199 (citation omitted). “Because what constitutes a statement that is ‘in furtherance’ of a conspiracy is essentially a question of fact, we will reverse a decision to admit co-conspirator statements only if it is clearly erroneous,” Simmons, 923 F.2d at 945, and “‘[w]here there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous,’” Beech-Nut Nutrition Corp., 871 F.2d at 1199 (quoting Anderson v. City of Bessemer, 470 U.S. 564, 574 (1985)). The co-conspirator statements identified by El-Hage include: the advice Saleh gave to al-Fadl on how al-Fadl should conceal his identity when “traveling on behalf of al Qaeda outside the Afghanistan-Pakistan area,” Tr. 212-14; a statement by Abu Fadl al Makee and Abu Rida al Suri declaring that they were seeking to transport Stinger missiles and Milan anti-tank rockets from 63 Afghanistan to Sudan, id. at 272-73; and a statement by al Nalfi about al Qaeda’s intention to establish a cell in London, id. at 305-307.37 The intercepted phone calls identified by El-Hage include conversations in which: April Ray El-Hage informs her husband that other al Qaeda conspirators have left messages for him, Supplemental App. 1878-79 (message from Abu Khadija); id. at 1953 (message from Mohammed Atef); El-Hage speaks to April Ray El-Hage in code and reveals his concern that his phone calls may be monitored, id. at 1917; al Qaeda members Harun and Ahmad Hassan discuss al Qaeda business, id. at 1860 (discussing the preparation of a letter for travel); al Qaeda members Saad and Harun discuss al Qaeda business, id. at 1859; Harun and Ahmad Tawhil, an al Qaeda associate, discuss al Qaeda business, Appellant’s App. 2519-20; El-Hage discusses the possibility of supplying false travel documents, in code, with an unidentified individual, Supplemental App. 1940; Appellants’ App. 250506; El-Hage and Saad discuss transmittal of false documents, Supplemental App. 1876; an unidentified male asks Harun about using the al Qaeda satellite phone in El-Hage’s possession, and is informed by Harun that the phone is reserved for “special phone calls from [Bin Laden],” id. at 1948; El-Hage discusses the delivery of documents to Ahmad Tawhil, an al Qaeda associate, id. at 1922; Harun and Abu Khadija discuss the need to investigate whether al Tayyib was cooperating with U.S. authorities, id. at 1961-62; Mohammed Atef conveys flight details to an unidentified male, Appellants’ App. 2480; al Qaeda member Abu Islam al Sirir and an unidentified female discuss the travel plans of Saleh and Bin Laden, id. at 2500; El-Hage discusses al Qaeda financial matters with Tawfik, an al Qaeda associate, id. 37 El-Hage also claims that the District Court incorrectly admitted two statements by Saleh. See El-Hage Br. 94 (identifying transcript pages 282 and 284 as containing the statements in question). Pages 282 through 284 contain statements by one individual with a name similar to Abu Talal al Masry— namely, Abu Hafs el Masry— and a statement about an individual with another similar sounding name: namely, Saif al Islam al Masry. Abu Hafs el Masry (a.k.a. Mohammed Atef) was an al Qaeda military commander, and the statement in question consisted of a report about the status of al Qaeda’s activities in Somalia. Tr. 283. Accordingly, insofar as El-Hage challenges the admission of Atef’s statement to al-Fadl, we conclude that this statement was properly admitted by the District Court. 64 at 2549, 2554; and Tawfik, Ahmad Tawhil, and Harun discuss financial matters, Gov’t Trial Ex. 220B- T. Upon our review of the record, we see no basis to disturb the determination of the District Court that the statements identified by El-Hage were made (1) by members of a factually-relevant conspiracy (2) in furtherance of that conspiracy. Accordingly, we see no error in the District Court’s decision to admit these statements into evidence pursuant to Rule 801(d)(2)(E). 3. The Admission of Certain Documents Offered by the Government El-Hage contends that the District Court should not have admitted “scores of documents seized from MIRA [(Mercy International Relief Agency)] in Nairobi, Kenya, and from several locations in . . . the U.K.,” because there was insufficient evidence “connecting most of those documents with any conspiracy to violate United States law.” El-Hage Br. 96. El-Hage does not identify with any specificity the documents he believes were admitted in error; nor does he provide any indication of the significance of these documents to the government’s case against him. Because El-Hage provides no basis for this Court to evaluate his challenge to the admissibility of these documents—and, upon our own review of the record, we perceive none—we conclude that there was no error in their admission. In sum, we conclude that the District Court did not err or abuse its discretion by admitting the statements of El-Hage’s co-defendants, co-conspirators, and other third parties. Accordingly, we reject El-Hage’s challenges to these decisions. F. El-Hage’s Motion for a New Trial Based on the Post-Conviction Disclosure of Recorded Statements of a Government Witness We now turn to El-Hage’s argument that he was entitled to a new trial based on the government’s alleged failure to make a timely disclosure of videotapes documenting pretrial conversations between prosecutors and a former al Qaeda member who testified for the prosecution “about the history, structure and operation of al Qaeda” as well as “about some of El-Hage’s al Qaeda 65 activities.” United States v. Bin Laden, 397 F. Supp. 2d 465, 474 (S.D.N.Y. 2005). As explained in greater detail below, we see no merit in El-Hage’s argument. 1. The Post-Conviction Discovery of Videotaped Interviews and El-Hage’s Motion for a New Trial In or around January 2002—eight months after the jury returned a verdict of guilt against ElHage and three months after the District Court entered a judgment of conviction against him—U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald38 discovered that twelve of the government’s pretrial conferences with Jamal al-Fadl, a former al Qaeda member who testified for the prosecution, had been videotaped by alFadl’s liaison to the U.S. Marshals Service Witness Security Program (“WitSec”), and the tapes were being kept by the U.S. Marshals Service (“USMS”) at their headquarters in Washington, D.C. Bin Laden, 397 F. Supp. 2d at 475, 476. “Almost immediately after learning of the taping,” Fitzgerald and AUSA Kenneth M. Karas contacted the Department of Justice Office of Enforcement Operations (“OEO”) to explain “the importance of maintaining the tapes” and the need to convey the tapes to AUSA Karas “as soon as possible.” Id. at 477. AUSA Karas continued to place follow-up phone calls to OEO throughout February and March of 2002. Id. at 477-78. He finally received copies of the tapes, edited for security reasons by the USMS, on or about March 21, 2002. Id. at 478. He never obtained the original tapes or a complete copy thereof. Id. Upon receiving the tapes, AUSA Karas and other Southern District AUSAs had them transcribed. They reviewed those transcriptions and redacted various portions to protect the identities of certain individuals and to protect operational information that they believed was not subject to discovery. The prosecutors then provided these redacted transcripts to counsel for El-Hage and his codefendants. Id. at 478. 38 Patrick J. Fitzgerald and Kenneth M. Karas were two of the “primary Assistant United States Attorneys . . . responsible for [Jamal] al-Fadl and for the prosecution of El-Hage and his codefendants.” 397 F. Supp. 2d at 476-77 nn. 8-9. At the time of the events described in the District Court’s opinion, Fitzgerald was serving as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Id. at 476 n.8. 66 On January 15, 2003, while his appeal was pending before our Court,39 El-Hage filed a motion for a limited remand to the District Court in order to file a motion pursuant to Rule 33 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure for a new trial based on the government’s failure to effect timely disclosure of the tapes.40 We denied the motion for remand but granted El-Hage an extension of time within which to file his appellate brief. On October 24, 2003, El-Hage filed a motion in the District Court seeking a new trial based on the government’s failure to make a timely disclosure of the tapes as required by Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972), and the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500. Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy41 noted the government’s representations that it first learned about these recordings in early 2002—well after El-Hage had been tried and sentenced—and held hearings to explore the circumstances surrounding the creation of the tapes and the government’s discovery of their existence. Bin Laden, 397 F. Supp. 2d at 479-80. On May 12, 2005, El-Hage filed a motion in the Court of Appeals to hold his appeal in abeyance until Judge Duffy resolved his motion for a new trial. El-Hage noted that this Court had given him until May 23, 2005 to file his appellate brief, but the District Court was still conducting evidentiary hearings on matters related to his Rule 33 motion for a new trial. He further noted that the government consented to his application to suspend the appeal. We granted El-Hage’s motion on May 25, 2005. 39 El-Hage had filed a notice of appeal on October 25, 2001. 40 Rule 33 provides that “[u]pon the defendant’s motion, the court may vacate any judgment and grant a new trial if the interest of justice so requires” and that “[a] motion for a new trial grounded on newly discovered evidence” is timely if “filed within 3 years after the verdict or finding of guilty.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 33. 41 On January 23, 2002, this case was reassigned within the Southern District of New York, from Judge Leonard B. Sand to Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy. 67 Judge Duffy held additional evidentiary hearings on June 6, 2005 and June 7, 2005. Id. at 474. On November 2, 2005, Judge Duffy filed an opinion making the following factual findings, none of which is challenged on appeal: “On July 16, 1997, pursuant to a cooperation agreement, al-Fadl pleaded guilty” to various charges involving his activities on behalf of al Qaeda. Id. “Following his guilty plea, al-Fadl . . . continued cooperating with FBI agents and AUSAs.” Id. “In late 1998, [he] was accepted into the Witness Security Program administered by the United States Marshals Service,” assigned a WitSec liaison, and relocated to a new, remote, location. Id. at 474-75. “Following his relocation, and throughout 1999, al-Fadl continued to meet with FBI agents and prosecutors via telephone and in person via ‘neutral site’ visits.” Id. at 475. In late December 1999, the Southern District of New York Assistant United States Attorneys who had been interviewing al-Fadl . . . requested that WitSec install videoconferencing equipment in al-Fadl’s relocation area to facilitate their contact with al-Fadl. . . . WitSec complied with the request and, by the end of 1999, purchased and installed video conferencing equipment . . . in WitSec offices in al-Fadl’s relocation area and [in] New York .... Around the time Marshals Service employees were installing the videoconference equipment, [al-Fadl’s WitSec liaison] spoke with [a branch chief inspector] . . . stationed at USMS Headquarters in Washington, D.C.[ ], regarding . . . the al-Fadl teleconferences. [He] was told that the Marshals Service computer system in the relocation area was unable to handle classified information and that he should therefore videotape the teleconferences rather than preparing detailed written reports. Finding this order odd, [the WitSec liaison,] Inspector Doe[,] sought confirmation from his direct supervisor, Supervisory Inspector Mike.[42] Supervisory Inspector Mike conferred with the Chief Inspector for the relocation area . . . who confirmed that USMS Headquarters had ordered the videotaping of the video-teleconferences .... Eighteen video-teleconferences were conducted between January 21, 2000 and January 14, 2002. Thirteen of the conferences occurred before the conclusion of El-Hage’s trial; twelve of these were videotaped. . . . In all, Inspector Doe recorded approximately twenty-eight hours of video-teleconference on six videotapes. . . . 42 “Inspector Doe” and “Supervisory Inspector Mike” are pseudonyms adopted by the District Court “[i]n deference to the security concerns of the WitSec program.” Bin Laden, 397 F. Supp. 2d at 475 n.3. 68 Id. at 475-76. “After each conference Inspector Doe prepared a USMS Field Report (‘USM 210’) with the date of the video-teleconference,” a brief statement that al-Fadl had been interviewed on closedcircuit television by an AUSA, and a reference to “the number of the videotape on which he had recorded the session.” Id. at 476. “Inspector Doe then presented the printed report to Supervisory Inspector Mike who reviewed it, signed it and forwarded it to USMS headquarters in Washington. At headquarters, the report was to be reviewed by the case manager on al-Fadl’s case and placed in al-Fadl’s [USMS] file.” Id. at 476. After creating the videotapes and reporting them to his superiors, Inspector Doe secured the tapes in his office safe. At no point prior to or during El-Hage’s 2001 trial did Inspector Doe, Supervisory Inspector Mike, [the branch chief inspector from USMS headquarters in Washington], [the Chief Inspector for the relocation area], or any of the five case managers from al-Fadl’s case contact the United States Attorney’s Office to discuss turning over the tapes to the prosecutors for possible disclosure to the defendants. Id. The District Court further found that [i]n late 2001, George Dapra, the WitSec Inspector in the New York area who had acted as the prosecutors’ liaison with Inspector Doe, . . . called Inspector Doe to make arrangements for the transition to a new Inspector in the New York area. During that call, Inspector Doe asked Inspector Dapra what he should do with the videotapes of the al-Fadl conferences. Inspector Dapra responded that he had not known of any tapes, and he subsequently called United States Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to inform him of the tapes’ existence. Id. “[U.S. Attorney] Fitzgerald was . . . shocked and angered to learn of the taping,” id.; “[AUSA] Karas . . . was equally surprised and upset.” Id. Although Judge Duffy concluded that WitSec personnel were members of the prosecution team, he nevertheless ruled, “[b]ased on the evidence adduced at th[e] [post-trial] hearings, . . . review of the . . . videotapes, the trial record and exhibits, the pre-trial discovery . . . originally produced, and the parties’ submissions,” id. at 474, that a new trial was not warranted, id. at 518. El-Hage moved for reconsideration of the District Court’s denial of his Rule 33 motion, and, in an order entered on December 5, 2005, Judge Duffy denied El-Hage’s motion for reconsideration of the November 2 69 opinion and order. El-Hage now appeals Judge Duffy’s orders of November 2, 2005 and December 5, 2005. On appeal, he contends that the videotapes contained “evidence which relates directly to . . . the substantive charges against [him]” as well as information that his attorneys could have used to impeach “the motives, bias, and credibility of Mr. al[-]Fadl.” El-Hage Br. 105. 2. El-Hage’s Motion for a New Trial Was Properly Denied by the District Court. Judge Duffy ruled, based on consideration of the totality of the circumstances, that it was “entirely appropriate to consider the WitSec personnel as part of the prosecution team.” Bin Laden, 397 F. Supp. 2d at 485. We need not decide whether we agree with that assessment because we fully agree with Judge Duffy’s ultimate conclusion, based on his meticulous analysis of each item of undisclosed information, that “none of the undisclosed material in the video-teleconferences is sufficient to undermine confidence in the verdict.” Id. at 518. As a preliminary matter, we observe that Inspector Doe and his colleagues did not “intentionally violate[ ]” any duty of disclosure they owed to El-Hage in light of the fact that “they had no idea they were obliged to produce [the tapes]” in discovery. Bin Laden, 397 F. Supp. 2d at 488-89; see also id. at 486 (finding that “[i]t is clear . . . that Inspector Doe then had, and likely still has, no idea that videotapes like the ones he created are extremely likely to contain material discoverable pursuant to Brady, Giglio, Jencks or similar authority”); id. at 487 (noting that neither Inspector Doe nor Supervisory Inspector Mike had “receiv[ed] any training within the last nine to ten years regarding government disclosure obligations”; that Supervisory Inspector Mike appeared never to have received such training at any point during his twenty-three years of service with the USMS; and that neither Doe and Mike’s supervising officers nor “the four to five [c]ase [m]anagers on al-Fadl’s case were any better informed of their obligations”). 70 Insofar as the videotapes did contain some Jencks Act material, these statements did not “[ ]either individually, [ ]or as a whole, . . . rise to the level of ‘evidence of such high value that it could not have escaped [the prosecutors’] attention.’” Id. at 509 (quoting Hilton, 521 F.2d at 166); see also id. at 490506 (specific factual findings supporting this conclusion); cf. Hilton, 521 F.2d at 166 (holding that if the government has not “deliberately suppresse[d] evidence or . . . ignore[d] evidence of such high value that it could not have escaped [the government’s] attention, . . . a new trial is required only if there is a significant chance that this added item, developed by skilled counsel, could have induced a reasonable doubt in the minds of enough jurors to avoid a conviction”). In addition, pursuant to our evaluation of “the undisclosed [Jencks Act] [m]aterial and the potential Brady/Giglio material in light of all the evidence presented against El-Hage,” we agree with the District Court that “there is no ‘reasonable probability that had the evidence been disclosed, the result [of the proceeding] would have been different.’” Bin Laden, 397 F. Supp. 2d at 518 (quoting Gonzalez, 110 F.3d at 943); see also id. at 514-18 (specific factual findings supporting this conclusion). Accordingly, because we agree with the District Court’s determination that “none of the undisclosed material in the video-teleconference[ ] [tapes] is sufficient to undermine confidence in the verdict,” id. at 518 (internal quotation marks omitted), we conclude that the District Court did not err—let alone abuse its discretion—in declining to grant El-Hage’s motion for a new trial. United States v. Douglas, 525 F.3d 225, 245 (2d Cir. 2008) (“Where a defendant’s ‘Brady claim was raised in a motion for a new trial pursuant to Rule 33 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, we review the denial of the motion for abuse of discretion.’” (quoting United States v. Gil, 297 F.3d 93, 101 (2d Cir. 2002));43 cf. 43 El-Hage contends that we should not review the District Court’s denial of his Rule 33 motion under a deferential standard because the “[judge] that decided Mr. El-Hage’s Rule 33 motion . . . was not in a position superior to this Court, since it did not preside over [El-Hage’s] trial.” El-Hage Reply Br. 32-33. It is true that, when a criminal defendant brings a motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence, and the district judge who rules on the defendant’s motion for a new trial is the same district judge who presided over the defendant’s original trial, we accord “great deference” to that court’s weighing of the evidence because, having “‘presided over the trial[,] . . . [it] is better able to determine the effect the new materials would have had.’” Gonzales, 110 F.3d at 943 (quoting United States v. Petrillo, 821 71 Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 281 (1999) (noting that even where the prosecution has “breach[ed] [its] broad obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence[,] . . . there is never a real ‘Brady violation’ unless the nondisclosure was so serious that there is a reasonable probability that the suppressed evidence would have produced a different verdict”) (emphasis added); United States v. Jackson, 345 F.3d 59, 77 (2003) (“‘Where the government’s Jencks Act violation is inadvertent . . . the failure to disclose may be disregarded if there is no reasonable probability that had the evidence been disclosed, the result would have been different.’” (quoting Gonzalez, 110 F.3d at 943) (alteration omitted) (emphasis added)). Accordingly, even if we were to conclude that El-Hage was entitled to receive the videotapes at issue, he would not be entitled to a new trial because the videotapes do not undermine his conviction. On appeal, El-Hage renews his claims that (1) “[al-Fadl] was the foundation of the government’s case,” see El-Hage Reply Br. 24, and (2) the videotapes contained information that would have critically undercut al-Fadl’s testimony, see, e.g., El-Hage Br. 133 (“[B]ecause the content of the videoconferences was not disclosed at trial . . . Mr. al[-]Fadl was free to lie to the jury, and conceal important aspects of his cooperation and the benefits accruing to him as a result, with impunity.”); id. at 141 (“[T]he videoconference transcripts provide repeated evidence that Mr. al[-]Fadl, in his trial testimony, vastly overstated his knowledge, and fudged the time period over which it spanned.”), so that (3) the lack of timely disclosure deprived El-Hage of the opportunity to challenge effectively the government’s case, El-Hage Reply Br. 23-24 (expressing the view that “the government’s case [with] F.2d 85, 88 (2d Cir. 1987)). This is not, however, the core reason why we defer to the district court. Rather, our core reason stems from the text of Rule 33 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which entrusts decisions as to whether a new trial should be granted to the discretion of the district court. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 33 (providing that “[u]pon the defendant’s motion, the court may vacate any judgment and grant a new trial if the interest of justice so requires”) (emphasis added); cf. Wilton v. Seven Falls Co., 515 U.S. 277, 286-87 (1995) (noting that, by “provid[ing] that a court ‘may’” exercise particular authority, a statute “[o]n its face, . . . . [contains] [a] textual commitment to discretion, and the breadth of leeway we have always understood [discretion] to suggest”); In re Application of Malev Hungarian Airlines, 964 F.2d 97, 104 (2d Cir. 1992) (noting that a “statute [that] uses the term ‘may,’ . . . in describing the court’s power to respond to a request . . . clearly lodg[es] discretion in the district court. . . . confirm[ing] that abuse of discretion is the applicable standard [of review]”). 72 Mr. al[-]Fadl . . . neutralized entirely by a cross-examination augmented by the materials in the videoconference transcripts[ ] would be so damaged that a new trial is required under any of the applicable legal standards”). We reject these claims for the reasons stated in the District Court’s opinion. See Bin Laden, 397 F. Supp. 2d at 515-18 (discussing the “independent evidence and testimony corroborat[ing] al[-]Fadl’s testimony on . . . subjects relating to El-Hage”). El-Hage also contends that the videotapes contained “substantive evidence undermining an important perjury charge against [him].” El-Hage Br. 134. Specifically, he claims that, in the course of the videoconferences, al-Fadl relayed statements made by a third party that, El-Hage contends, would have established that the al Qaeda member who went to Lake Victoria in 1996 to investigate the death of one Abu Ubaidah al Banshiri was someone other than El-Hage. Id. at 139 n.49 (claiming that the statements “establish that al Qaeda sent someone else—a member of the ‘Tirana’ group, aligned with the Egyptians—and not Mr. El-Hage, to search for Mr. al Banshiri and confirm [al Banshiri’s] death in the ferry accident”) (emphasis omitted); cf. Bin Laden, 397 F. Supp. 2d at 512 n.56 (noting that “El-Hage’s alleged travel to Lake Victoria in order to investigate al-Banshiri’s drowning was relevant to the [criminal] case [as a whole] as it provided one of the overt acts of the charged conspiracies” and that “in the perjury counts against El-Hage, the [g]overnment alleged El-Hage lied to the Grand Jury about conducting the investigation, and about knowing of al-Banshiri’s death”). We note our agreement with the observation of the District Court that “excerpts of the actual conversation between al-Fadl and [the third party] . . . clearly show that” the third party never made the allegedly exculpatory statements in question; rather, “al-Fadl simply misheard” what the third party was saying. Bin Laden, 397 F. Supp. 2d at 513 n.58. We also agree with the District Court that, even if alFadl had been reporting the third party’s statements accurately, “[n]othing in th[e] statement precludes 73 the possibility that El-Hage went to investigate al-Banshiri’s death.” Id. at 513. As the District Court observed, El-Hage’s defense to the relevant charges was not that El-Hage did not travel to Lake Victoria to investigate the death of a passenger on a ferry. In fact, in his Grand Jury testimony, El-Hage admitted going to Lake Victoria to investigate the drowning death of a passenger in the ferry accident that killed al-Banshiri. El-Hage claimed, however, that he was investigating the death of “Adel Habib” and further claimed that he did not know that “Adel Habib” was also known as Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri. Notably, at trial the [g]overnment presented the eyewitness testimony of Ashif Juma, al-Banshiri’s brother-in-law, who recounted how he saw El-Hage at Lake Victoria investigating al-Banshiri’s death. Id. (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted); see also id. (“Essentially, [El-]Hage contended that he just happened to have been at Lake Victoria investigating the death of somebody who just happened to be on the same ferry as the military commander of al Qaeda.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Accordingly, we reject El-Hage’s claim that al-Fadl’s second-hand account of “the events surrounding the death of [al Banshiri],” El-Hage Br. 134, was relevant to—let alone undermined—the perjury charge of which the jury convicted him. Bearing in mind the liberty interests that El-Hage has at stake, we can state with confidence that the material on the tapes, taken individually or as a whole, was not so helpful to El-Hage’s case that, had it been disclosed to El-Hage before trial, there is a reasonable probability that the jury would not have convicted him. G. El-Hage’s Claim under the Cumulative Error Doctrine El-Hage next contends that even if the errors44 he has alleged “do not individually warrant reversal, their accumulation mandates relief under the ‘cumulative error’ doctrine.” El-Hage Br. 280. In making this claim, he identifies three additional decisions of the District Court—pertaining to (1) the 44 These asserted errors consist of (1) El-Hage’s inability to personally review classified discovery, see Part II.C.4, ante; (2) the government’s disclosure of certain documents to the District Court but not to El-Hage’s counsel, see In re Terrorist Bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa (Fourth Amendment Challenges), __ F.3d __ (2d Cir. 2008); (3) El-Hage’s failure to receive timely disclosure of the videotapes documenting the government’s conferences with Jamal al-Fadl, see Part II.F.5, ante; (4) the admission of custodial statements made by El-Hage’s co-defendants, see Part II.E.1, ante; and (5) the District Court’s refusal to sever his trial from the trials of his co-defendants, see Part II.D, ante. El-Hage Br. 280. 74 government’s failure to preserve transcripts of certain intercepted conversations, (2) the jury’s purported knowledge that defendants were shackled at trial, and (3) the denial, in part, of El-Hage’s request for a bill of particulars—that, he claims, “augmented the prejudice and unfairness” of his trial and thereby rendered it fundamentally unfair. Id. at 281. The cumulative error doctrine comes into play only where “the total effect of the errors . . . found . . . cast[s] such a serious doubt on the fairness of the trial that the convictions must be reversed.” United States v. Guglielmini, 384 F.2d 602, 607 (2d Cir. 1967). As discussed above, we conclude that the principal “errors” upon which El-Hage relies, see note 44, ante, were not, in fact, errors. Accordingly, the only remaining question is whether any of the three additional “errors” noted above amount to trial errors that, when taken together, support a claim of cumulative error. 1. The Government’s Failure to Preserve Recordings of Intercepted Telephone Conversations During trial, counsel for El-Hage determined that the original tape recordings of some of the phone conversations recorded from the cellphone and landline in Nairobi, see In re Terrorist Bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa (Fourth Amendment Challenges), __ F.3d __ (2d Cir. 2008), had not been preserved. Tr. 3944. Defense counsel argued that the loss of that material was potentially prejudicial to El-Hage because such material was more likely to be exculpatory than inculpatory. Id. at 3946 (counsel for El-Hage, noting that “the agency taking down notes or translations of those telephone calls obviously [would not] take very many notes of the calls that they think are not relevant to a possible contact”). The District Court observed that this concern could be addressed by means of “a stipulation that every telephone conversation made between [El-Hage and the al Qaeda members under surveillance] did not contain inculpatory material,” id. at 3946, or a ruling, pursuant to Rule 1004 75 of the Federal Rules of Evidence,45 that the parties could introduce “substitute evidence,” such as summaries prepared by the government, to establish the nature of the missing recordings, id. at 3947. El-Hage’s attorneys, however, argued that because the government had failed to preserve the tapes, the government should be barred from introducing any summaries “as a sanction” for its conduct. See id. at 3948. The District Court denied this request, stating that it saw “no basis in anything . . . presented . . . to conclude that there has been any bad faith on the part of the government or deliberate destruction by the government or anything which would lead to the imposition of sanctions . . . .” Id. at 3950; see also id. at 3958 (“Just so the record is clear, the application for the imposition of sanctions against the government is denied because the Court finds the absence of any basis to assume that there was bad faith on the part of the government.”). Instead, the District Court ruled that it would allow both parties to benefit from the best evidence rule. See id. at 3957; see also Fed. R. Evid. 1004. As the District Court explained, the government’s ability to introduce summaries would be “a function of what it is that the defendant seeks to introduce,” Tr. 3957, such that if El-Hage wished to introduce a statement “to show that he was engaged in a legitimate business activity, and the government has a similar document which shows that [this was] code language or that it was really for some other purposes,” the government could introduce its document in rebuttal, id. at 3958. On appeal, El-Hage contends that (1) the government’s failure to preserve the tapes amounted to “spoliation” of evidence, El-Hage Br. 282, and (2) the District Court’s proposed remedy did not adequately address the government’s conduct, id. at 283. We disagree. 45 Rule 1004 provides that “[t]he original is not required, and other evidence of the contents of a writing, recording, or photograph is admissible if . . . [a]ll originals are lost or have been destroyed, unless the proponent lost or destroyed them in bad faith.” Fed. R. Evid. 1004(1). 76 “‘Spoliation is the destruction or significant alteration of evidence, or failure to preserve property for another’s use as evidence in pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation.’” Allstate Ins. Co. v. Hamilton Beach/Proctor Silex, Inc., 473 F.3d 450, 457 (2d Cir. 2007) (quoting West v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 167 F.3d 776, 779 (2d Cir. 1999)). “The obligation to preserve evidence arises when the party has notice that the evidence is relevant to litigation or when a party should have known that the evidence may be relevant to future litigation.” Fujitsu Ltd. v. Fed. Express Corp., 247 F.3d 423, 436 (2d Cir. 2001). In addition, “[o]nce a court has concluded that a party was under an obligation to preserve the evidence that it destroyed, it must then consider whether the evidence was intentionally destroyed, and the likely contents of that evidence.” Id. A review of the record reveals that the recordings at issue were made by intelligence agents “not in connection with a view to criminal prosecution but for intelligence purposes.” Tr. 3958. Nor is there any evidence that the intelligence agents who created the recordings knew or should have known that they could be used in connection with a criminal inquiry. Accordingly, because the custodians of the recordings were not on actual or constructive notice that this evidence might be relevant to future litigation, the government had no obligation to preserve the recordings at the time that they were destroyed. Even if the government had been under an obligation to preserve the tapes, El-Hage has pointed to no evidence that the tapes were intentionally destroyed, and therefore the destruction of the tapes could not have amounted to spoliation. See Fujitsu Ltd., 247 F.3d at 436. We can conclude with confidence that the recordings were not intentionally destroyed based on the fact that the government was itself disadvantaged by the destruction of the tapes. As the government explained to the District Court, there are great calls that are missing. I’ll give one example. Mr. El-Hage, in his legitimate enterprise efforts, passed license plate numbers to somebody else and when you take the license 77 plate numbers and you put them together, you get the phone number of a terrorist overseas. We would love to have that telephone call. We don’t. . . . Whoever listened to the tapes did not know what we all know today, which is what some people had done, [and] what some phone numbers meant. Tr. 3954. The District Court agreed, finding that, “as the government has indicated, it has not been advantaged but [rather] disadvantaged by virtue of the failure to preserve this material.” Id. at 3958. Our independent review of the record leads us to the same conclusion. Taking into account the background circumstances described by the government, no prophylactic, punitive, or remedial purpose would have been served by imposing sanctions upon the government. Cf. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 167 F.3d at 779 (noting that “[a]lthough a district court has broad discretion in crafting a proper sanction for spoliation, we have explained that the applicable sanction should be molded to serve the prophylactic, punitive, and remedial rationales underlying the spoliation doctrine”). Quite apart from the fact that the government was under no obligation to preserve the tapes in question, there was no need to punish it for having failed to preserve the tapes, or to otherwise deter it from undertaking any similar action in the future, because the government did not intentionally destroy tapes. See id. (observing that, where spoliation occurs, “[t]he sanction should be designed to: (1) deter parties from engaging in spoliation; (2) place the risk of an erroneous judgment on the party who wrongfully created the risk; and (3) restore ‘the prejudiced party to the same position he would have been in absent the wrongful destruction of evidence by the opposing party’” (quoting Kronisch v. United States, 150 F.3d 112, 126 (2d Cir.1998))). The only question before the District Court here was how to mitigate any arguable prejudice to El Hage. The District Court adequately addressed this question by “permitt[ing] . . . El-Hage to offer in evidence transcripts of those [communications] which, because of the destruction of the originals, will constitute the best evidence.” Tr. 3949. For this reason, we perceive no error or abuse of discretion in the District Court’s refusal to impose any sanctions on the government. Cf. Fujitsu Ltd., 78 247 F.3d at 436 (concluding that, in light of the trial court’s finding that the party moving for sanctions “had failed to demonstrate that [the non-moving party’s] action was an intentional attempt to destroy evidence[,] . . . the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to sanction [the non-moving party] for spoliation”). 2. El-Hage’s Allegation that the Jury Was Aware that Defendants Were Shackled El-Hage also contends that, although “[t]he District Court went to great lengths to conceal from the jury the fact that the defendants were shackled at all times in the courtroom during trial[,] . . . . the effort was unavailing, as the jury became aware of the shackling.” El-Hage Br. 295. El-Hage claims, without explanation, that “[he] was . . . undeniably prejudiced by the jury’s knowledge, however inadvertent.” Id. at 297. The Supreme Court, in Holbrook v. Flynn, observed that shackling, although an “inherently prejudicial practice . . . [is] permitted . . . where justified by an essential state interest specific to each trial.” 475 U.S. 560, 568-69 (1986). In the instant case, the essential state interest—the need to protect court personnel and the public from physical danger—was clear. At a pretrial hearing held on June 22, 1999, the District Court denied the request of El-Hage’s counsel that a letter written by El-Hage be made public, on the grounds that the Court “didn’t know whether there are codes in this letter,” Hearing Tr. 78, and the “concern[ ] that this Court not become the medium by which the defendants seek a larger audience,” id. at 80. In response to this ruling, ElHage became belligerent and had to be restrained as he angrily raced toward the bench. See Benjamin Weiser, Terrorism Suspect Charges Towards Judge, but is Tackled,” N.Y. Times, June 23, 1999, at B6 (describing how El-Hage “leaped out of his chair . . . and raced toward the judge, causing chaos before he was tackled and subdued by a United States marshal” as well as how, once returned to the courtroom “surrounded by marshals, [El-Hage] shouted out again, saying that he was angry that Judge 79 Sand had refused to read aloud a letter [El-Hage] had sent [the Court]”). On November 1, 2000, two of El-Hage’s co-defendants, after meeting with their attorneys in the high-security wing of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, stabbed a guard in the eye. See Benjamin Weiser, Reporter’s Notebook; Quandary in Terror Case, N.Y. Times, Nov. 12, 2000, at A39 (describing the incident and reporting that “[o]fficials have said that the stabbing may have been part of an escape attempt that may have involved a plan to take hostages” and that “the assault on [the guard] was the second incident in which a defendant awaiting trial in [this] case was accused of wrongdoing”); see also Letter of Sam A. Schmidt, co-counsel for El-Hage, dated Nov. 14, 2000, dkt. no. 303 (referring to the “incident at the [MCC] on November 1, 2000”). In light of these circumstances, we cannot say that it was arbitrary or, for that matter, incorrect for the District Court to conclude that the physical restraints of which El-Hage complains were “necessary to maintain [the] safety or security” of the other occupants of the courtroom. Hameed v. Mann, 57 F.3d 217, 222 (2d Cir. 1995) (observing that “[t]he trial court has discretion to order physical restraints if the court has found those restraints necessary to maintain safety or security,” and that when the trial court has followed applicable law in making its underlying findings of fact,“its decision is reviewable for abuse of discretion”). 3. The Partial Denial of Defendants’ Motion for a Bill of Particulars Before trial, El-Hage and his co-defendants moved the District Court to direct the filing of a bill of particulars. As we have observed, “[a] bill of particulars ‘enables a defendant to prepare for trial, to prevent surprise, and to interpose a plea of double jeopardy should he be prosecuted a second time for the same offense.’” United States v. Rigas, 490 F.3d 208, 237 (2d Cir. 2007) (citation and alterations omitted); cf. Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 117 (1974) (explaining that “an indictment is sufficient if it, first, contains the elements of the offense charged and fairly informs a defendant of the charge 80 against which he must defend, and, second, enables him to plead an acquittal or conviction in bar of future prosecutions for the same offense”); United States v. Pirro, 212 F.3d 86, 91 (2d Cir. 2000) (citing Hamling, 418 U.S. at 117). In the instant case, El-Hage and his co-defendants sought detailed information about “the overt acts [allegedly undertaken] in furtherance of the charged conspiracies, . . . identification of [unindicted] co-conspirators, [and] the formation of the conspiracies [alleged—namely,] when and how each defendant joined the conspiracies, and the role played by each [d]efendant in the various conspiracies.” United States v. Bin Laden, 92 F. Supp. 2d 225, 235 (S.D.N.Y. 2000). The District Court, after careful review of the content of the indictment, granted El-Hage’s request for a bill of particulars as to a number of points, see id. at 236, 239-42; and denied El-Hage’s request for a bill of particulars as to several other points, see id. at 238 (concluding that the allegations set forth in the indictment “provide sufficient detail to permit defense counsel reasonably to focus their investigation”), id. at 243 (noting that because “it is not the [g]overnment’s burden at trial to establish a precise chronology as to when each defendant, as well as other unindicted co-conspirators, joined the conspiracies[,] . . . [that information] is not necessary to the [d]efendants’ preparation”), id. (determining that, because the “‘Background’ section [of the indictment] does not constitute a criminal charge which the [d]efendant must answer . . . further detail as to the matters contained in the Background section [is not] necessary to the [d]efendants’ preparations”). On appeal, El-Hage claims without elaboration that the indictment by which he was charged was “too vague to permit an adequate defense in response,” El-Hage Br. 294, and that the bill of particulars ordered by the District Court “was not sufficient to cure the underlying problem of the Indictment’s overarching scope,” id. at 295. El-Hage does not, however, identify (1) any particular 81 charge on which further detail would have been helpful or (2) any specific errors by the District Court. Nor, upon review of the record, can we. In sum, because none of the decisions identified by El-Hage amounted to trial error, we deny El-Hage’s request for relief under the cumulative error doctrine. H. El-Hage’s Challenge to the Sentence Imposed by the District Court With respect to the sentence of life imprisonment imposed by the District Court, El-Hage contends that (1) the underlying U.S. Sentencing Guidelines (“U.S.S.G.”) calculation contained four errors that inflated his offense level and the corresponding sentencing range, and (2) the District Court improperly sentenced him pursuant to the mandatory application of the Guidelines. For the reasons explained below, we reject all of El-Hage’s challenges to the District Court’s calculation of his Guidelines range. We nevertheless vacate El-Hage’s sentence because it resulted from the mandatory application of the Guidelines, and we therefore remand his case for resentencing pursuant to United States v. Fagans, 406 F.3d 138 (2d Cir. 2005). 1. The Guidelines Calculation As set forth in the Pre-Sentence Report (“PSR”) prepared by the United States Probation Office for the Southern District of New York, El-Hage’s base offense level was 66, his criminal history category was VI, and his corresponding sentence under the Guidelines was life imprisonment. The offense level of 66 comprised a base offense level of 43—as determined by U.S.S.G. § 2A1.5(c)(1),46 which contains a cross-reference to § 2A1.1 in cases where a conspiracy to murder results in the death of a victim—and 23 additional points arising from five enhancements.47 Those enhancements are as follows: (1) a three-level enhancement pursuant to § 3A1.1(a) because El-Hage targeted his victims on 46 The 2001 Edition of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines was used in the calculation of El-Hage’s sentencing range. All references to the Sentencing Guidelines contained herein refer to that edition of the manual. 47 El-Hage’s convictions of three conspiracy counts were “grouped” pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3D1.2. 82 the basis of their national origin (the “hate crime enhancement”); (2) a three-level enhancement pursuant to § 3A1.2(a) because the intended victims included government officers and employees whose status as such motivated the offenses (the “official victim enhancement”); (3) a three-level enhancement pursuant to § 3B1.1(b) because El-Hage was a manager or supervisor of the conspiracy (the “role-in-the-offense enhancement”); (4) a two-level enhancement pursuant to § 3C1.1 for obstruction of the administration of justice; and (5) a twelve-level enhancement pursuant to § 3A1.4(a) because the felonies involved were intended to promote a federal crime of terrorism (the “terrorism enhancement”). Section 3A1.4 further mandated that El-Hage’s criminal history category should be set at VI. 2. El-Hage’s Challenge to the Calculation of the Base Offense Level of 43 El-Hage argues that his conspiracy convictions did not warrant a base offense level of 43—as specified by U.S.S.G. § 2A1.5(c)(1) for cases where a murder conspiracy results in the death of a victim—because he was not “in any way responsible for, or even aware of, any fatalities from the embassy bombings.” El-Hage Br. 312. In support of his position, El-Hage maintains that no evidence in the record shows that he was “involved in any discussions where the bombings were discussed.” Id. at 313. Assuming arguendo the accuracy of El-Hage’s characterization of the record, we find no merit in his challenge to the base offense level determined by the District Court. Pursuant to § 2A1.5, the offense of conspiracy to commit murder entails a base offense level of 28 unless “the offense resulted in the death of a victim,” in which case the offense level of 43 set forth in § 2A1.1 applies. Because the jury convicted El-Hage of multiple counts of conspiracy to commit murder and also found that over two hundred deaths resulted from these murder conspiracies, the jury’s findings show that El-Hage was a member of a conspiracy that resulted in at least one death. The Guidelines require no additional 83 measure of responsibility or awareness. It is plain, therefore, that a base level of 43, which corresponds to a murder conspiracy that results in at least one death, governs the conduct at issue here. 3. El-Hage’s Challenges to the Hate Crime and Government Victim Enhancements El-Hage challenges the application of the hate crime and government victim enhancements on multiple grounds, including that they permit “duplicative punishment” for the same underlying offense, El-Hage Br. 300. On the question of “double counting,” we observe at the outset that “a district court calculating a Guidelines sentence may apply multiple Guidelines provisions based on the same underlying conduct where that is the result clearly intended by Congress and the Sentencing Commission. While such calculations may involve ‘double counting’ in a literal sense, they do not involve impermissible double counting.” United States v. Maloney, 406 F.3d 149, 152 (2d Cir. 2005). El-Hage contends that the hate crime and government victim enhancements are duplicative of the terrorism enhancement and the underlying offenses of conviction. We disagree. Each of these enhancements “serves a distinct purpose or represents a discrete harm,” id. at 153, and none of them is subsumed by El-Hage’s offenses of conviction. The hate crime enhancement applies when “the defendant intentionally selected any victim or any property as the object of the offense of conviction because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.” U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1(a) (emphasis added). The government victim enhancement is applicable when “the victim was a government officer or employee; a former government officer or employee; or a member of the immediate family of any of the above, and the offense of conviction was motivated by such status.” Id. § 3A1.2(a). Finally, the terrorism enhancement is applicable “if the offense is a felony that involved, or was intended to promote, a federal crime of terrorism.” Id. § 3A1.4(a). 84 Each of these enhancements addresses a “discrete harm,” Maloney, 406 F.3d at 153, arising from El-Hage’s underlying conduct: The hate crime enhancement covers the selection of victims based on their national origin, while the government victim enhancement deals with the selection of victims based on their status as government employees. The terrorism enhancement, as its name indicates, addresses acts of terrorism. While it may be that some offenses, such as those committed by El-Hage, trigger all three enhancements because they constitute (1) acts of terrorism that targeted victims based on (2) their perceived national origin and (3) their status as government employees, it is equally plain that a terrorist act need not necessarily target government victims or select its victims on the basis of national origin; nor do all offenses that target victims based on their (a) national origin or (b) status as government employees constitute acts of terrorism; and, almost needless to say, crimes targeting victims on the basis of national origin need not entail any animus whatsoever toward government employees and vice versa. Accordingly, we see no “double counting,” much less impermissible double counting, arising from the application of these enhancements.48 Equally devoid of merit is El-Hage’s contention that the hate crime and government employee enhancements are “expressly accounted for in the statutory violation[s]” of which he stands convicted. El-Hage Br. 301, 308. El-Hage argues that his conviction for conspiracy to murder nationals of the United States obviates the need for the hate crime enhancement and his conviction for conspiracy to murder officers or employees of the United States obviates the need for the government victim enhancement. To the contrary, it is the very fact that he was convicted of these offenses that justifies the application of the hate crime and government victim enhancements. As noted above, El-Hage’s base offense level of 43 resulted from the application of U.S.S.G. § 2A1.5(c)(1) (conspiracy to commit 48 With respect to the application of the government victim enhancement, our conclusion is further supported by the application notes for this provision, one of which instructs: “Do not apply this adjustment if the offense guideline specifically incorporates this factor. . . . The only offense guideline in Chapter Two, Part A that specifically incorporates this factor is § 2A2.4 (Obstructing or Impeding Officers).” U.S.S.G. § 3A1.2 cmt. n.3. 85 murder), which instructs a sentencing court to apply § 2A1.1 (first degree murder) in cases where a conspiracy to murder results in the death of a victim. This provision is applicable to all murder conspiracies and contains no additional punishment for conspiracies that target victims based on their national origin or their status as government employees. In the absence of the hate crime and government employee enhancements, therefore, El-Hage would incur no additional penalty for the “discrete harms” of targeting victims based on their national origin and status as government employees. Accordingly, there is no merit in El-Hage’s argument that the enhancements are “expressly accounted for” in his offenses of convictions. El-Hage further challenges the application of the hate crimes enhancement on the grounds that (1) “political beliefs,” not hatred, motivated his actions, Appellant’s Br. at 304, and (2) the victims of the conspiracy were targeted for their U.S. citizenship, not their national origin. The line El-Hage draws between political activism and hate as the basis for the selection of his victims is a false distinction. It may be that some who choose their victims on the basis of their “actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation,” U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1(a), do so for reasons that could be construed in some fashion as “political” in nature, and others do so for reasons more closely akin to blind, irrational hatred. Even assuming that a court could classify some motives as essentially “political” and others as rooted in “hatred,” however, such a classification would be utterly irrelevant to the applicability of the hate crime enhancement. This is so because the enhancement does not turn on an evaluation of the considerations that motivated a defendant’s decision to target victims based on their race, color, religion, or other enumerated characteristic. The hate crime enhancement applies if the defendant “intentionally selected any victim” 86 on the basis of one of the factors listed above, § 3A1.1(a), and, because there can be no “good reasons” for doing so, the underlying motivation is simply beside the point.49 Even less persuasive is El-Hage’s assertion that the conspiracy targeted its victims based on their U.S. citizenship rather than their national origin. El-Hage maintains that the record contains no “evidence that al Qaeda distinguished between foreign-born or naturalized United States citizens, and those born within the nation’s borders.” El-Hage Br. 306. Accordingly, it was citizenship, El-Hage urges, and not national origin that was the basis for the conspiracy’s selection of its victims. This argument runs counter to the jury’s verdict that El-Hage conspired to murder “nationals of the United States,” in light of the fact that a U.S. national is not necessarily also a U.S. citizen, see 8 U.S.C. § 1408 (listing categories of people who “shall be nationals, but not citizens, of the United States at birth”), while all citizens are nationals of the United States. In addition, the hate crime enhancement applies when a defendant selects his victims based on their “actual or perceived” national origin, U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1(a), and therefore it was not necessary for al Qaeda to distinguish between nationals and citizens, or naturalized and birthright U.S. citizens, so long as it perceived the victims as having a U.S. national origin. Finally, the record is devoid of evidence, and El-Hage points to none, indicating that al Qaeda distinguished between U.S. citizens—the so-called “real” targets of the conspiracy—on the one hand, and, for instance, permanent U.S. residents, on the other. Accordingly, El-Hage’s argument that the conspiracy selected its victims based on citizenship, and not national origin, is meritless. With respect to the government victim enhancement, El-Hage urges that it “should not apply to United States military personnel engaged in combat on foreign soil . . . because it would expose all soldiers who oppose United States military personnel on the battlefield abroad to criminal prosecution 49 On the irrelevance of a motive to the question of whether conduct is intentional, see, for example, United States v. Washington, 705 F.2d 489, 493 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (“Proof of a good motive . . . is not probative on the issue of . . . intent.”). 87 here for their action.” El-Hage Br. 308-09. This contention is absurd. El-Hage does not stand convicted of being a soldier fighting against the U.S. military engaged in combat on the battlefield. Quite the opposite: El-Hage was convicted of “conspiring to murder officers or employees of the United States” in connection with the unprovoked bombings of the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania—terrorist attacks that resulted, as the jury found, in the deaths of U.S. government employees. The jury’s verdict alone is sufficient to trigger the government victim enhancement, and El-Hage’s reference to counterfactual battlefields and soldiers engaged in combat does not lessen the applicability of that enhancement. 4. The Role-in-the-Offense Enhancement Is Supported by the Record El-Hage also challenges the District Court’s determination that he was a manager or supervisor of the conspiracy and thus subject to a three-level enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(b). We review the findings of a district court on a defendant’s role in the conspiracy for clear error, see, e.g., United States v. Kilkenny, 493 F.3d 122, 130 (2d Cir. 2007), and perceive none here. At El-Hage’s sentencing hearing, the District Court explained that “[El-Hage] was relied on as being the representative of Bin Laden [and] was the person authorized to convey out to the field what it was that Bin Laden did or did not wish to occur . . . [including] what the objectives [were] for the Kenyan cell.” The record developed by the government at trial fully supports the District Court’s determination. As set forth in detail above, there is record evidence that El-Hage (1) participated in private meetings with Bin Laden, (2) was the “paymaster” for Bin Laden’s enterprises, (3) procured fake travel documents, (4) served as the head of the Nairobi Al Qaeda cell, and (5) delivered messages directly from Bin Landen directing the Nairobi cell to prepare for military activity. See Part II.B.1, ante. In light of this evidence, we see no error, much less clear error, in the District Court’s finding that El-Hage was a manager or 88 supervisor of the conspiracy, and we therefore reject El-Hage’s challenge to the role-in-the-conspiracy enhancement applied by the District Court. 5. El-Hage Is Entitled to Be Resentenced As the government acknowledges, El-Hage’s sentence, imposed pursuant to a mandatory application of the Sentencing Guidelines, violated the teachings of United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). Appellee’s Br. at 489-90. Because El-Hage made a timely objection to the District Court’s mandatory application of the Sentencing Guidelines, we vacate his sentence and remand the case to the District Court for resentencing pursuant to United States v. Fagans, 406 F.3d 138 (2d Cir. 2005). Following the procedure set forth in United States v. Jacobson, 15 F.3d 19, 21-22 (2d Cir. 1994), any party seeking appellate review of the sentencing decision on remand shall within ten days so inform the Clerk of Court. Jurisdiction will then be automatically restored to this Court without the need for an additional notice of appeal, and the matter will be referred to this panel for disposition.