Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

118 • “COMMON-LAW COURTS”exposed the conservative Chirac to withering criticism within Francefrom the opposition Socialist Party, and when Abdallah was convictedand sentenced, the magistrates ignored the prosecutor’s recommendationof a 10-year prison sentence, imposing instead a sentence of lifeimprisonment. Later evidence revealed Iranian state sponsorship ofthe CSAMPP. The 1987 arrest in Frankfurt, Germany, of MohammedAli Hamadei, one of the Hezbollah members involved in the hijackingof Trans World Airways Flight 847, led in turn to identificationand arrest of the CSAMPP mastermind, Fouad Ben Ali Saleh, who in1992 was convicted in France for having directed the 1986 bombingcampaign and sentenced to life imprisonment.“COMMON-LAW COURTS.” So-called common-law courts areself-appointed pseudo-legal bodies created by members of the Freemenmovement, itself a subgrouping within the radical-right privatemilitia movement and related “organic constitutionalist” andtax-protestor groups. The common-law court movement appears tohave originated with members of the Posse Comitatus tax-protestorgroup. Another group active in the 1980s that has since been disbanded,the so-called Committee of the States, centered in MariposaCounty, California, constituted itself as the Committee of the Statesprovided for in the Articles of Confederation, which was little morethan a standing committee of the Continental Congress empoweredto make decisions as needed when the Continental Congress was notin session. The group proceeded to send “constructive notices” toInternal Revenue Service (IRS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) agents, U.S. marshals, and others, advising them to cease anddesist their duties on pain of death.The current so-called common-law courts similarly hold their ownproceedings and file bogus liens against members of federal lawenforcement bodies and others whom they consider to be enemies.Even if these liens are not genuine, they still have the very real effectof ruining the credit histories of those targeted. These courts basetheir rulings on an eclectic and selective collection of documents,including the Bible, the Magna Carta, the Articles of Confederation,the Bill of Rights, and also whatever effective or abrogated statutesthey choose to follow or those dicta of federal courts that they finduseful to their cause. The Freemen of Montana considered themselvesto be a common-law court. Although they refused to regard