Monday appeal for Fort Dix Five

It's an uphill battle, they privately concede, and given the evidence and tenor of the times, they are decided underdogs.

But lawyers for the Fort Dix Five will get a chance Monday to convince a federal appellate panel that their clients' convictions should be overturned or, alternatively, that the five imprisoned terrorists should be granted new trials.

The hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia.

Monday morning, beginning at 10, supporters of the defendants will stage a rally, the latest in a series aimed at focusing attention on a case that the protesters say is an example of anti-Muslim, preemptive prosecution. It is, they allege, a development that was spawned by the war on terror and that has distorted the Constitution.

Prosecutors, FBI agents, and the trial judge, on the other hand, have said the evidence supported the convictions. The war on terror, they and others in law enforcement contend, presents unique problems that sometimes require controversial investigative techniques.

"We can't afford to be wrong," said one law enforcement source who has worked as an investigator in several terrorism cases.

The rally will come just days after the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, at the New York University School of Law, issued a report challenging what it alleges is the government's unfair targeting of Muslims in America.

"Targeted and Entrapped: Manufacturing the 'Homegrown Threat' in the United States" is a 76-page report that offers case studies of three terrorist investigations, including the Fort Dix Five.

While the report raises some of the same issues that the lawyers will present to the appellate court, it also includes a sympathetic look at the families affected by the prosecutions and raises questions about the way the investigations were conducted.

"Informants played a critical role in instigating and constructing the plots that were then prosecuted," according to the report, which also analyzed the so-called Newburgh (N.Y.) Four case and the prosecution of a suspected terrorist in Bay Ridge, N.Y. As did the Fort Dix Five case, both ended with convictions and long prison sentences.

"The government played a significant role in instigating and devising the three plots featured in this report - plots the government then 'foiled' and charged the defendants with," reads a summary of the analysis.