Footnote in terrorism ruling brings politics to the courtroom
The trial in New York of Ahmed Ghailani, the first suspect from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba prison to face a jury in a U.S. criminal court, is being closely watched as a template for future terrorism cases and by those who think those suspects should be in military courts instead.
Ghailani, a Tanzanian, is accused of participating in the 1998 al Qaeda-sponsored bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which killed 224 people. He was arrested in 2004 in Pakistan, and was subsequently taken into CIA custody for two years before going to the Guantanamo prison.
Many Republicans and some Democrats have said civilian courts are not up to the challenge of prosecuting terrorism suspects and favor the military commissions.
That fiery debate made its way into the trial on Thursday in the form of a lengthy footnote near the end of a 60-page ruling that barred a key witness, Hussein Abebe, from testifying. He is believed to have sold Ghailani the TNT explosives used in the bombings.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, defended his decision to bar the witness — because he had only been discovered after Ghailani was coerced to reveal his identity — and said a military commission judge would likely have made the same call.
“It is very far from clear that Abebe’s testimony would be admissible if Ghailani were being tried by military commission,” the judge said, adding that the laws governing military trials may bar or restrict evidence obtained from torture, cruel or inhumane treatment.
“Even if they did not, the Constitution might do so, even in a military commission proceeding,” he wrote.
Holder: collective administration decision on possible bin Laden trial
(UPDATED – adds Tuesday hearing delayed)
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder drew a lot of attention last week when he told Congress that he believed that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden would never be captured alive and declined to say how he would be prosecuted if that hypothetical capture actually came to fruition.
Holder offered a somewhat clearer answer on Monday to that question ahead of a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Tuesday that is expected to delve deeply into the Obama administration’s policies for prosecuting terrorism suspects. (The hearing was postponed until April 14 because many lawmakers plan to attend the healthcare bill signing.)
“If Osama bin Laden were captured, a decision as to how to proceed would be made at that time in consultation with the President’s full national security team,” Holder said in written responses released on Monday to questions submitted for the record by the committee after its last oversight hearing in November.
The attorney general has been harshly criticized by Republicans and even some Democrats for deciding to prosecute in criminal court the five alleged plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, including self-proclaimed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Some have argued that they should be tried in a special military court to avoid giving the suspects full U.S. legal rights or a potential platform for their anti-American views. Some in Congress are trying to block funding for trials in traditional criminal courts. The White House has had to intervene and is now reconsidering Holder’s decision, though officials have defended the criminal courts as a tested means for such prosecutions.
Attorney General Holder escapes DC snow for Florida, defends decisions
After the federal government closed for four days following two major blizzards, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder escaped to the warmer climes of Tampa, Florida, where he defended decisions on terrorism-related cases that have come under fire.
Republicans have harshly criticized Holder for deciding to prosecute the five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, including the self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in traditional criminal courts rather than military tribunals.
He has also drawn bipartisan fire for planning to hold the trials blocks from the site where the World Trade Center twin towers stood amid new concerns about security and costs.
Additionally, the attorney general has been lambasted for how the Obama administration has dealt with the accused underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was arrested on Christmas Day for trying to explode a device aboard a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
The suspect was interviewed for about an hour before he underwent surgery for his injuries. He stopped cooperating and was read his legal rights and subsequently charged in a criminal court. That all drew harsh criticism from Senator Kit Bond, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, among others.
He and other Republicans have argued that Abdulmutallab should have been deemed an enemy combatant, charged in a military court and been interrogated by intelligence experts rather than the FBI. The lawmakers have questioned whether valuable intelligence was lost as a result.
“We at the Justice Department are under fire for some of the decisions I have made. I’m convinced that those decisions are the right ones,” Holder said in a speech to the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives Symposium in Tampa.
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Obama slams opposition to civilian trials for terrorism suspects
President Barack Obama didn’t mince words when he criticized Republican opposition to prosecuting foreign terrorism suspects in U.S. criminal courts rather than in military tribunals, calling it “rank politics.”
His administration was caught off guard last week when opposition mounted to trying the accused plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks in a lower Manhattan courthouse amid concerns about security and costs as well as potentially affording the suspects certain legal rights.
“One of the things that we’ve had to try to communicate to the country at large is that, historically, we’ve tried a lot of terrorists in our courts; we have them in our federal prisons; they’ve never escaped,” Obama said in an interview with YouTube.
“It’s been one of those things that’s been subject to a lot of, in some cases, pretty rank politics,” he said, referring to Republican opposition to the criminal trials. While much of the opposition has been by Republicans, a few Democrats have joined in the disapproval.
A group of senators, including Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln, plan to offer legislation on Tuesday that would prevent any funding of the criminal trials, though it was not immediately clear whether there was sufficient support or how they would seek to pass the measure.
Obama’s budget for fiscal 2011, which starts Oct. 1, includes $73 million to transfer, incarcerate and prosecute the Sept. 11 suspects, including the self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The proposed budget also included $237 million to buy, fortify and upgrade a state prison in Thomson, Illinois, to house foreign terrorism suspects now at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Many Republicans have also opposed closing that facility, arguing it is the safest place to keep terrorism suspects.
Dash. You actually hit it right on the head.
No one wants the trials in their city. So, it makes the most sense to just try them in Guantanamo. It eliminates the problem of this taking place on our own soil.
Well, at least they are moving them out of NYC. What a slap in the face it was to try them there after over 3000 people lost their lives only to see the mastermind in court right down the street.
Why even waste money on a trial for someone who boasts of leading the plan to fly those planes into the WTC? Help him meet his 72 virgins sooner by saving money on a needless trial.
Obama misses a deadline on Guantanamo
Just because a president orders something done, that don’t make it happen.
A year after President Barack Obama ordered the closure of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the facility is still open and holding 196 terrorism suspects the United States has captured.
The president had barely finished celebrating his inauguration when he signed an order Jan. 22, 2009, directing the Guantanamo prison be closed “as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.”
Any inmates still at the prison at the time of closure would be “returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country, or transferred to another United States detention facility in a manner consistent with law and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.”
Wishful thinking.
The timeline on Guantanamo closure began to slip soon after Obama signed the order as good intentions came up against hard realities.
Many U.S. allies who wanted the prison closed declined to take more than a handful of inmates apiece — particularly because the United States was not taking any. Returning prisoners to countries where they might be tortured was unacceptable.
If we can hold the likes of Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, and the “Ice Man”, we can hold terrorists with no problem.
