Litigation

Debate Rekindled Over Trying Accused Terrorists

By Peter Hardin

A federal judge’s sentencing of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani to life in prison for his role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa (see Gavel Grab) refueled a longterm debate about trying accused terrorists in the civilian courts.

Ghailani was acquitted of more than 280 charges of murder and conspiracy. His case “highlighted the challenges of affording full constitutional protections to terrorism suspects who were once held in secret detention overseas and subjected to harsh interrogation tactics by US intelligence officials,” a Christian Science Monitor article said.

Federal District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled earlier that a star witness could not be used in Ghailani?s trial due to coercion of Ghailani, who had identified the witness.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R) of Texas said about the case, “The first foreign terrorist detained at Guantánamo Bay to be tried in civilian courts, Ghailani?s trial was a test run for the Obama administration?s plan to try foreign terrorists in US courts. It was also a near-disaster.”

“This tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration’s decision to try Al-Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts,” Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told BBC.

Time’s Swampland blog called the case “the last dying light from the ashes of [President] Obama and [Attorney General Eric] Holder’s plan to close Gitmo using the federal courts.” It continued:

“After Ghailani was convicted of just one count out of hundreds last November, congressional opponents of civilian trials moved a measure blocking transfer of Gitmo detainees to the U.S. as part of the defense authorization bill that passed last December. Now the administration’s stuck bolstering military trials it has tried to downplay.”

On the other hand, legal analyst Andrew Cohen hailed “Success for the U.S. Courts” in a commentary for Atlantic. Judge Kaplan’s “firm sentence,” he wrote, “re-establishes the role and prominence of our federal courts, still and always, as the most reliable way to dispatch justice to those accused of crimes.

Daphne Eviatar of Human Rights First said in a statement the outcome represented a victory for the rule of law. She elaborated, “By giving Ghailani the basic rights to which criminal defendants are entitled in the U.S. criminal justice system, and by excluding evidence that was derived from torture and coercion, his trial now stands as a symbol that the U.S. supports and follows the rule of law when it comes to terrorism and national security.”

To learn more, click on Gavel Grab stories regarding detainees, or see JAS?s web page, Civil Liberties and National Security.

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 26, 2011 (boomark / email).