Recent Appearances...

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Hello !
Recent Appearances...

Khalid Sheik Mohammed	Khalid Sheik Mohammed	al-Qaeda	Iran	Kuwaiti-Baloch	In Jug	Key Aide	20031117
		Captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, , in in March 2003; mastermind of Sept. 11 and the financier of the first World Trade Center attack

Home Front: Politix

Biden administration to release Gitmo terrorist detainees but not January 6 trespassers

2021-05-25

[American Thinker] The Biden administration is set to release three terrorists from the U.S.’s Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

Saifullah Paracha, a former Al Qaeda bagman and terror plotter who met with Usama bin Laden in the fall of 2000, is one of the three to be released. Paracha also offered up his textile company for Al Qaeda’s use. He suggested that AL Qaeda might use his company’s containers to bring chemical agents like sarin gas—and other weapons of mass destruction—into the United States.

Uthman Abdul al-Rahim, from Yemen, is another GITMO detainee to be set free. He was a guard for Usama bin Laden and was part of the "55th Arab Brigade" at Tora Bora. Al-Rahim’s brother is a member of Al Qaeda, and some of his buddies were responsible for the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in October of 2000.

Abdul Rabbani is also scheduled to be granted freedom. Rabbani is a long-time friend of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a fellow GITMO inmate, and the principal architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 innocent souls and injured more than 6,000 others. He is thought to have helped KSM plan the infamous attack—and probably one or more previous Al Qaeda acts.

Link

India-Pakistan

Injustice for slain WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl: Pakistan springs murder conspirators...or maybe not yet

2020-04-04

[NYPOST] While the rest of the world deals with the COVID-19 pandemic, Pakistain is busy letting murderers go free.

On Thursday, a Pak local court overturned the conviction of a British-Pak man for orchestrating the kidnapping and beheading of Wall Street Journal news hound Danny Pearl in 2002.

A full 18 years after the fact, the court found Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheik guilty of the lesser charge of kidnapping and sentenced him to seven years in prison. He’ll likely get out for time already served.

With much of Pakistain sympathetic to violent Islamists, the move reeks of corruption. Tellingly, the court also overturned the convictions of three other men who had been serving life sentences in the case.

On Jan. 23, 2002, Saeed lured Danny Pearl into a trap in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
with a promise of info for his investigation of "shoebomber" Richard Reid’s links to bully boyz there. Days later, al Qaeda 9/11 criminal mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed videotaped his gruesome murder of the news hound.

As Pearl’s father, Judea, said, "It’s a mockery of justice." He continues: "Anyone with a minimal sense of right and wrong now expects Faiz Shah, prosecutor general of [the Pak province] Sindh to do his duty and appeal this reprehensible decision to the Supreme Court of Pakistain."

Saeed & Co. should rot behind bars until their own Judgment Day.

Accused killer of US journalist Daniel Pearl to stay in prison as case appealed

Awaiting the clearing of the fog of the first draft of history...

[IsraelTimes] After court overturns murder conviction of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, government says he and 3 others will remain jailed for now.

A Pakistani provincial government Friday ordered a British Pakistani man whose conviction in the kidnapping and killing of a US journalist was overturned to remain in custody for three months.

The Superintendent of Karachi’s Central Prison, Hasan Sehtoo, said he received an order from the Sindh provincial government saying Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh’s release would threaten public safety. The government ordered him detained as it appeals to the Pakistani Supreme Court to have his murder conviction reinstated.

Link

-Short Attention Span Theater-

Lawyer: 'Sodomized' Guantanamo captive recovering after surgery. Prison: No comment

2016-10-16

An alleged accomplice in the Sept. 11 terror attacks underwent reconstructive surgery for decade-old damage from his "sodomy" in CIA custody and was to be returned to his clandestine prison to recuperate, his attorney said Saturday.
Why do these guys get doctor's appointments right away when our veterans are stuck with the VA?
"All they said is there was minimal bleeding and he is recovering," attorney Walter Ruiz, a Navy Reserve commander, said Saturday morning.

His client, Mustafa al Hawsawi,

...his file in the Rantburg archives can be perused here...

48, was scheduled to begin surgery at 9 p.m. Friday and Ruiz said he was informed that it was over by 10:45 p.m.
And now his rectum is attached to his mouth as it should be.
Hawsawi, a Saudi, and four other men are awaiting a death-penalty trial for allegedly orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. He voluntarily missed Friday's hearing to rest up for the procedure.

An unclassified portion of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation of the CIA's Black Site program showed allegations that Hawsawi was subjected to rectal exams with "excessive force" before his 2006 transfer to Guantanamo and that at one point he had a "medical emergency" that the agency considered having treated in a foreign hospital.
Nahhhh! Just messin' with yah, dude!
On Saturday, the military was mum on the outcome of Hawsawi's Guantanamo surgery. Ruiz said he received few other details, aside from the fact that, once the anesthesia wore off, the Saudi was to be returned to Camp 7, Guantanamo's secret lock-up for former CIA Black Site captives -- including Hawsawi and five others awaiting death-penalty trials.

The detention center spokesman, Navy Capt. John Filostrat, had no information to provide Saturday morning about the medical procedure carried out at the Navy base hospital, a 5- to 10-minute prison ambulance or prison van drive from the Detention Center Zone.
Hopefully they used a buckboard.
He said by email, it was prison policy "not to discuss detainee medical issues."
Sorry, we don't comment on a$$holes.
Nor would Filostrat say whether a colorectal specialist was brought to this remote base to do the surgery, and whether, if so, others among the up-to 6,000 base inhabitants were able to benefit from the surgeon's presence. The base is run by the Navy, which has sailors and their families, about 2,000 Jamaician and Filipino Pentagon contract workers as well as an approximate 2,000-strong military and civilian staff at the prison of 61 war-on-terror captives.

Detention Center commanders have for years briefed reporters that their captives get commensurate medical care to soldiers and sailors; and that the Navy routinely brings in specialists to carry out some procedures.

Hawsawi was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in March 2003 with the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and was held by the CIA until his delivery to Guantanamo in September 2006. He is alleged to have helped the hijackers with money, Western clothing, travelers' checks and credit cards.

Hawsawi's lawyers had been litigating over conditions at the remote prison and, sought medical intervention to treat a rectal prolapse that has caused Hawsawi to bleed for more than a decade.
Too bad it couldn't have been a lifelong condition. Now he'll be in shape to go back out on the battlefield after 0bean pardons him.
He has sat gingerly on a pillow at the war court since his first appearance in 2008. But the reason was not publicly known until release of a portion of the so-called Senate Torture Report on the CIA program in December 2014, which described agents using quasi-medical techniques called "rectal rehydration" and "rectal re-feeding."
Heh. Re-feeding. Good one! I'll bet they didn't have many problems with hunger strikes after that.
"Mr. Hawsawi was tortured in the black sites. He was sodomized," Ruiz told reporters earlier in the week, advising them to "shy away from terms like rectal penetration or rectal rehydration because the reality is it was sodomy," he said. Since then, he said, he has had "to manually reinsert parts of his anal cavity" to defecate.
We could have made it so he didn't need to . . . .
"When he has a bowel movement, he has to reinsert parts of his anus back into his anal cavity," Ruiz said, which "causes him to bleed, causes him excruciating pain."
His victims certainly don't have to worry about this.
Families of eight people killed in the Sept. 11 terror attacks were on base at the time of the surgery, brought by the Pentagon to watch four days of pretrial hearings. One expressed disgust that a hearing was on "minutiae." Successive groups have told reporters they are eager to get on with the trial, and criticized the pretrial focus on torture.

Earlier in the week, Army Lt. Gen. Jennifer Williams, one of Hawsawi's attorneys, asked the trial judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, to order the prosecution or CIA to give them the Saudi's complete medical records from across more than three years of spy agency custody.
"Here are before and after pics of his a$$hole."
Williams noted that CIA cables released under the Freedom of Information Act show that, in one instance in April 2003, Hawsawi was interrogated with "continuous sessions of water dousing, walling, attention grasps, facial holds, cramped confinement, and psychological pressures for 14 nonstop hours."
He got sleep breaks?
But defense teams preparing for trial have no medical records from that period, noting that Hawsawi also suffers cervical damage that may be linked to "walling" -- a CIA technique that rammed a captive's head into a wall to break him for interrogation.
I hope the wall is OK.
Water dousing is described in the Senate Report as similar to water-boarding, a near-drowning torture technique.

The judge at one point questioned whether such medical records exist.

"What we know from open-source material is that medical physicians at times were in place when these techniques were being done and when the torture was being committed," Hawsawi's Army lawyer replied.
"Don't forget to re-feed him his vitamins. Gotta keep him healthy, you know."

Link

Home Front: Politix

WHILE AMERICA WAS OBSESSING ON THE POPE: Obama Did This

2015-09-24

Another Al Qaeda hotshot released from Guantanamo Bay.

[ClashDaily] It's hard to believe you are still living in America sometimes.

[FoxNews] MIAMI -- A Saudi prisoner at Guantanamo who waged a hunger strike for years to protest his confinement has been released from the U.S. base at Cuba, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Abdul Shalabi was sent back to Saudi Arabia, where he was expected to take part in a rehabilitation program for militants.

His release, the second this month, brings the prisoner population at Guantanamo to 114, including 52 who have been approved for transfer.

Shalabi, 39, was among the first prisoners brought to Guantanamo in January 2002. The U.S. said he had been a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden and an associate of other senior al-Qaida figures, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed. He was never charged with a crime.

Criminals are charged with crimes. Prisoners of war are held until the war is over, then returned to the nation in whose uniform they fought. And spies get courts martial, then are hanged or shot.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Boston bombers' mosque tied to ISIS

2014-09-08

[NYPOST] When it was revealed that the Boston Marathon bombers attended a Cambridge, Mass., mosque, its leaders were quick to disavow their actions.

Elder brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev's ideology was not their own, the leaders of the Islamic Society mosque claimed. In fact, he was admonished for an Death Eater outburst he made during one sermon.

So, one crackpot in a congregation. Who can blame the mosque?

But what about eight -- including a prominent member of ISIS?

As it turns out, worshippers at the Islamic Society have included:

Abdurahman Alamoudi, the mosque's founder and first president who in 2004 was sentenced to 23 years in prison for plotting terrorism. In 2005, the Treasury Department issued a statement saying Alamoudi raised money for al Qaeda in the US.

Aafia Siddiqui
...American-educated Pak cognitive neuroscientist who was convicted of assault with intent to murder her U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan. In September 2010, she was sentenced to 86 years in jug after a three-ring trial. Siddiqui, using the alias Fahrem or Feriel Shahin, was one of six alleged al-Qaeda members who bought $19 million worth of blood diamonds in Liberia immediately prior to 9-11-01. Since her incarceration Paks have taken her to their heart and periodically erupt into demonstrations, while the government tries to find somebody to swap for her...
, an MIT scientist-turned-al Qaeda agent, who in 2010 was sentenced to 86 years in prison for planning a New York chemical attack. Known as "Lady al Qaeda," she is related to 9/11 criminal mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. ISIS has tried to trade her release for journalist hostages.

Tarek Mehanna, who in 2012 got 17 years in prison for conspiring to use automatic weapons to murder shoppers in a suburban Boston mall.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi
...crackpot Egyptian Islamist theologian. He is best known for his program Shariah and Life on Al Jazeera, with an estimated audience of 60 million kindred souls worldwide. He is also well-known for IslamOnline, which occasionally advocates things like slavery and thumping the old lady with a rod no thicker than an inch, and has published more than 120 books, including Islam: The Future Civilization. Joe has long had a prominent role within the intellectual leadership of the Moslem BrÃ¼derbund. Some of his views have been controversial in the West, though less so among the rubes of the Mysterious East, and he was refused entry to the United Kingdom in 2008. In 2004, 2,500 Muslim academics from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and from the Palestinian territories condemned Qaradawi, and accused him of giving Islam a bad name....
, a mosque trustee and Egyptian Moslem Brüderbund leader banned from the US after issuing a fatwa that called for the killing of US soldiers.

Jamal Badawi, another former trustee who in 2007 was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a plan to funnel more than $12 million to Paleostinian jacket wallahs.

Now it can be revealed that another regular worshipper at the Islamic Society mosque was Ahmad Abousamra, who is now the top propagandist for ISIS.

Abousamra's father, a prominent doctor, even sat on the board of directors of the Moslem organization that runs the mosque. He stepped down after the FBI began questioning his son.

The FBI suspects Abousamra now operates ISIS's sophisticated media wing promoting the group's beheadings and other atrocities through slick videos posted on the Internet. The brutally effective English-language propaganda campaign has helped attract thousands of Western jihadists, including at least 300 Americans.

The FBI says Abousamra, 32, traveled to Pakistain and Yemen to train to kill Americans while enrolled at Boston colleges. He justified murdering civilians because "they paid taxes to support the government and were kufar [nonbelievers]," Boston FBI Agent Andrew Nambu testified in an affidavit.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Gitmo: microphones hidden in attorney-client meeting rooms

2013-02-13

A military lawyer at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, acknowledged Tuesday that microphones are hidden inside devices that look like smoke detectors in the rooms where defense lawyers meet detainees, but he said the government does not listen in on attorney-client communications.

Both civilian and military defense lawyers at Guantanamo Bay meet their clients at a facility known as Echo 2, a camp that has about eight meeting huts.

Navy Capt. Thomas J. Welsh, staff judge advocate at the base, said he became aware of the microphones when he saw a law enforcement agent listening in on a meeting between prosecutors and defense lawyers on a possible plea deal. The agent, wearing headphones, was sitting in a control room at Echo 2, where meetings are routinely monitored by video for security reasons.

Welsh said he was assured by the Joint Detention Group commander at the base that the audio is turned off when lawyers meet with their clients although it can be used in other situations.

Under my watch, definitely, we dont listen in, Welsh said.

No, never, not a chance, nuh-nuh...

Defense lawyers in the case against Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and four co-defendants have raised concerns that the government might be listening to privileged communications.

The issue arose when an unknown government entity, believed to be the CIA, turned off the audio feed from the courtroom where Mohammed is on trial to a public gallery. The existence of such a kill switch, as well as the immediate decision to turn off the audio, caught the military judge, Army Col. James Pohl, by surprise. The judge ruled that in the future only he could cut the audio, and he barred any other government entity from exercising that power. But the defense raised questions about the monitoring of attorney-client communications in sidebars inside the courtroom and in meeting rooms.

Maurice Elkins, the director of courtroom technology, explained that there are multiple audio feeds from the courtroom, some of which include ambient sound picked up by microphones. He said he was not aware of any capability to separate background noise that might include private conversations but acknowledged that he could not say what capabilities other government agencies might have.

The chief military prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, said this week that the government does not listen to attorney-client communications at any location.

I'm waiting for Eric Holder to blame this on George Bush...

Link

Fifth Column

The One is Going After the Leakers

2012-01-24

The Justice Department on Monday charged a former CIA officer with repeatedly leaking classified information, including the identities of agency operatives involved in the capture and interrogation of alleged terrorists.

The case against John Kiriakou, who also served as a senior Senate aide, extends the Obama administration's crackdown on disclosures of national security secrets. Kiriakou, 47, is the sixth target of a leaks-related prosecution since President Obama took office, exceeding the total number of comparable prosecutions under all previous administrations combined, legal experts said.
The Establishment must be in awe. I wonder why didn't Bush do it? Media cruxifiction?
Kiriakou, who was among the first to go public with details about the CIA's use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation measures, was charged with disclosing classified information to reporters and lying to the agency about the origin of other sensitive material he published in a book. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

In its criminal filing, the Justice Department obscured many of the details of Kiriakou's alleged disclosures. But the document suggests that Kiriakou was a source for stories by the New York Times and other news organizations in 2008 and 2009 about some of the agency's most sensitive operations after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. These include the capture of alleged al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaida and the interrogation of the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
Oh, so he was leaking stuff on Zero's watch. The nerve!
The Justice Department said that the information Kiriakou supplied to journalists also contributed to a subsequent security breach at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, enabling defense attorneys there to obtain photographs of CIA operatives suspected of being involved in harsh interrogations. Some of the pictures were subsequently discovered in the cells of high-value detainees.
So the full extent of the damage is not yet known?
In an appearance in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on Monday afternoon, Magistrate Judge John F. Anderson set bond at $250,000 for Kiriakou, who was also forced to surrender his passport and restrict his travel to the Washington area.

The surge in such prosecutions is seen as a measure of the Obama administration's determination to root out leaks, but it may also reflect the government's expanded ability to mine suspects' e-mail accounts and other digital devices for incriminating evidence. The complaint filed Monday includes numerous passages apparently taken from Kiriakou's e-mail exchanges with reporters as well as former CIA colleagues.

Critics warn that the crackdown will erode the ability of news organizations to expose ~~what the critics consider as~~ government abuses. Steven Aftergood, an expert on government secrecy issues at the Federation of American Scientists, noted that Kiriakou is accused of being a source on stories about CIA interrogation measures that Obama described as torture.
Oh, that's ironic. Except it's not - Obumble is going after those who embarrassed him.
"The Justice Department has initiated no prosecutions concerning extreme interrogation methods," Aftergood said. "But it is now prosecuting an individual who helped bring such events to public light. Is that what we want?"
'Fraid so, Steven.
CIA Director David H. Petraeus issued a statement to the agency's workforce on Monday in which he said that he could not comment on the details of the case against Kiriakou but warned that "the illegal passage of secrets is an abuse of trust that may put lives in jeopardy."

The Washington Post quoted Kiriaku several times between 2007 and 2009 but Monday's charges make no reference to Post articles.
Pre-emptive defense.
Investigators believe that defense attorneys obtained the photos after learning the identities of CIA operatives from a journalist who had been in contact with Kiriakou. The photographs, which included shots taken surreptitiously outside CIA employees' homes, were shown to the detainees as part of an effort by defense attorneys to identify participants in CIA interrogations and potentially call them as witnesses in terrorism trials.
Maybe the journalist was the one who leaked the identities. Maybe Kiriakou will roll on the newshound.
The Guantanamo defense teams, which included attorneys from the ACLU, have been cleared of any wrongdoing in obtaining or sharing the photos, according to the Justice Department complaint.
Somehow, that does not surprise me. So that leaves the journalist.

Link

Home Front: WoT

KSM: Back to zero

2011-04-28

The Obama administration's fumbling on trials for the 9/11 terrorists turns out to be worse than anyone realized: It didn't just waste two years trying to hold a civilian trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the confessed 9/11 mastermind -- it set the clock back even further.

Plans by Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder for a trial in New York were always absurd -- even the old Democratic Congress felt obliged to render the move impossible.

But, now that the administration's thrown in the towel on civilian trials, it refuses to just pick up proceedings against KSM back where they left off in the Bush years. Team Obama insists on starting from scratch.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Capital charges brought against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri

2011-04-21

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, one of 15 high-value detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison, was charged with murder, terrorism and other violations of the laws of war in an October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen.

The military alleges that Nashiri was "in charge of the planning and preparation" of the attack, in which a small boat carrying two suicide bombers pulled alongside the USS Cole and detonated, ripping a 30-by-30-foot hole in the Navy destroyer and killing 17 American sailors.

The case is the first capital military tribunal to be announced under President Obama, whose administration recently lifted a ban on new trials at Guantanamo Bay. Although the administration said this month that it would try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four co-defendants in a military commission, prosecutors have not sworn charges or confirmed that they will seek the death penalty.

Nashiri, 46, a Saudi citizen of Yemeni descent, has been in U.S. custody since 2002 and at Guantanamo Bay since 2006. After his capture in the United Arab Emirates, he was held overseas at CIA secret prisons, where he was waterboarded and subject to mock executions in which agency operatives separately held a power drill and a gun to his head, according to a report by the CIA inspector general and other government documents.

Nashiri said at a 2007 military hearing that he confessed to involvement in the Cole bombing only because he was tortured.

The case raises difficult legal questions -- about the legacy of harsh interrogation methods, about the use of military tribunals to prosecute acts that occurred before Sept. 11, 2001, and about the destruction of evidence by CIA officers -- that could complicate prosecution.

"Now we get serious," said Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice and a lecturer at Yale Law School. "It's a mare's nest of legal issues."

Since the military detention center opened in 2002, six cases have been completed, resulting in four plea bargains, a short sentence and a guilty verdict. Two of those six detainees have been released, and three more are scheduled to be sent home over the next few years as a result of the pleas.

But Nashiri, who is said to have been a senior associate of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has a far bigger profile than any of the detainees convicted so far.

Under the military justice system, the charges sworn by prosecutors must be referred to a military commission for trial by a senior Pentagon official known as the convening authority. The authority could reject any or all of the charges.

Nashiri has a military attorney, but under the reformed system of military commissions, he is also entitled to a "learned counsel," either a military or a civilian lawyer with experience in capital cases. That person must be appointed before charges are referred.

"I am absolutely thrilled that this long-overdue prosecution is moving forward and that the crew and families will finally see justice," said Kirk Lippold, the former commander of the Cole.

In 2000, the United States did not treat the attack on the Cole as an act of war, sending FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service personnel to Yemen to investigate. Congressional authorization for the use of military force against al-Qaeda came immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, and some legal experts say that raises questions about whether a military court has the jurisdiction to try the Nashiri case.

The 2009 Military Commissions Act says offenses committed before Sept. 11, 2001, can be tried. But David Glazier, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, writes in a forthcoming article for a law journal that "Supreme Court precedent clearly limits commission jurisdiction to the period of actual hostilities."

Military prosecutors are unlikely to rely on any statements made by Nashiri while in CIA custody.

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent, wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times last year that "there is enough evidence to convict Mr. Nashiri based on confessions we gained legally" from his two indicted co-conspirators. Moreover, in military commissions, FBI agents will probably be able to relay to the court what witnesses in Yemen told them -- hearsay testimony that would typically be barred in federal court.

Nonetheless, the case is complicated by the CIA's destruction of videotapes of Nashiri's waterboarding. The defense is likely to argue that the destruction of potentially exculpatory evidence should lead the military judge to dismiss the charges.

Even if Nashiri's treatment at the hands of the CIA never surfaces during the trial, it will almost certainly come up in any sentencing phase as a mitigating factor against a death sentence.

"Anyone who approved or participated in the torture of my client should be prepared to take the witness stand," Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes said.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Foopy gets life

2011-01-26

[Al Jazeera] A judge has sentenced the first Guantanamo detainee to have a US civilian trial to life in prison, saying anything the Tanzanian man ~~supposedly~~ suffered at the hands of the CIA and others "pales in comparison to the suffering and the horror" caused by the bombing of two US embassies in East Africa in 1998.

US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan on Tuesday sentenced Ahmed Ghailani to life, calling the attacks "horrific" and saying the deaths and damage they caused far outweighs "any and all considerations that have been advanced on behalf of the defendant." He also ordered Ghailani to pay $33m in restitution.

Kaplan announced the sentencing in a packed Manhattan courtroom after calling it a day of justice for the defendant, as well as for the families of 224 people who died in the twin 1998 al-Qaeda bombings of embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The victims included dozen Americans, and thousands more who were maimed.

As survivors and victims' loved ones spoke behind him, many in tears, Ghailani bowed his head and closed his eyes while gripping the edge of the defence table with both hands.

The judge said he wanted a sentence that "makes it crystal clear that others engaged or contemplating engaging in deadly acts of terrorism risk enormously serious consequences." He said he was satisfied that Ghailani knew and intended that people would be killed as a result of his actions and the conspiracy he joined.

Ghailani, 36, was convicted late last year of conspiring to destroy government buildings but acquitted of more than 200 counts of murder and dozens of other charges. The charge carries a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life. He had asked for leniency, saying he never intended to kill anyone and he was tortured.

Ghailani, a Tanzanian, was captured in Pakistain in 2004 and later ~~supposedly~~ interrogated at a secret CIA-run camp. He was moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006 before being transferred to New York for prosecution in 2009.

The trial late last year at a lower Manhattan courthouse had been viewed as a test case for a goal stated by Barack B.O. Obama, US president - putting other terrorism detainees, including self-professed Sept. 11, 2001 attacks criminal mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, on trial on US soil.

So far, Ghailani's is the only case to be tried as such and on Wednesday, it was reported that the B.O. regime will be lifting the ban on military tribunals, allowing them to resume at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility.

The judge rejected Ghailani's pleas for leniency, saying whatever Ghailani ~~supposedly~~ suffered at the hands of the CIA and others "pales in comparison to the suffering and the horror he and his confederates caused."

Evidence at trial showed that Ghailani helped purchase bomb components prior to the attacks, including 15 gas tanks designed to enhance the power of the bombs, along with one of the bomb vehicles.

Written descriptions of FBI interviews quoted Ghailani as saying he realised a week before the bombings that they were intended to strike a US embassy. The jury did not see those descriptions, but they were submitted for Kaplan to consider for sentencing.

Ghailani's lawyers argued that he was duped by friends into participating in the attack and ~~supposedly~~ was upset when he saw the damage done.

Before sentencing, Peter Quijano, Ghailani's defence attorney, portrayed his client as a hero, saying he had provided US authorities with "intelligence and information that arguably saved lives and I submit that is not hyperbole." He also said Ghailani ~~supposedly~~ cried when he learnt about the attacks. Ghailani declined to speak on his own behalf.

But outside the courthouse immediately after the life sentence was announced, US Attorney Preet Bharara said, "Today, our goal was achieved, as Ahmed Ghailani will never again breathe free air."

Link

Home Front: WoT

Clinton endorses civilian trials for "vast majority" of terror detainees

2010-11-22

(KUNA) -- Appearing on a round of Sunday talk shows, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill...
endorsed civilian trials, rather than military commissions, for "vast majority" of Guantanamo detainees.

"We do believe that what are called Article Three trials, in other words in our civilian courts, are appropriate for the vast majority of detainees," Clinton told Fox News' Chris Wallace.

This week, a civilian trial convicted Ahmed Ghailani, a 36-year old Tanzanian, on one count of conspiring to damage or destroy American property with an bomb in the 1998 US embassy bombing attacks that killed 224. He was acquitted of more than 280 other counts and faces 20 years to life in prison.

The cast thrust into the spotlight the difficulties of trying Guantanamo Bay inmates in civilian courts amid concerns that evidence against them is tainted or extracted under duress during secret CIV renditions.

Clinton asserted that civilian courts are more efficient compared to military commissions.

"If you look at the comparison between beturbanned goons who are now serving time in our maximum security prisons compared to what military commissions have been able to do, theres no comparison," She later said on NBC.

"We get convictions, we send people away in our civilian courts at a much more regularized and predictable way than yet weve been able to figure out how in the military commission," she added.

However,
The infamous However...
in the case of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-confessed criminal mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Clinton deferred to the Attorney Generals recommendations on where he should be tried.

"I think that that is a cast that is a very difficult one because of all the security issues and the other problems. There will be a recommendation made by the Attorney General," Clinton said.

The B.O. regime is seeking to try Mohammed, and four alleged co-conspirators, in the same New York City court that charged Ghailani, but has faced strong bipartisan opposition from Congress. The issue hampers President Barack B.O. Obamas plans to close the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, where 170 prisoners are being held.

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Home Front: WoT

US leans toward military trials for 9/11 suspects

2010-03-07

[Dawn] White House advisers are nearing a recommendation for President Barack Obama to choose a military trial for self-professed Sept. 11, 2001 attacks mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his alleged henchman, senior administration officials.

The review of where and how to hold a Sept. 11 trial is not over, so no recommendation is yet before the president and Obama has not made a determination of his own, officials said. The review is not likely to be finished this week.

Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private deliberations.

The matter is at the White House after Attorney General Eric Holder decided in November to transfer Mohammed and the four other accused terrorists from the prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to New York City for civilian trials. Initially supported by city officials, the idea was later opposed because of costs, security and logistical concerns.

When opposition ballooned further into Congress and an attempted Christmas airline bombing brought massive scrutiny to Obama's terrorism policies, the administration said it would review Holder's trial decision and consider all options for a new location.

In addition to local opposition to a trial, the administration faces pressure on its goal of closing Guantanamo on another front. Republicans in Congress have proposed barring prosecutions of terrorism defendants in federal courts or in reformed military commissions located in the United States.

Republican Rep. Peter King has proposed legislation that would prevent the Obama administration from putting Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorists on trial in any American community. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham joined by about half the Senate's Republicans and a few Democrats, has made a similar proposal.

Separate from the internal trial review, the White House is in still-ongoing negotiations with lawmakers over those proposals, including how to secure funding from Congress to hold terrorism trials and to close the Guantanamo prison and replace it with another facility in the United States.

The Obama administration views civilian trials for terrorists as an important demonstration of the U.S. commitment to rule of law. Officials also have cited the numerous terrorism trials already held successfully in U.S. criminal courts. Further, the administration argues that prosecutorial decisions are for the executive branch to make, not lawmakers.

The Washington Post first reported the near-recommendation of a military trial.

"If this stunning reversal comes to pass, President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values," said Anthony D. Romero from the American Civil Liberties Union. "Even with recent improvements, the military commissions system is incapable of handling complicated terrorism cases and achieving reliable results. President Obama must not cave in to political pressure and fear-mongering. He should hold firm and keep these prosecutions in federal court, where they belong."

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