Posted on 02/17/2005 12:47:22 PM PST by LauraleeBraswell
OFFICIAL TITLE: Yemeni teacher describes terror-funding defendants as pacifists
For two weeks, a white-bearded Yemeni sheik and his assistant watched impassively in a Brooklyn courtroom while prosecutors portrayed them as vital cogs in a global terrorism-funding machine.
On Wednesday, Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad and Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed smiled and laughed as their first defense witness called them peace-loving men who denounced violence and dedicated their lives to Yemen's poor.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
I asked to Repost this under a new title. I think this story is important.
Why would it be in a military court? Most of the WOT arrests on American soil have and will continue to go through state and federal courts. I don't understand why you think it should be in a military court or why you think that would be better.
YEMEN is an anagram for ENEMY. Coincidence?
I think this should go to a military court, because these men are funding terrorists and that's a national security issue. They have ties to terrorist organisations.
Most of the WOT arrests should go to military court. This is what caused 9/11 in the first place, not enough communication between law enforcement branches.
Stand them against a wall...
Coincidence?
I think NOT.
National security is also an FBI issue and FBI cases go to federal courts. It's also an issue for local and state cops, and those go to state courts. I don't understand why military courts are better to you than state or federal courts. I also don't see why you think military courts improve communication between law enforcement branches.
You may be right, I just don't follow your reasoning.
I feel that national security issues should be military. These men are funding overseas Terrorism. Our Troops are fighting oversease terrorism. These men are funding the same people we are fighting.
during khat sessions, meetings where Yemeni men gather to chew the leaves of a semi-narcotic plant and discuss the events of the day.
Khat is not 'semi-narcotic.' It is a full blown narcotic. Khat is what the Skinnies were chewing to get brave enough to face my friends in the streets of Somalia. Khat is what the Skinnies had been chewing when they were filmed dragging one of our boys through the streets.
And, in these discussions of the day's events, these freaks are discussing the attacks on Americans that day.
Hang the freak.
I'll give you a reason. If found guilty in a military court, the terrorist actually faces a Death Penalty.
If tried and convicted in, oh, say New York or California, the terrorist would face a penalty of 10-30 years with no early parole until next Tuesday. Probably get off with time served already.
"All of that is lies and forged," al-Zahr said.
You're right. Was filmed on the same lot where the US government filmed the supposed "moon landings."
In TROP it is not only acceptable, it is required to lie to infidels to further the cause of TROP. Guess that's what this bozak was doing.
WE SHOULD!
It is an FBI case made largely in Germany using an FBI informant and wire taps. I don't see what legal mechanism puts it in a military court. Further, they were extradited from Germany and if the death penalty had been on the table Germany would not have let us have them (probably). Further, it is in a federal court, and at least on paper they could face the death penalty if the crimes they committed allowed for a death penalty which, as I understand it, they do not.
Military courts are fine and good for combatants, and I understand that our federal courts especially are permeated with liberal judges who undermine prosecutors at every opportunity, but regardless we have a judicial system that has been largely successful for the past two and one-quarter centuries and I don't see a good reason for dismantling our judicial system for the sole purpose of trying two Yemeni freaks - sorry, sheiks - in a military court.
I disagree
""The defendants are charged with conspiring to fund and attempting to fund Hamas and al-Qaida. ""
They probably know something we don't.
Conspiring to fund Hamas and al-Qaeda is not punishable by death. You can think that it should be, but it is not.
Personally, I think the good sheik and his associate should be carted off to the Sears tower in Chicago and pushed out of a 90th story window. Let them experience the horror that some of our fellow Americans experienced on 9/11.
I've been thinking a lot about this thread and Lauralee's question about putting it in a military court, and I've tried to put this into a historical context ... what if it were 1942 and these were people raising money for Nazis.
I think Lauralee has a valid point about this being a military matter. The thing about this story that bothered me is why did the FBI do all this. Technically, their jurisdiction stops at the border. When the Cole was bombed, we sent in the FBI to investigate and that was just stupid. We should have sent in the military.
But the military doesn't arrest people and try people, the military kills people.
So, in time of war, rather than send in the FBI to do a sting operation on these guys, it should have been handled by military intelligence or naval intelligence. Honest to goodness military spies should be doing this work. And rather than arrest, they should just kill - no trial, no prosecutors, no judges. That's what Wild Bill's OSS would have done 60 years ago.
So, after some further thought, in principle I agree that this does not belong in a federal court. It's a military matter and the military kills people.
And shooting a couple of Muslims in Germany doesn't cause me any concerns ... certainly the Mossad would do it.
Well, what did happen in WWII? There were Germans found that were trying to subvert the American war effort. The FBI found them. The FBI arrested them. The military tried them. Why? They weren't treated as criminals, but as irregular combatants.
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