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New York (AP) -- The former Guantanamo detainee found guilty of conspiracy in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa has asked a judge to toss the conviction. . . . A federal jury in New York City last month acquitted Ghailani of 224 counts of murder and dozens of other charges

What if Osama bin Laden was captured, brought to trial and walked? This question comes to mind after the Justice Department only managed to convict al Qaeda embassy bomber Ahmed Ghailani on one of 285 counts against him before a federal court in Manhattan.Ghailani - considered a "high-value" terrorist - was charged with murder and conspiracy related to al Qaeda's 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and wounded thousands. Ghailani, a former bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, was the first detainee transferred from the U.S. prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,...

Outrage is growing at the intersection of ideology and incompetence that is the jury's collapse in the trial of Ahmed Ghailani, declared acquitted in the murders of 224 innocents, including a dozen Americans.The outrage is growing as Americans learn more and more about how utterly avoidable this outrageous miscarriage of justice was. John Podhoretz's and Jennifer Rubin's criticisms are among the most pointed and both employ the damning word "debacle" in the title, and Powerline's Scott Johnson and John Hinderaker weigh in with "The Failure Option." Eric Holder who repeatedly declared his confidence in this process should resign and...

Is there any better proof that Team Obama's preferred approach to fight ing terror -- through civilian courts -- is dangerously misguided than yesterday's acquittal of one of the 1998 US embassy bombers on all but one of 285 charges? Ahmed Ghailani, the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried in a civilian court, was convicted of only a single count of conspiracy to destroy government property and buildings using explosives. Murder? No. Terrorism? No. He was up to his ears in a plot that took 224 lives, and he's not a terrorist? Preposterous. He might as well have blown...

“Bad ideas have dangerous consequences. The Obama Administration recklessly insisted on a civilian trial for Ahmed Ghailani, and rolled the dice in a time of war. The Department of Justice says it’s pleased by the verdict. Ask the families of the victims if they’re pleased. And this result isn’t just embarrassing. It’s dangerous. It signals weakness in a time of war. The Ghailani trial was supposed to be a test case for future trials of 9/11 terrorists.

The first civilian trial of a Guantanamo detainee ended yesterday with the stunning acquittal of an alleged Al Qaeda operative on all but a single count. A federal jury convicted Ahmed Ghailani, 36, of conspiring to destroy U.S. buildings and property in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. But the jury - after 4 1/2 days of deliberation - cleared Ghailani of more than 280 other counts, including the top charges of murder and murder conspiracy. Even though the charge he was convicted of carries a mandatory 20-year-to-life sentence,...

Ahmed Ghailani has confessed to bombing the U.S. embassy in Tanzania twelve years ago. As he explained to the FBI in a series of 2007 interviews, he bought the TNT used in the explosion. He even identified the man from whom he purchased it — a man who was subsequently located, who corroborated Ghailani’s confession, and who has been cooperating with American and Tanzanian authorities ever since. Ghailani also helped buy the truck and other components used to carry out the suicide attack. The two simultaneous embassy bombings — Ghailani’s in Dar es Salaam and a second, more devastating one...

It’s a sleepy Friday in late August, the president is on another vacation, Congress is out of town, no one is paying much attention. What better time for the Obama administration to pull the plug, once again, on military commissions? This time, it has halted the case of top al-Qaeda operative Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was to be prosecuted by a military court for the Cole bombing. The Washington Post report is here, and Jen Rubin has thoughts at Contentions. None of this is terribly surprising. Prosecuting the Cole case by military commission sticks in the Left’s craw because it...

Note: The following text is a quote: IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 060-010 January 22, 2010 Military Commission Charges Withdrawn In Sept. 11 Case The Defense Department announced today that the convening authority for Military Commissions withdrew and dismissed the charges, without prejudice, against the five detainees charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. This action comes in light of the announcement by the attorney general of the United States that the Department of Justice intends to pursue a prosecution of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Walid Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin al Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, in...

From Bloomberg: Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian who faces terrorism charges for his role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies, asked a judge to order U.S. prosecutors to surrender information about “black sites” where he was held. Ghailani faces federal charges over the bombings of U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. Ghailani had been held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006, before being transferred to the U.S. in June. He is the first detainee from Guantanamo Bay to be tried in a U.S. civilian court. In a...

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided not to seek the death penalty against a former Guantánamo detainee who was ordered by President Obama to face trial in a civilian court in New York. Mr. Holder communicated the decision to federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Friday, and they in turn informed the federal judge who is presiding in the case. “You are authorized and directed not to seek the death penalty against Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani,” Mr. Holder wrote to Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Ghailani faces federal charges of conspiring...

Qaeda suspect taken from Guantanamo to New York 11 mins ago WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An al Qaeda suspect accused in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa was transferred from Guantanamo Bay to appear in a New York court on Tuesday, the Justice Department said. Ahmed Ghailani will become the first Guantanamo detainee to go on trial in a civilian U.S. court. He was to make an appearance in federal court in Manhattan later in the day, the department said in a statement. Ghailani, a Tanzanian who had been held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba since September 2006,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - An al-Qaida terror suspect detained in England was sent to the United States in early 2001 by the principal architect of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings to perform surveillance on economic targets in New York, according to U.S. officials and government interviews with other captured terror suspects. They said the suspect claimed he has associates in America, possibly in California. Abu Eisa al-Hindi was arrested in a roundup last week in Britain along with 11 others. The disclosure that al-Hindi also was known as Issa al-Britani provides tantalizing details that further link al-Hindi to recent Bush administration...

The U.S. has charged a Guantanamo prisoner with war crimes for the deadly 1998 al-Qaida attack on the American embassy in Tanzania. The Pentagon said Monday that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani could receive the death penalty if convicted by a military tribunal at the U.S. military prison. The charges against Ghailani include murder and attacking civilians for his alleged role in a bombing that killed 11 people and wounded hundreds. He is the 15th person charged in the military tribunals at Guantanamo, where trials are expected to get under way in late spring or early summer. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS...

ABC News is reporting that Current and former CIA officers speaking to ABC News on the condition of confidentiality say the United States scrambled to get all the suspects off European soil before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived there today. The officers say 11 top al Qaeda suspects have now been moved to a new CIA facility in the North African desert. The disgrunted intelligence officers even disclosed an actual list of 12 high-value targets allegedly held by the CIA, and ABC is reporting it : Abu Zubaydah: Held first in Thailand then Poland Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi: Held in...

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) - A series of witnesses place six top al-Qaida fugitives in Africa buying up diamonds in the run-up to the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a confidential report by UN-backed prosecutors obtained by The Associated Press. The first-person accounts detailed by the prosecutors add to long-standing claims that al-Qaida laundered millions of dollars in terror funds through African diamonds before launching its deadliest offensive. Al-Qaida figures, including some already wanted in pre-Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. targets, dealt directly with then-president Charles Taylor and other leaders and warlords in the West African country of Liberia from 1999...