Posted on 06/09/2009 1:00:32 PM PDT by yoe
The first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be transferred to US soil was due in court in New York Tuesday in a politically charged test for President Barack Obama's plan to close the controversial prison. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian national who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility since September 2006, was to be arraigned in a federal court in New York at 4:00 pm (2000 GMT).
He is charged with taking part in the August 7, 1998 bombing of the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya.
This is a first test for White House plans to shut down Guantanamo and bring inmates to trial or send them to their countries of origin.
The pledge was a major element in Obama's presidential campaign last year, along with an order to end officially sanctioned torture. Republicans have attacked the Democrat for what they say is a dangerous priority on human rights over national security.
But Attorney General Eric Holder said the transfer of Ghailani served justice and posed no threat to the United States.
"With his appearance in federal court today, Ahmed Ghailani is being held accountable for his alleged role in the bombing of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and the murder of 224 people," Holder said in a statement.
"The Justice Department has a long history of securely detaining and successfully prosecuting terror suspects through the criminal justice system, and we will bring that experience to bear in seeking justice in this case," Holder said. Ghailani faces 286 counts of murder, conspiracy to murder, bomb and maim, and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against US nationals, charges for which he could receive the death penalty.
(Excerpt) Read more at zimbio.com ...
By whose authority can Erick Holder or Obama act in such a Hugo Chavez manner? We now have a dictator?
The terrorist will be freed and BOOM there goes NY again. And the liberal leftists will deny all culpability (they’re good at that).
SCOTUS said they have the right. Now it’s being played out.
A bizarre perversion of the jurisdiction of SCOTUS, IMO.
Can you imagine the howls of laughter from our enemies as we prepare to wage war in courtrooms, ponderously scheduling the fate of combatants onto a crowded docket?
It's the Twilight Zone.
Throw the puke in to the general populace in a N.Y. city jail like RIKERS and he’ll be begging to go back to GITMO.
"This ain't the first time Pilgrim".
How many millions will that cost?
yep, it´s in the cards, they won´t find any jury´s that didn´t see the news on TV, and they´ll end up with a hung jury and the guy will go free..... just the kind of Justice that the Sharia law would give...(sarc)
Some may be impossible to prosecute, as their evidence may be inadmissible in court due to interrogation methods branded by critics as torture. However, they might also be deemed too dangerous to release.
Also - if captured by military personnel were they read their rights? Were they immediately offered council? Did they receive a swift hearing?
If not they will be released, our civilian courts will have no choice.
So...0bama and 0bamunists DO have a plan. Sneak them into the country, one at a time...
Friggin’ ingenious. And, just what I would expect from this arrogant, anti-Constitutional gasbag.
It’s time to take back the country.
He will be the first GITMO prisoner who was tried in US Federal court and let off on a technicality (Here comes the ACLU lawyers)...
Let them rot & die...in Cuba!
FOX NEWS.com (AP): "GUANTANAMO DETAINEE IN U.S. PLEADS NOT GUILTY IN EMBASSY BOMBINGS AHMED GHAILANI IS CHARGED WITH PARTICIPATING IN THE BOMBING OF TWO U.S. EMBASSIES IN AFRICA IN AUGUST 1998." (June 9, 2009)
And, as in the other cases where terrorists have waged war on America and have been give every possible right as if they are American civilians, their eventual release will be seen by their fellow terrorists as a goal to be reached by taking hostages and threatening to behead them if the release does not occur.
Problem is, was he read his Miranda rights? Was he given proper council? Was he interrogated with proper methods and not “Tortured”? If the answer is NO to any of these, the guy goes free. (And, he will get to sue the Federal Govt for millions of dollars.)
0bama is an idiot.
All it will take is one smart conservative on the jury to find this guy not guilty, and then he walks and 0bama and the Democrats are finished politically.
Yes.
Not only does he go free, but he goes free in America.
0bama will have successfully released a terrorist into America.
0bama’s will be politically dead from that moment on, as will the Democrats’ hopes of keeping Congress in 2010.
This guy getting acquitted would be the best thing that could happen to America.
Yes.
Not only does he go free, but he goes free in America.
0bama will have successfully released a terrorist into America.
0bama will be politically dead from that moment on, as will the Democrats’ hopes of keeping Congress in 2010.
This guy getting acquitted would be the best thing that could happen to America.
When does the prosecution begin for the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor?
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