Social Justice is Done
Hooray! The first civilian trial of a Guantamo Bay detainee has concluded and social justice has been done! Ahmed Ghailani was found not guilty on all but one charge Wednesday by a civilian jury in New York City. Somehow the New York State jury, fresh from voting in Liberals from Buffalo to Bohemia, could not see Ghailani’s role in more than 280 charges in connection with the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, including one murder count for each of the 224 people killed, as other than an Al Qaeda sidekick, just a stupid dupe caught up in events he couldn’t understand. But he was found guilty on one charge - conspiracy to destroy government buildings. A true crime, that.
Some see this as a major blow to the Obama administration’s determination to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian Federal court, mere blocks from Ground Zero. As Conservative critics predicted, Ghailani was released when crucial evidence was declared inadmissible. Liberals crowed that it was not only a victory for American justice – “the system works” – but a repudiation of interrogation tactics, such as not allowing them access to a computer, that Liberals deem “torture.”
According to the Associated Press, the judge had earlier decided that a star witness would not be allowed to testify because the witness was identified while Ghailani was held at a secret CIA camp that used harsh interrogation techniques. It is unknown what effect this witness would have had on the case.
Prosecutors charged that Ghailani helped an Al Qaeda cell buy a truck and components for explosives used in a suicide bombing in his Tanzania on Aug. 7, 1998. That attack and a nearly simultaneous bombing in Nairobi, Kenya, killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
The day before the bombings, Ghailani “allegedly” made a one-way trip to Pakistan under an alias. While on the run, he spent time in Afghanistan as a cook and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden and later as a document forger for Al Qaeda. In 2004, he was captured and held at a secret overseas camp. In 2006, he was transferred to Guantanamo and held until the decision last year to bring him to New York.
Other witnesses described how Ghailani bought gas tanks used in the truck bomb with cash supplied by the terror group, how the FBI found a blasting cap stashed in his room at a cell hideout and how he lied to family members about his escape, telling them he was going to Yemen to start a new life. The defense never contested that Ghailani knew some of the plotters. But it claimed he was in the dark about their sinister intentions.
"Call him a fall guy. Call him a pawn," lawyer Peter Quijano said in his closing argument. "But don't call him guilty."
If the jurors didn’t think that the gas tanks, blasting caps, and other accoutrements were not the stuff of bombs, then what did they think it was? Stupidity, ignorance of the law, is not a defense. Except in Liberal New York, where jurors generously grant murderers and their accomplices the benefit of the doubt, and are willing to throw criminals in jail for trying to blow up government buildings, but not for successfully murdering 224 people with the same materials. The poor bloke. How was he supposed to know people would be killed when his cohorts blew up that building. The naughty boy – he’s going to have to go to jail, but let’s have mercy on him.
However, the single count upon which Ghailani was convicted included a subsection, according to the Associated Press, that asked jurors if the defendant's conduct caused death of persons other than his co-conspirators -- and the jury said "yes."
The prosecution was allowed to refer to Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, in the same a jury in the 1920s might have mentioned Al Capone and The Mob. But when all was over, the prosecution congratulated the jury for letting this killer go lightly.
“We respect the jury's verdict and are pleased that Ahmed Ghailani now faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a potential life sentence," the Justice Department said in a statement. We’ll have to see what happens at his sentencing.
“You have reason to feel proud," said Judge Lewis Kaplan. "You have all done your duty. Our nation is a better place. I and everyone else have been struck by the way you did your duty. You reviewed the evidence with great care.” All except the evidence they weren’t permitted to review.
Lewis Kaplan knows from hardened criminals and knows about letting them go. He was nominated to the Southern District of New York by President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in 1994. He was judge in a number of federal racketeering cases involving Mafia members, whom he set free, particularly John Gotti, who evaded charges three times. In April, Judge Kaplan was assigned to preside over the cases of 14 Gambino crime family members arrested on charges, among others, of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, witness tampering (in the 1992 trial of John Gotti), and sex trafficking of a minor.
Kaplan has presided over a number of notorious cases at the district level and was equally notorious in his judgment in these cases. Little wonder then that he saw to it that Ghailani, a Muslim mobster, was let off so lightly. Yes, Ghailani could serve up to 20 years, or life. Or the judge could commute his sentence to the time served in Guantanamo, the poor lad.
What effect will this have on KSM’s trial? It’s hard to say; right now, he’s in limbo. Obama has decided, at least for the time being, to leave him there and bequeath him to some future president. But the 9/11 survivors and victims’ families deserve to know that he was tried in a military tribunal, even if a person of KSM’s character actually deserves to be relegated to obscurity. His crime was too monstrous, though, to be passed off in that way.
The military tribunal is the answer. Evidence can be presented without endangering national security or revealing intelligence operations, witnesses can be called with relatively little fear, and KSM can pull all the theatrics he wants; no one will ever see them. All we need are representatives with the will to give the order.
Some see this as a major blow to the Obama administration’s determination to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian Federal court, mere blocks from Ground Zero. As Conservative critics predicted, Ghailani was released when crucial evidence was declared inadmissible. Liberals crowed that it was not only a victory for American justice – “the system works” – but a repudiation of interrogation tactics, such as not allowing them access to a computer, that Liberals deem “torture.”
According to the Associated Press, the judge had earlier decided that a star witness would not be allowed to testify because the witness was identified while Ghailani was held at a secret CIA camp that used harsh interrogation techniques. It is unknown what effect this witness would have had on the case.
Prosecutors charged that Ghailani helped an Al Qaeda cell buy a truck and components for explosives used in a suicide bombing in his Tanzania on Aug. 7, 1998. That attack and a nearly simultaneous bombing in Nairobi, Kenya, killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
The day before the bombings, Ghailani “allegedly” made a one-way trip to Pakistan under an alias. While on the run, he spent time in Afghanistan as a cook and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden and later as a document forger for Al Qaeda. In 2004, he was captured and held at a secret overseas camp. In 2006, he was transferred to Guantanamo and held until the decision last year to bring him to New York.
Other witnesses described how Ghailani bought gas tanks used in the truck bomb with cash supplied by the terror group, how the FBI found a blasting cap stashed in his room at a cell hideout and how he lied to family members about his escape, telling them he was going to Yemen to start a new life. The defense never contested that Ghailani knew some of the plotters. But it claimed he was in the dark about their sinister intentions.
"Call him a fall guy. Call him a pawn," lawyer Peter Quijano said in his closing argument. "But don't call him guilty."
If the jurors didn’t think that the gas tanks, blasting caps, and other accoutrements were not the stuff of bombs, then what did they think it was? Stupidity, ignorance of the law, is not a defense. Except in Liberal New York, where jurors generously grant murderers and their accomplices the benefit of the doubt, and are willing to throw criminals in jail for trying to blow up government buildings, but not for successfully murdering 224 people with the same materials. The poor bloke. How was he supposed to know people would be killed when his cohorts blew up that building. The naughty boy – he’s going to have to go to jail, but let’s have mercy on him.
However, the single count upon which Ghailani was convicted included a subsection, according to the Associated Press, that asked jurors if the defendant's conduct caused death of persons other than his co-conspirators -- and the jury said "yes."
The prosecution was allowed to refer to Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, in the same a jury in the 1920s might have mentioned Al Capone and The Mob. But when all was over, the prosecution congratulated the jury for letting this killer go lightly.
“We respect the jury's verdict and are pleased that Ahmed Ghailani now faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a potential life sentence," the Justice Department said in a statement. We’ll have to see what happens at his sentencing.
“You have reason to feel proud," said Judge Lewis Kaplan. "You have all done your duty. Our nation is a better place. I and everyone else have been struck by the way you did your duty. You reviewed the evidence with great care.” All except the evidence they weren’t permitted to review.
Lewis Kaplan knows from hardened criminals and knows about letting them go. He was nominated to the Southern District of New York by President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in 1994. He was judge in a number of federal racketeering cases involving Mafia members, whom he set free, particularly John Gotti, who evaded charges three times. In April, Judge Kaplan was assigned to preside over the cases of 14 Gambino crime family members arrested on charges, among others, of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, witness tampering (in the 1992 trial of John Gotti), and sex trafficking of a minor.
Kaplan has presided over a number of notorious cases at the district level and was equally notorious in his judgment in these cases. Little wonder then that he saw to it that Ghailani, a Muslim mobster, was let off so lightly. Yes, Ghailani could serve up to 20 years, or life. Or the judge could commute his sentence to the time served in Guantanamo, the poor lad.
What effect will this have on KSM’s trial? It’s hard to say; right now, he’s in limbo. Obama has decided, at least for the time being, to leave him there and bequeath him to some future president. But the 9/11 survivors and victims’ families deserve to know that he was tried in a military tribunal, even if a person of KSM’s character actually deserves to be relegated to obscurity. His crime was too monstrous, though, to be passed off in that way.
The military tribunal is the answer. Evidence can be presented without endangering national security or revealing intelligence operations, witnesses can be called with relatively little fear, and KSM can pull all the theatrics he wants; no one will ever see them. All we need are representatives with the will to give the order.
posted by Belle | 7:27 PM
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