U.S.: Life Sentence for Embassy Bomber Praised by Rights Groups

• by Jim Lobe* (washington)
• Tuesday, January 25, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Ghailani was convicted last November on only one count of conspiracy and acquitted on 284 other charges, including multiple murder counts. He was given the maximum sentence, despite appeals for mercy by his attorneys based on his torture and mistreatment while being held at so-called 'black sites' run by the Central Intelligence Agency and at Guantanamo.

But U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected that argument, insisting that Ghailani's suffering 'pales in comparison to the suffering and horror he and his confederates caused'.

'The crime was so horrible,' he said in his Manhattan courtroom. 'It was a cold-blooded killing and maiming of innocent people on a scale that was hard to imagine in 1998.'

The sentence is likely to fuel debate over whether and how to try other alleged terrorists held at Guantanamo, including the purported 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

While the administration of President Barack Obama has long argued that such trials - as it again Tuesday - should be held by federal courts, Congress late last year approved an amendment to the 2011 defence authorisation bill that banned the use of Pentagon funds to transport detainees held at Guantanamo to the United States or its territories.

Not only did the amendment appear to make it impossible for Obama to make good on his promise to close Guantanamo. It also left the much-criticised, error-plagued military commissions as the only forum where detainees could be tried. Only five cases have been successfully tried before military tribunals in the nearly nine years since the first detainees arrived at Guantanamo.

When Obama signed the authorisation bill, he submitted a statement in which he restated his strong preference that detainees be tried in civilian courts and promised to work with the new Congress to repeal the amendment — a task that will be still more difficult with the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

In a statement issued after Tuesday's sentencing, Attorney General Eric Holder said the judge's ruling 'shows yet again the strength of the American justice system in holding terrorists accountable for their actions.'

The sentence was also praised by human rights groups which said that the case's conclusion showed that civilian courts — rather than military commissions — can best administer justice to terrorist suspects.

'The Ghailani trial demonstrated that a complex case for a horrendous crime committed abroad can be fairly tried in a legitimate system and result in a sentence worthy of that crime,' said Laura Pitter, counter-terrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

'Such a verdict and sentence before a military commission would only have raised questions about the fairness of the trial,' she added.

That assessment was echoed by Amnesty International which, like HRW and other civil and human rights groups here, has long argued that suspected terrorists held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be tried in civilian courts.

'The verdict and sentencing will be internationally recognized as the product of an open and established system, unlike the tarnished military commissions system,' said Geneve Mantri, the government relations director for national security and human rights at Amnesty's U.S. chapter.

'This was a very difficult case, needlessly poisoned by the legacies of torture, and it was dealt with quickly, with dexterity and absolutely no disruptions,' she noted.

Ghailani, an Al Qaeda operative from Tanzania who played a key role in planning the bombings and then smuggling explosives to the men who carried out the blast in Dar es Salaam, was indicted shortly after they took place and eventually captured in 2004 in Pakistan.

He was held for several years at a secret CIA 'black site' where he was reportedly submitted to harsh interrogation techniques amounting to torture. He was transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006.

In May 2009, the Justice Department headed by Holder ordered him moved to the United States for trial before a federal court where he was entitled to all of the due-process protections afforded other defendants under the U.S. constitution.

During the trial that followed, Kaplan barred the one prosecution witness who could tie Ghailani directly to the explosives used in the bombings on the grounds that the witness's identity was obtained from the defendant as a result of enhanced interrogation techniques which most rights groups have deemed torture.

In a surprise verdict, the jury acquitted Ghailani of all but one of the 285 counts for which he was charged, convicting him only of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property.

The verdict was seized on by the mostly Republican critics of Obama's plan to bring more Guantanamo detainees before the federal courts in the United States as evidence that civilian tribunals afforded defendants too many safeguards.

Indeed, the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, called on the administration to 'admit (using federal courts) was wrong and assure us just as confidently that terrorists will be tried from now on in the military commission system.'

Indeed, some observers said the verdict - and some of the outrage it caused - prompted a number of Democrats to desert their president and vote in favour of the authorisation of amendment.

Nonetheless, the count on which Ghailani was convicted provided that the judge with substantial discretion — from a minimum sentence of 20 years to a maximum of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In the sentencing, Kaplan opted for the latter.

While the judge must still decide where he will serve his sentence, most analysts believe he will be sent to the so- called 'Supermax' federal prison in Colorado — the facility that currently houses four of his confederates in the bombings. They were convicted in federal court in 2001, before the 9/11 attacks.

'By showing the strength of our courts today, we've struck a decisive blow against our enemies,' said Maj. Gen. (ret.) Paul Eaton, a senior advisor to the National Security Network, which has also criticised the military tribunals as flawed.

'We've given them the treatment they deserve: that of lowly criminals, not warriors,' he said. 'This represents the very best of the civilian system I swore to protect and defend.'

*Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service