E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSAttorney General Eric Holder called today's life sentence -- the maximum allowed by law -- for convicted bombing conspirator Ahmed Ghailani a demonstration of "the strength of the American justice system in holding terrorists accountable for their actions."
While the jury's verdict in November was something of a setback for the government, finding Ghailani guilty of only one of 285 counts in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa, today's sentence of life in prison was what the government had urged the judge to impose. Ghailani was convicted in November of helping al Qaeda plotters obtain the materials they needed to build two powerful bombs that killed 213 people at the embassy in Kenya and 11 more at the embassy in Tanzania.
Today's legal victory for the government is somewhat muted, however. Ghailani, once viewed as a test case for putting detainees from Guantanamo Bay on trial in U.S. civilian courts, may turn out to the last such case.
Holder said the sentence shows the government's resolve to "use every tool available to the government to do so," invoking the language he has employed to argue that terrorism detainees can be effectively tried in regular civilian courts and not only before military commissions.
But Congress has blocked the government from any further use of one of those tools, by revoking the authority to bring any more Gitmo prisoners to the U.S. to face trial in civilian courts. While Justice Department officials continue to believe that such high-profile terror suspects as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be tried in the U.S., there's a growing sense that if the 9/11 detainees are ever going to be put on trial, it will probably be before a military commission at Guantanamo.
Leave a Comment:
The rule of law has been re-instated in America. This is why I vote for Democrats.
Well done AG Holder!
Now, get after that Bush crowd!
Speaking of the Bush crowd, the Washington Post has an article about Bush officials breaking the electioneering laws per federal agency reports. Seven Cabinet secretaries to Pres G.W. Bush took politically motivated trips at taxpayer expense while aides falsely claimed they were traveling on official business per the Independent Office of Special Counsel. The abuses occurred mostly in 2005 and 2006. The article also mentioned that official time or federal funds for political activites occurred between 2001 and 2007 when the White House organized dozens of election-related pep talks, many which required mandatory attendance by all top political appointees during normal work hours at 20 agencies.
Contrary to those who believe we needed the tools of despots to deal with terrorism, the justice system which has worked in the United States since its inception, and in England for centuries previously, works.
Jody- I saw that. I imagine in reality it's too late to do much now. I do wonder, though, that if this news came out then, how many posters I would have seen displayed outside the whitehouse saying "Taxed Enough Already".
DBO, good one. Too bad Darryl Issa wasn't in a tizzy to investigate during the Bush years.
Jody, Iowa
DBO, good one. Too bad Darryl Issa wasn't in a tizzy to investigate during the Bush years.
If I were Darryl Issa I wouldn't get too exited considering he himself has a checkered past.
I also hope that Eric Holder would go after Bush, Cheney, and Rove.
They all deserve a cell in jail.
Now why would Holder go after Bush? When they are out of office, the next POTUS will come after them. This stuff goes around and around.
IntheMiddle
Well, if the Obama administration violated federal law and used tax money for political campaign purposes, the next president SHOULD go after him. But unless Issa's planned witch hunt turns up something, there is yet zero evidence that anyone in the Obama administrated violated the Hatch act while there is PROOF that the Bush administration did, with Rove being the worst offender. Rove should be sitting in a jail cell.
How would you know a law was violated? I guess because the Wash Post said so. That paper is not exactly objective.
What PROOF? If it was that clean and cut, they would have went for an indictment. You can't believe everything you read.
IntheMiddle:
ITM doesn't believe the WaPo's news stories, which deal in FACTS. He's probably too busy swallowing all the baloney that Charles Krauthammer and George Will are dishing out on the editorial page.
NO I do not believe half of the crap written in papers.
I do not watch FOX and Krauthammer is boring and George Will is an undercover Liberal as of late.
If you are going to cite papers, I would recommend you go to several sources and maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle.
You would vote Democrat if they told you there was a way to make ur shyt not stink.......
Another frikken burden to the taxpayer for the rest of his life......just great.
I see we still have a clown suffering Bush derangement syndrome. Man go to bed with that ignorant, assinine BS. Nobody is trying to hear that today.
Ignoring your normal personal insults, is there a reason why letting him rot in prison for the rest of his life is different from letting him rot in Gitmo for the rest of his life? Other than, that is, the obvious usefulness of Gitmo in circumventing the Constitution?
ITM.....'Bush Derangement Syndrome'......? So that's what kept Bush so confused!
Thanks, I suspected there was a name for what ailed him!
OH wow now we get to feed and take care of this loser till he dies !! This is where our DAM MONEY GOES ! He can sit and watch tv all day and have 3 meals a day while the taxpayers go jobless homeless and eat at missions ! way to go !!!
I Must Be Dreaming
What would you like to do give him what he wants his chance at his 72 virgins! I say let him rot in jail and just die of natural cause than to give these idiots their glorious death at the hands of the infidels. These types shouldnt be glorified at all. Maybe if he gets raped and slain in jail that wouldnt be such an honorable death.
Prison life ain't no picnic. That life sentence means this clown won't be able to kill innocent people anymore. Problem solved. The tax dollars we spend keeping clowns like this in prison is small price to pay. That guy better have eyes in the back of his head if they put him in general population.
I Must Be Dreaming,
With all due respect, as was posted above, what is the difference of life in prison or life in Gitmo? Both are at taxpayer expense. Might it be because this on President's Obama's watch?
Justice served. Thank you, Atty General Holder. But we know the right will find something to whine about.
How do you know justice was served? Were you in attendance?
Oh, please ITM, you're the crowd that demands convictions or death for everyone suspected of terrorist activities. He's guilty, he got a life sentence--justice served via a trial by jury. You live in Texas, that explains why you ask.
IntheMiddle, TX
"How do you know justice was served? Were you in attendance?"
How do you know it wasn't? Were you in attendance?
Jody, ITM is still smarting over the 'guilty' verdict for his hero Tom Delay!
...ITM seems to fall on both sides of a line at the same time. Texas has voted itself into a state of idiocy which he obviously likes! Righties like prisons, except when they don't!
The San Antonio Express News columnist (Robert Rivard) says that it's time for the Texas license plates moto to be "first in prisons, last in schools"!
Chilled, good points. Hadn't heard about Rivard's idea for license plates.
Rivards' article was spot on Jody.
He slammed the new Texas Republican majority in the legislature and the Texans who voted them into office. They are proposing major cuts in education at every level in attempts to balance the budget!
Well it didn't take long for the whining from the right to start. This guy gets to go to a nice cushy place like Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Enjoooooy!
ITM, We don't need to make martyrs of these guys just let them live in one of those maximum security prisons hell holes some people posting here think are country clubs. You know those places with the three meals a day that make Chef Boyardee taste good and all the sex you want if you like it with the same gender that is! Oh Boy! I'll bet Mr. Ghailani can't wait to get there!
For those complaining about a life sentence, what did you think would happen if he were held indefinately at Guantamo Bay, or tried in a military tribunal? Same sentence you idiots!
The fact that he was only convicted on one charge, out of 285, is a little scary. Will he be able to appeal and possibly get out?
maggie, don't lose sight of the fact that evidence for many if not most of those charges was thrown out of court because the "global war on terror" was conducted in an unconstitutional fashion.
Thank goodness the LAPD wasn't the ones handling this guy's arrest. He would of been acquitted on all 285! Just ask the Brown family.