Barack Obama

al Marri, al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Moussaoui

One jihadist held in U.S. to get federal trial: al-Marri will not ‘save the day by pleading guilty’

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The New York Times reports:

The Justice Department, in an abrupt change in policy from the Bush administration, is preparing to bring terrorism-related charges against a man identified as an operative of Al Qaeda who has been held in a military brig for more than five years, government officials said Thursday. The charges would move the case of the only enemy combatant to be held on American soil, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, into a civilian criminal court. The Bush administration had argued that he could be held indefinitely without being charged.

Within their reporting, the Times made its own position quite clear:

Jonathan Hafetz of the American Civil Liberties Union, the lead lawyer in the case, said bringing charges would “definitely be a positive step in that the government will no longer be detaining Mr. Marri without charge and returning him to the civilian justice system.” But Mr. Hafetz said the criminal charges should have been filed seven years ago, when Mr. Marri was first arrested in Peoria on suspicion of ties to Al Qaeda. He said the Supreme Court should reject any government argument that the case is moot because the issue of whether the government may indefinitely detain legal residents or those in Guantánamo remains alive. The case should go forward, Mr. Hafetz said, “to make clear, once and for all, that the indefinite military detention of legal residents or American citizens is illegal, and to prevent this from ever happening again.”

I’ll assume from those quotes that Mr. Hafetz believes the enemy should be afforded full due process under our Constitution and our national security must take a back seat to al Qaeda’s killers “right” to speedy adjudications.

Andrew McCarthy of the National Review Online explains some of the difficulties the Obama administration faces as it tries to balance protecting both the United States and al-Marri at trial in federal court:

Once the executive branch files charges, it loses control over discovery. There are rules in place, of course, but they are very elastic and they will be construed by a judge. The judge’s responsibility is not national security but to provide due process for the accused. We are still at war, al Qaeda is still trying to attack us, and it goes to school on the trove of information that comes out of civilian trials — both information in our files that must be disclosed and information that comes out in the courtroom during the public hearings and trial proceedings. The Justice Department’s best lawyers (who are very good) can try to draft narrow charges to minimize the potential damage, but — as Moussaoui’s case showed — they can’t control the judge (who, in Moussaoui’s case, authorized extensive discovery of intelligence gleaned from detained terrorists, at one point dismissed the indictment because she thought the government wasn’t disclosing enough, and even delved into interrogation tactics despite the fact that those tactics had no relevance to Moussaoui). It does not appear that al-Marri is a Moussaoui-like loose cannon — he is not going to save the day by pleading guilty.

I refer to people like Jonathan Hafetz as al Qaeda’s lawyers. Frankly, I believe they share the same ultimately goal of dictating to the American people how much freedom they will be allowed. No worries though; al Qaeda surely plans on murdering their lawyers last.

Barack Obama, East Turkestan Islamic Movement, Eric Holder, ETIM, Gitmo, Guantanamo, Uighurs

Uighurs’ lawyers to ask President Obama to disobey the law

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While Presidents have the power to pardon, an Executive Order does not rise above existing federal statute or erase the records that show at least twenty (and perhaps all) of the original twenty-two Uighurs are inadmissible into the United States. As I recently pointed out, Section 103 of the Real ID Act of 2005 states that “any alien” who “has engaged in a terrorist activity” or “is a member of a terrorist organization” may not be admitted into the United States. In addition, last August the Long War Journal reported the results of its review of the twenty-two Uighurs originally held at Guantanamo:

All of the Uighurs at Gitmo have been associated with, or been members of, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (“ETIM”). … 20 of the 22 Uighurs detained at Gitmo were allegedly trained in an ETIM training camp and/or other facilities. At least 15 of the Uighurs detained at Gitmo have admitted that they received weapons training. The main training camp at which the Uighurs trained was reportedly sponsored by al Qaeda and the Taliban. … Some of the Uighur detainees are alleged to have fought in Afghanistan. … At least several of the Uighur detainees have ties to the ETIM’s senior leadership, which is, in turn, tied to the senior leadership of al Qaeda. … The ETIM, and Abdul Haq, remain a threat.

Five of the original twenty-two Uighurs have already been released abroad.

While a previous order by a District Court Judge to release the remaining seventeen within the United States was overruled last week, the New York Times reported this morning that their lawyers will ask President Barack Obama to disobey federal law:

“These are innocent men, held in a prison that has become a national shame,” the lawyers say in a letter to President Obama they are to release at a Washington news conference on Thursday. They ask that the president “restore liberty to these men” by sending them home, finding another country where they are willing to go, or permitting them into the United States [emphasis added mine].

As usual, their lawyers repeated detainee propaganda, their baseless allegations of abuse:

The detainees’ lawyers assert that at least 2 of the 20 men have been physically abused in recent weeks. A spokeswoman for the prison, Cmdr. Pauline Storum, said there had been no substantiated claims of abuse in recent weeks.

In a news conference in Washington, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that in a visit to Guantánamo on Monday he noted a “very conscious attempt” by guards to “conduct themselves in an appropriate way.”

Surely, President Obama will also conduct himself in an appropriate way by obeying the law.