Guantanamo al Qaeda suspect brought to New York

Guantanamo al Qaeda suspect brought to New York

www.reuters.com

By Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States transferred the first detainee from Guantanamo Bay on Tuesday to stand trial in a U.S. civilian court in a test case for President Barack Obama's plans to close the controversial prison for foreign terrorism suspects.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba since 2006 accused of involvement in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa, was escorted to New York by U.S. marshals, the Department of Justice said.

Ghailani faces 286 counts, including charges of conspiring with Osama bin Laden and other mem

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And so it begins.

Will this be US style of justice with a jury of his peers?
Where will they find them? What kind of evidence will be presented. Eye witness or was he rated out by someone that
may have been water boarded.

I just don't see how this will work. If he is convicted, where
will he be confined. And if found not guilty; does he have recourse to civil "bearing false witness" suits ? Pandora's box? I think so.

I also need to add that I have no ideas whatsoever on how to proceed with the detainees.

www.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 9-6-2009 by whaaa]

The sad irony of this whole mess is that even if these guys all were Al-Qaeda operatives and combatants, they may be so mentally unstable after years of detainment and "interrogation" that they are functionally useless as witnesses. Not to mention, they may just tell the court what it wants to hear and not the truth, if they can even distinguish it at this point.