Saturday, March 22, 2014

Justice?: More GITMO residents released - and NYC civilian trial of terrorist goes on

Uruguay agrees to U.S. request to take some Guantanamo inmates
MONTEVIDEO Mar 20, 2014

(Reuters) - Uruguay has agreed with the United States to accept some prisoners held in the much-criticized detention center at the U.S. military base of Guantanamo Bay, President Jose Mujica said on Thursday.

The Obama administration, which wants to close the center used to imprison people captured after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, has been talking to several countries about relocating inmates.

The South American country had accepted the request by Washington to take some prisoners and would consider them refugees, Mujica told journalists while attending an unrelated farming event.

"It's a request for human rights reasons," Mujica said.

"Human rights reasons." Of COURSE it is. Blah blah blah. Read the rest here.

Meanwhile, in Manhattan. bin Laden's son in law, and al Qaeda spokesman is on trial in US civilian court.

From the Beeb:

Al-Qaeda spokesman: Bin Laden said 'deliver a message'

21 March 2014

A man US prosecutors say was al-Qaeda's spokesman after 9/11 has testified Osama Bin Laden wanted him "to deliver a message to the world".

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, 48, took the stand in his own defence at his terrorism trial in New York City on Wednesday.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges he conspired to kill Americans, and his defence lawyers say he had no advance knowledge of the attacks.

The case is one of the highest-profile terror trials in a US civilian court.

On Wednesday, Mr Abu Ghaith told the court he arrived in Afghanistan in June 2001 because he had a "serious desire to get to know the new Islamic government" there.

[...]

Mr Abu Ghaith's remarks came a day after a judge ruled jurors would not hear testimony from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the 9/11 attacks....

Interesting article here as the prosecution lays out its case.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith is the most senior person within bin Laden's inner circle to be put on trial in an American civilian court. Daily Mail has a write up - with pictures - on this latest circus:

[...]

Prosecutors claim Abu Ghaith knew of planned attacks against the U.S. and provided support and resources to terrorists.

Abu Ghaith, who has denied the charges, faces life in prison if convicted. The rare gambit by the defense on Wednesday was a last-ditch effort to counter a mountain of evidence against Abu Gaith, including an alleged confession and videos showing him sitting beside bin Laden on September 12, 2001, and another in which he warned Americans that 'the storm of airplanes will not abate'.

The defense has never disputed that Abu Ghaith associated with bin Laden after 9/11, but they contend that he was recruited as a religious teacher and orator, and had no role in plotting more attacks....

Go read here.

As always, Jihad Watch gives their take:

[...]

March 19, 2014 Robert Spencer

That sound you hear is of 9/11 truthers’ heads exploding all over the land. Of course, other Islamic jihadists have admitted this before, and that hasn’t stopped the truthers, so this probably won’t, either. It has been made abundantly clear over the last twelve-plus years of jihad since 9/11 that some people are impervious to facts and evidence, no matter what....

Spencer has an extensive transcript of the proceedings here.

Over in Afghanistan, Karzai continues to speed up the release of detainees, against direct opposition of the west. From Reuters:

Afghan prisoners walk outside the Parwan Detention Facility after their release in Bagram Airbase, northern Kabul, March 20, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Omar Sobhani

Afghanistan frees 77 prisoners despite UK, coalition warning

By Jessica Donati and Mirwais Harooni
KABUL Thu Mar 20, 2014

(Reuters) - Afghanistan on Thursday freed 77 prisoners captured by foreign troops, despite opposition from Britain and NATO-led forces which said they could pose a security threat.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government has long complained that foreign forces have locked up many Afghans on dubious grounds and with no proper judicial process. A similar release last month caused tension with the United States.

The latest batch walked free from Bagram prison, which was transferred to Afghan control last year as a milestone in the withdrawal of U.S. and coalition forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

"Insurgents in this group of detainees have caused casualties amongst coalition and Afghan forces," the NATO-led force in Afghanistan said in a statement.

Tim James, a spokesman for the British embassy, said: "We don't agree with the releases." Thirty-nine of those freed on Thursday were captured by British forces....

Read the rest here.

Now more than ever: PAY ATTENTION.

Monday, March 3, 2014

9/11 Justice - In New York City?

Remember MIC and Holder trying to have all the GITMO terrorist trials held in civilian court in NYC? Remember the uproar that followed? Today, comes news that Osama bin Laden's son-in-law is set to stand trial in Nrw York:

From Stars and Stripes:

By Richard A. Serrano

Tribune Washington Bureau

2 March 2014

WASHINGTON — Weeks after he took office, President Barack Obama met privately with 40 grieving Americans, many clutching photographs of loved ones lost in terrorist attacks.

The new president told them he would be closing Guantanamo Bay military prison within the year and putting many of the detainees there on trial in the U.S., where justice would be swifter.

Five years later, the first and probably only federal court trial of a Sept. 11-related case will start jury selection on Monday at a U.S. District courthouse in lower Manhattan, not far from where the World Trade Center once stood.

In addition to being the first opportunity for Obama to fulfill that 2009 pledge, it will likely be the only chance for New Yorkers, the community most damaged in the worst terror attack in U.S. history, to have such a trial on their home turf, decided by a jury of New Yorkers.

Obama’s plans to relocate other Guantanamo detainees, most notably self-confessed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others accused in the plot, ran into congressional roadblocks that prevented the president from trying them in New York and closing the Cuba detention facility as he promised.

But when Sulaiman abu Ghaith, 48, Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, who is accused of being a top al-Qaida propagandist, was arrested last year, the Justice Department brushed aside pressure to send him to Guantanamo and launched proceedings in New York, partly as a test case to demonstrate that high-profile terrorism trials could be handled safely and efficiently in the U.S....

Much more here:

This image made from video provided by by Al-Jazeera shows Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son-in-law and spokesman. Abu Ghaith goes to trial Monday, March 3, 2014 in New York on charges that he conspired to kill Americans in his role as al-Qaida's mouthpiece after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He is the highest-ranking al-Qaida figure to stand trial on U.S. soil since the attacks.

Miami Herald details some of the all too familiar delaying tactics of the terrorist defence teams:

Friday, 02.28.14

Judge refuses to delay NYC terror trial

By TOM HAYS

Associated Press

NEW YORK -- A man prosecutors allege is Osama bin Laden's son-in-law and former spokesman will go on trial next week, despite claims by his lawyers that the government may have charged the wrong person, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected an 11th-hour bid by lawyers for Sulaiman Abu Ghaith to delay the trial while they sought more information about a second man being held at the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Calling the mistaken identity claim "utterly meritless," Kaplan told lawyers on both sides at a pretrial hearing that jury selection would go forward in federal court in Manhattan on Monday as originally planned.

Abu Ghaith has pleaded not guilty to charges that he conspired to kill Americans in his role as al-Qaida's spokesman after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. If convicted, he could face life in prison.
The defense filed papers Thursday, saying its investigation had found a Guantanamo detainee with a name "very similar" to Abu Ghaith who was an al-Qaida insider, was close to bin Laden and was in Afghanistan during the period referred to in the indictment. The defense accused the government of withholding information about the second man that could bolster a motion to dismiss the case.

In a letter to the judge Friday, prosecutors said there was a detainee with a name that was partially similar to Abu Ghaith's, but argued the similarity is irrelevant....