Before Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1998 bombings of two US Embassies in East Africa today, 11 victims of those bombings were allowed to speak to the packed courtroom.
Each one stood at the front of the gallery, speaking into a microphone facing the judge. Each had a horrible story to tell -- about losing a husband or wife in the bombing, or losing a child or brother or sister. Many had been in the bombings themselves, and described not only the deafening blasts and sight of dismembered body parts that still haunt their nightmares, but also their own continuing psychological trauma and physical disabilities that persist today.
The federal sentencing guidelines allow victims to address the court at a sentencing hearing.
But in addition to noting their own pain and anger, victims also praised the federal court judge, Lewis Kaplan, and the United States justice system for bringing Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani to justice in a public courtroom following a fair trial.
Susan Hirsch, whose husband, Abduhrahman Abdullah, was killed in the attack in Tanzania, spoke of the important lessons conveyed by the trial -- a point she elaborated upon in a letter submitted earlier to the court.
This trial, and the first embassy bombings trial, she said, "offered a lesson about our nation's ability to succeed in using civilian courts to bring those accused of terror crimes to justice in a manner that is fair and safe. I am so grateful that Ghailani was found guilty in a court whose jurisdiction and procedures are, in contrast to those of the Military Commissions, recognizable, accessible, and less vulnerable to legal challenges," she added.
Although she didn't mention it, military commissions also do not have sentencing guidelines, so there is no mandatory minimum sentence for conspiracy or any of the other counts Ghailani was charged with. As a result, most sentences in military commissions have been far more lenient than those in federal court. Since September 11, there have been only five convictions in military commissions, as compared to more than 400 on terrorism-related offenses in federal courts.
"Finally, this trial will offer a lesson about American resilience," said Hirsch in her letter. "The trial symbolizes our commitment to justice for those who carry out grave crimes and attests that our justice system can survive terror attacks and misuse and that we should continue to have faith in it."
Although critics of federal court trials earlier criticized some of Judge Kaplan's rulings for excluding evidence derived by torture, Hirsch commended the judge for not relying on tortured evidence, even at sentencing. "Those responsible for his torture engaged in reprehensible crimes," she said, adding that "I would hope that the decisions of jurists like yourself will work against the repetition of these acts that undermined justice as well as their legacy."
Ghailani's lawyers had asked Judge Kaplan to grant Ghailani a more lenient sentence because he claims he was tortured in CIA custody in a secret overseas prison. But the judge decided that even if he was tortured, "the impact on him pales in comparison to the suffering and the horror he and his confederates caused," and refused to take that into account in the sentence.
Still, Hirsch noted that Ghailani's mistreatment, and the fact that the government waited six years to prosecute the case, probably damaged the government's case and may well be the reason that the jury acquitted him on most of the charges.
The jury's acquittal of Ghailani on more than 280 counts of murder and conspiracy in connection with the bombing has led some critics to question the government's judgment in bringing the case in federal court at all. But the victims who spoke today instead praised the U.S. government for finally bringing the case to court.
In Hirsch's view, the problem was not bringing the case to trial, but delaying the commission of justice:
"I cannot help but believe that the quality of the evidence against Ghailani deteriorated during the years in which the U.S. government detained him but failed to bring him to justice, and thereby affected the jury's verdict. My greatest frustration with respect to this case is that justice may have been compromised by the long delay."
Follow Daphne Eviatar on Twitter: www.twitter.com/deviatar
Now, when are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al. going to be tried for ignoring all the well documented warnings that September 11 was on the way, letting it happen, and then using it as an excuse to invade Iraq?
Don't get me wrong: if he is a terrorist he should be punished. Nut most of the people we punish for 9/11 never had anything to do with it. We bring someone to court who was a kid when his father made him defend his home and we call him terrorist. - Because we have the right to invade any nation and anyone fighting back suddenly becomes a terrorist? Is that all it needs?
The FBI stated repeatedly that "there is no hard evidence linking OBL to 9/11". - So where is the evidence here? The only evidence ever presented to us as evidence turned out to be fake. - The CIA - who aree the only source we have that tells us OBL did it - faked the only evidence there is. The FBI says he did not do it. And still the media turn their propaganda to make us hate anyone muslim or even looking arabic. And we are glad one more of them is going to jail.
And again we see no evidence of any involvement. The public opinion is enough to "prove" they are evil.
Isn't anyone bothered that even had he been acquitted on all counts, the Obama administration had made clear that it would simply continue to imprison him anyway under what it claims is the President's "post-acquittal detention power" -- i.e., when an accused terrorist is wholly acquitted in court, he can still be imprisoned indefinitely by the U.S. Government under the "law of war"? Glenn Greenwald has a much more in depth look at this case and some disturbing issues:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/11/18/trials
Defense attorneys had argued for leniency in part over Ghailani’s torture in a CIA prison.
Ghailani was the first former Guantánamo prisoner tried in a U.S. civilian court. The defense has argued Ghailani was a pawn unwittingly exploited by al-Qaeda. After the sentencing, Ghailani’s attorney, Peter Quijano, said he would appeal.
Peter Quijano: "When Ahmed Ghailani was arrested in 2004 on a pending indictment in this district, his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial was delayed for over five years. At the end of this trial, Ahmed Ghailani was found not guilty 283 times. On that day, his lawyers, to a person, believed that was the right verdict because we believed then that he was innocent. Our client was just sentenced to life without parole in a federal institution, a federal prison, and today we still believe our client is innocent."
Imagine what your country could accomplish with more rational and intelligent people like Susan Hirsch in government instead of the Mike Lee and Michelle Bachmann types.
Do you think that Ghailani thinks he committed any crimes?
Yet not nearly as free from error as we have the opportunity to be? Wouldn’t it be more satisfying to know with as near absolute certainty, the guilt of an accused? Just to be sure that the culpable have been held accountable. Rather than just somebody.
“there have been only five convictions in military commissions, as compared to more than 400 on terrorism-related offenses in federal courts”.
Doesn’t such a disparity suggest to you that either some who are guilty are escaping justice? Or else, some who are innocent are not receiving justice?
“we should continue to have faith”
Why trust in faith, when we could have 99.9% certainly?
“Hirsch commended the judge for not relying on tortured evidence”,
While I’d condemn the whole judicial system. For not resorting to a methodology which would instantaneously render the perceived need for and practice of torture, completely superfluous for ever more.
“the problem was not bringing the case to trial, but delaying the commission of justice”
Isn’t the real problem, accepting the best a human can do in securing justice. As an acceptable alternative, to the best a machine can do in pursuit of justice?
“I cannot help but believe that the quality”
of mercy is not strained. But boy, do we humans go out of our way to make the easy enervating.
Thanks Daphne, no trolls when you are right though.
Probably about like all the trials old Joe Stalin held for people HE didnt like. This guy may be a bad apple, who really knows? But I was reading that the Government held Jose Padilla for years, alternating brutal torture sessions with keeping him locked in a tiny pitchblack box. BY the time they "tried" him, his public defender pointed out that his mind had been totally destroyed, he was effectively a retarded child, and thee was no way he was competent to stand trial. But of course the Bush Regime "tried" him anyway.
I am just wondering if this guy got the same sort of treatment. With sensory deprivation, torture, electroshock, and drugs, they can not only make you confess to killing Julius Caesar, they can make you BELIEVE you killed Julius Caesar!