Here’s another reason why al Qaeda terrorists don’t belong in US civilian courts: the right to a speedy trial.
The lawyer for embassy bomber Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to receive a civilian trial, this week claimed that his client’s years in detention violated his right to a timely adjudication of the case.
He’s demanding Ghailani’s release.
Insane? You betcha.
But it’s the predictable consequence of Team Obama’s efforts to shoehorn Islamist cutthroats into a justice system that was never designed for them.
Consider: POWs — uniformed soldiers of a belligerent state — can be legally held for the duration of the conflict.
Terrorists like Ghailani and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad are due far fewer rights.
And, lest there be any mistake, al Qaeda has yet to sue for peace.
Judge Lewis Kaplan may still dismiss Ghailani’s motion — as he ought. (If he doesn’t, expect KSM & Co. to employ the exact same argument when their trials start.)
But whatever happens, the fact that arguments for the release of an al Qaeda terrorist are given serious attention in a US courtroom is repugnant on its face.
Didn’t President Obama just say that “we are at war” with these folks?
Besides, the speedy-trial argument is just the start: American criminal law is riddled with procedural protections completely incongruous to wartime realities.
Was Ghailani not told that he had the right to remain silent? Well?
How much you want to bet that some where in the fine print, some terrorist lawyer finds his get-out-of-jail-free card?
The nightmare is just beginning.