Gitmo Prisoner Becomes First To Go To US Court

Gitmo prisoner becomes first to go to US court
The first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be transferred to US soil was due in court in New York Tuesday in a politically charged test for President Barack Obama’s plan to close the controversial prison. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian national who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility since September 2006, was to be arraigned in a federal court in New York at 4:00 pm (2000 GMT).
He is charged with taking part in the August 7, 1998 bombing of the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya.
This is a first test for White House plans to shut down Guantanamo and bring inmates to trial or send them to their countries of origin.
The pledge was a major element in Obama’s presidential campaign last year, along with an order to end officially sanctioned torture. Republicans have attacked the Democrat for what they say is a dangerous priority on human rights over national security.

But Attorney General Eric Holder said the transfer of Ghailani served justice and posed no threat to the United States.

“With his appearance in federal court today, Ahmed Ghailani is being held accountable for his alleged role in the bombing of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and the murder of 224 people,” Holder said in a statement.

“The Justice Department has a long history of securely detaining and successfully prosecuting terror suspects through the criminal justice system, and we will bring that experience to bear in seeking justice in this case,” Holder said. Ghailani faces 286 counts of murder, conspiracy to murder, bomb and maim, and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against US nationals, charges for which he could receive the death penalty.

Ghailani faces 286 counts of murder, conspiracy to murder, bomb and maim, and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against US nationals, charges for which he could receive the death penalty.
According to the indictment from March 2001, Ghailani also conspired with Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and other Qaeda members to kill Americans.
The Guantanamo detention center still houses about 240 so-called “war on terror” inmates, most of whom have been detained since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Obama wants the facility closed by January 2010.

First Gitmo inmate in US court pleads not guilty
NEW YORK
Under heavy guard, a Guantanamo Bay detainee walked into a civilian U.S. courtroom for the first time Tuesday, underscoring the Obama administration’s determination to close the Cuban prison and hold trials here despite Republican alarms about bringing terror suspects to America.
Ahmed Ghailani, a Tanzanian accused in two American Embassy bombings a decade ago, pleaded not guilty — in English — in a brief but historic federal court hearing that transported him from open-ended military detention to the civilian criminal justice system.

“Not guilty” answered Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, when Federal Court Judge Loretta Preska asked how he pleaded.

President Barack Obama has said keeping Ghailani from coming to the United States “would prevent his trial and conviction.” Taking a drastically different stance, House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio labeled Tuesday’s move “the first step in the Democrats’ plan to import terrorists into America.”

Ghailani, accused of being a bomb-maker, document forger and aide to Osama bin Laden, was brought to New York to await trial in connection with al-Qaida bombings that killed 224 people — including 12 Americans — at the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998.
U.S. marshals took custody of Ghailani from his military jailers and transferred him to a federal lockup in lower Manhattan that currently holds financial swindler Bernard Madoff, and once held mob scion John “Junior” Gotti and blind terror leader Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman.
The White House declined to say whether Ghailani would be released if cleared by the court.

“I’m not going to get into hypotheticals,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. “Let’s discuss that if it ever comes to fruition.”

Wild Thing’s comment…….
Soon the Liberals will be screaming for the judge to allow him bail and the ACLU and CAIR leading the way.