Trial of Guantanamo detainee tests US legal system

[June 10, 2009]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Ahmed Ghailani already was a terrorism suspect with an unusual resume -- alleged aide to Osama bin Laden, suspected bomb maker, former prisoner of war.

Now he's the first Guantanamo detainee headed for trial in the United States.

His military lawyers, frustrated by the failings of tribunals, said Tuesday that the government's decision to bring him to a Manhattan federal court to face charges in a deadly strike against U.S. embassies was a victory in itself.

"The rule of law is established here," said Air Force Maj. Richard Reiter. "We're not dealing with the due process issues that exist in Guantanamo. ... A fair prosecution that protects his rights is all we could ask for."

In theory, Ghailani will now have broader access to the evidence against him and more avenues to challenge it by emphasizing the circumstances of his capture, detention and treatment over the years. He'll also have regular access to his lawyers as he awaits trial in a jail that holds disgraced financier Bernard Madoff and the captured Somali pirate.

Ghailani, who's believed to be in his 30s, got his first taste of the justice system when he pleaded not guilty Tuesday to participating in the al-Qaida bombings that killed 224 people -- including 12 Americans -- at the embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998.

Escorted into a courtroom without shackles or handcuffs, he listened at times to a Swahili interpreter but then removed his headphones and appeared to understand what was said in English.

He said only that he was not guilty -- and that he did not need to have read aloud what U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska called "this big, fat indictment" against him.

"We are ready to proceed in the case," declared Assistant U.S. Attorney David Raskin, who said there was "voluminous" evidence to be shared among attorneys.

Ghailani's attorney, Scott L. Fenstermaker, declined to comment after the hearing.

Despite Ghailani's historic transfer to New York, political challenges still loom.

Congressional Republicans have repeatedly contended that transferring terrorist suspects to U.S. soil will threaten public safety. The Guantanamo issue has seemed one of the few issues falling the Republicans' way, as polls suggest that most Americans want to keep the Cuba-based prison operating.

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio labeled Tuesday's move "the first step in the Democrats' plan to import terrorists into America."

But if Ghailani can be handled without serious incident in New York and elsewhere, the GOP argument may lose steam and Congress may rethink its refusal to fund the closing of Guantanamo. The move also could bolster President Barack Obama's efforts to persuade other nations to accept some detainees from the prison.

Obama has said keeping Ghailani from coming to the United States "would prevent his trial and conviction" for terrible crimes.

The decision to try Ghailani in New York revives a long-dormant case charging bin Laden and other top al-Qaida leadership with plotting the embassy attacks, which led then-President Bill Clinton to launch cruise missile attacks two weeks later on bin Laden's Afghan camps.

Four other men have been tried and convicted in the New York courthouse for their roles in the embassy attacks. All were sentenced to life in prison.

Although the bombings were a decade ago, "for us, it's like yesterday," said Sue Bartley, a Washington-area resident who lost her husband, Julian Leotis Bartley Sr., then U.S. consul general to Kenya, and her son, Julian "Jay" Bartley Jr.

"The embassy bombings were a precursor to 9/11. And even though we know that an American embassy located in any country is American soil, I don't think people really understand that," she said.

U.S. officials contend Ghailani started his terrorist career on a bicycle delivering bomb parts. He worked his way up the al-Qaida ranks to become an aide to bin Laden after the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings at U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, according to military prosecutors.

He was categorized as a high-value detainee by U.S. authorities after he was captured in Pakistan in 2004, and he was transferred to the detention center at the U.S. naval base in Cuba two years later.

Ghailani has denied knowing that the TNT and oxygen tanks he delivered would be used to make a bomb. He also has denied buying a vehicle used in one of the attacks, saying he could not drive.

[Associated Press; By TOM HAYS]

Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett and Charles Babington in Washington and Larry Neumeister and Verena Dobnik in New York contributed to this report.

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