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Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first former Guantánamo Bay camp detainee to be tried in the civilian court system, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday for his role in the 1998 bombings of two United States Embassies in East Africa. The nearly simultaneous attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed 224 people and wounded thousands. Mr. Ghailani, 36, was convicted on Nov. 17 of a single count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property, while being acquitted of more than 280 charges of murder and conspiracy. But the many acquittals seemed to carry little weight...

NEW YORK – A judge sentenced the first Guantanamo detainee to have a U.S. civilian trial to life in prison Tuesday, saying anything he suffered at the hands of the CIA and others "pales in comparison to the suffering and the horror" caused by the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced Ahmed Ghailani to life, calling the attacks "horrific" and saying the deaths and damage they caused far outweighs "any and all considerations that have been advanced on behalf of the defedndant." He also ordered Ghailani to pay a $33...

New York (AP) -- The former Guantanamo detainee found guilty of conspiracy in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa has asked a judge to toss the conviction. . . . A federal jury in New York City last month acquitted Ghailani of 224 counts of murder and dozens of other charges

Well, the bubble of Obama supremacy has finally exploded in all our faces and is now lying in tatters, with little giblets of its former hot-air glory spread from here to kingdom come. The candidate who played his "Peace is just an Obama speech away" tune to the easily bamboozled left has just been dealt the final blow that crashed the big, fat hot air balloon. The very first test case was just last week: a former Gitmo detainee, brought to NYC to be tried as a civilian with all the rights of a genuine American citizen, was found guilty...

Unless you've been hiding under a rock I'm sure you heard about the one and only terrorist President Obama sent to our civilian justice system from Gitmo was found not guilty on all 200+ charges except one, conspiracy: A federal jury in Manhattan has returned what is transparently a compromise verdict in the terrorism trial of Ahmed Ghailani. The case centered on al-Qaeda’s bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998. There were 285 counts, including separate murder charges for each of the 224 people killed. Ghailani was acquitted on 284 of them and convicted...

Though some critics and observers are suggesting the Ghailani verdict -- he was acquited of all but one of more than 280 charges -- weakens the president's call for civilian criminal trials for Guantanamo detainees, a senior administration official pushes back: "He was convicted by a jury of a count which carries a 20-year minimum sentence," the official says. "He will very likely be sentenced to something closer to life. (The judge can, and very likely will, take into account things that the jury did not, and he can and will consider conduct that the jury found him not guilty...

Janet Reno must surrender her crown–she is no longer the stupidest AG in the history of the United States. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was Eric Holder’s lab rat. The Attorney General used him to test the civilian trial system to prove to the world that it’s exactly the right forum to try terrorists. The entirely predictable result? Crucial evidence was excluded, enabling Ghailani to dodge the most serious charges. "He helped to buy the Nissan Atlas truck that was used to carry the bomb, and gas tanks that were placed inside the truck to intensify the blast, the evidence showed. He...

Is there any better proof that Team Obama's preferred approach to fight ing terror -- through civilian courts -- is dangerously misguided than yesterday's acquittal of one of the 1998 US embassy bombers on all but one of 285 charges? Ahmed Ghailani, the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried in a civilian court, was convicted of only a single count of conspiracy to destroy government property and buildings using explosives. Murder? No. Terrorism? No. He was up to his ears in a plot that took 224 lives, and he's not a terrorist? Preposterous. He might as well have blown...

Statement on Ghailani Verdict “Bad ideas have dangerous consequences. The Obama Administration recklessly insisted on a civilian trial for Ahmed Ghailani, and rolled the dice in a time of war. The Department of Justice says it’s pleased by the verdict. Ask the families of the victims if they’re pleased. And this result isn’t just embarrassing. It’s dangerous. It signals weakness in a time of war. The Ghailani trial was supposed to be a test case for future trials of 9/11 terrorists. We urge the president: End this reckless experiment. Reverse course. Use the military commissions at Guantanamo that Congress has...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The first suspect transferred from Guantanamo military prison to face a U.S. civilian court was found not guilty of terrorism charges on Wednesday in a setback to President Barack's Obama plans for trying terrorism suspects. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, 36, a Tanzanian from Zanzibar, had been accused of conspiring in the 1998 al Qaeda bomb attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people. The jury found him guilty of one relatively minor charge of conspiracy to damage or destroy U.S. property with explosives. Ghailani was cleared of 276 murder and attempted murder counts,...

If President Obama needed a clarifying moment to help him decide whether to try Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court, a federal judge's decision last week to bar the testimony of a key witness in the trial of Ahmed Ghailani should have provided it. Ghailani's prosecution for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in East Africa was supposed to be a slam dunk, which Attorney General Eric Holder would then hold up as evidence that civilian courts could handle the prosecutions of other Guantanamo detainees with more complicated cases. But then Judge Lewis Kaplan threw...

Judge Lewis Kaplan yesterday deliv ered strong evidence of why terrorist trials don't belong in civilian court. He brought the federal trial of accused al Qaeda bomber Ahmed Ghailani to a halt on its opening day by barring the testimony of the government's key witness. Ghailani faces life in prison for his role in the 1998 bombings of three US embassies in Africa. The witness, Hussein Abebe, sold Ghailani the TNT used in the deadly bombings, and prosecutors say his testimony is critical to their case. But Kaplan ruled that, because the government only learned about Abebe from Ghailani himself...

The first civilian trial of a Guantánamo Bay detainee was delayed today after a Manhattan judge told prosecutors they could not call their star witness. Judge Lewis Kaplan blocked the government in Washington from calling a man whom authorities said sold explosives to Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the defendant. Defence lawyers say investigators learned about the witness only after Ghailani underwent harsh interrogation at a secret CIA camp between 2004 and 2006. "The court has not reached this conclusion lightly," Kaplan wrote. "It is acutely aware of the perilous nature of the world in which we live. But the constitution is...

The CIA's alleged torture of accused U.S. embassy bomber Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani does not justify dismissing criminal charges against him, a federal judge ruled yesterday. Southern District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan rejected the claim made by Mr. Ghailani's defense attorneys that the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment requires dismissal of the indictment based on "outrageous" government misconduct. The reason, the judge said, was that there was no causal connection between the defendant's alleged mistreatment and his prosecution in the Southern District.

Note: The following text is a quote: IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 060-010 January 22, 2010 Military Commission Charges Withdrawn In Sept. 11 Case The Defense Department announced today that the convening authority for Military Commissions withdrew and dismissed the charges, without prejudice, against the five detainees charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. This action comes in light of the announcement by the attorney general of the United States that the Department of Justice intends to pursue a prosecution of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Walid Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin al Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, in...

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...

The result of a hearing Monday in the case of al Qaeda confederate Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who is accused of helping to blow up two U.S. embassies in Africa, could have far-reaching implications for the federal government's decision to try the alleged 9/11 terrorists in the civilian justice system in New York. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan will hear arguments Monday on whether or not the indictment against Mr. Ghailani in United States v. Hage, 98 cr. 1023 (S-10), should be dismissed on speedy trial grounds, a decision that could serve as a template for the pretrial maneuvering in the controversial...

From Bloomberg: Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian who faces terrorism charges for his role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies, asked a judge to order U.S. prosecutors to surrender information about “black sites” where he was held. Ghailani faces federal charges over the bombings of U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. Ghailani had been held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006, before being transferred to the U.S. in June. He is the first detainee from Guantanamo Bay to be tried in a U.S. civilian court. In a...

We tried the first World Trade Center bombers in civilian courts. In return we got 9/11 and the murder of nearly 3,000 innocents.The Obama administration has said it intends to try several of the prisoners now detained at Guantanamo Bay in civilian courts in this country. This would include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and other detainees allegedly involved. The Justice Department claims that our courts are well suited to the task. Based on my experience trying such cases, and what I saw as attorney general, they aren't. That is not to say...

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided not to seek the death penalty against a former Guantánamo detainee who was ordered by President Obama to face trial in a civilian court in New York. Mr. Holder communicated the decision to federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Friday, and they in turn informed the federal judge who is presiding in the case. “You are authorized and directed not to seek the death penalty against Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani,” Mr. Holder wrote to Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Ghailani faces federal charges of conspiring...