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Muslims across the world and in particular those who are campaigning for her release including Lord Nazir Ahmed and human rights groups must also bear in mind the following facts: 1. She was married to a person who bought night-vision goggles and body armour worth $10,000 allegedly for “big game hunting” in Pakistan. He himself subsequently narrates Aafia’s violent personality, extremist views and concerns over her involvement in Jihadi activities. 2. Her second marriage a mere 6 months after her divorce, was to Ammar al-Baluchi, also known as Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali who happens to be the nephew of Khalid...

The feds may still try the 9/11 terror thugs near Ground Zero, President Obama said yesterday, shocking critics. "I have not ruled it out, but I think it's important for us to take into account the practical, logistical issues involved," Obama told CBS News anchor Katie Couric. "I mean, if you have a city that is saying no, and a police department that is saying no, and a mayor that is saying no, that makes it difficult," Obama acknowledged. The White House asked Attorney General Eric Holder late last month to look for alternatives to a trial in Manhattan Federal...

This fiasco disgusts Americans. A February 1 Rasmussen survey discovered that only 16 percent of likely voters want terrorists to enjoy the same legal rights as U.S. citizens, while 74 percent disagree. Meanwhile, HumanEvents.com (which often posts my columns) has gathered 126,665 signatures on its online petition demanding KSM and company’s ejection from civilian court. “These proceedings will make the O. J. Simpson trial look like a traffic-court hearing,” says Marc Thiessen, author of Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack , a new bestseller on the Obama administration’s soft-on-terror...

What exactly did Bush and Cheney do wrong? Democratic and media elites attack Obama for departing from the prior administration's Terrorism approach Glenn Greenwald Feb. 02, 2010 | (updated below) As I noted several days ago, it is not only Republicans -- but Democratic and media establishment figures as well -- who clearly crave the preservation of the Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism and civil liberties. When Bush's popularity collapsed to historic lows, political and media elites pretended for awhile to object to his administration's fear-based and radical policies as extremist and an assault on "our values." But that was all...

A US court has found a Pakistani female scientist guilty of attempting to murder US agents while she was detained for questioning in Afghanistan. The prosecution said Aafia Siddiqui, a US-trained neuroscientist, picked up an army rifle and shot at the US agents.

AG Eric Holder said he knows we are at war during his November 18, 2009 testimony before the Senate Judicary Committee concerning his decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other four 9/11 conspirators in federal court. Unfortunately, Mr. Holder does not walk that talk. (See video of Fox News report here.) Attorney General Eric Holder says he made the decision to charge the Christmas Day terror suspect in the civilian system with no objection from all the other relevant departments of the government. In a letter to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the attorney general says that the...

Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday he made the decision to charge the Christmas Day terror suspect in civilian court rather than the military system, with no objection from all the other relevant departments of the government. In a letter to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the attorney general wrote that the FBI told its partners in the intelligence community on Christmas Day and again the next day that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would be charged criminally. Holder's letter was the latest volley in a vigorous counterattack by the Obama administration to Republican charges that the arrest and FBI interrogation of...

NEW YORK — A U.S.-trained Pakistani scientist has been convicted of charges she tried to kill Americans while she was detained in Afghanistan. A Manhattan jury found Aafia Siddiqui guilty Wednesday of seven counts of attempted murder. Authorities had called her an Al Qaeda supporter before she was detained in Afghanistan in 2008. They claim she was caught carrying bomb-making instructions and a list of New York landmarks. However, she had not faced terrorism charges.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday he made the decision to charge the Christmas Day terror suspect in the civilian system with no objection from all the other relevant departments of the government. In a letter to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the attorney general wrote that the FBI told its partners in the intelligence community on Christmas Day and again the next day that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would be charged criminally.

Though New York City will apparently be spared the unnecessary expense and disruptions of a civilian trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed & Co., President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are threatening to take the show on the road to some other unfortunate locale. But mark our words, it won't happen. KSM and his cohorts will be tried in a military commission at Guantanamo Bay -- because the administration has made it almost impossible for them to get a fair trial in a civilian court. In a typical criminal case, the government says very little outside of court, and what...

Politicians began lining up Friday against a potential trial of 9/11 terror suspects in Western Pennsylvania, where one of the hijacked airliners crashed.

Bill Burck & Dana PerinoJanuary 30, 2010 3:00 P.M. About (Saving) Face Eight reasons why KSM will be tried by military commission.  The end is near for the Obama administration’s plan to try KSM and four other 9/11 conspirators in federal court in downtown Manhattan. The handwriting was on the wall for weeks as the extraordinary costs of the trial — as much as $1 billion in security expenses alone over four or five years — became apparent and the Underwear Bomber reintroduced the American public to domestic terrorism. Then, Mayor Bloomberg told the administration that it should find someplace...

Accused Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be tried and convicted and is likely to be executed, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Sunday. Interviewed on CNN's "State of the Union," show, Gibbs said: "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is going to meet justice and he's going to meet his maker. He will be brought to justice and he's likely to be executed for the heinous crimes he committed." Gibbs did not confirm reports that the Obama administration has begun looking for places other than the heart of New York City to prosecute self-professed mastermind Mohammed and four accused co-conspirators...

Gibbs won't commit to civilian trial for KSM White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined several opportunities on Sunday to say whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be tried in a federal or military court. “He will be brought to justice, and he will likely be executed for the heinous crimes he has committed,” Gibbs said on CNN's "State of the Union." “That you can be sure of.” But he dodged repeated questions by CNN host John King about whether the administration might shift the venue back from federal court in New York to a military court, finally saying that “The...

President Obama finally listened to the outcry of New York, and is considering moving the trial of 9/11 terrorist Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other al Qaeda members out of the city, perhaps to Guantanamo Bay. Finally, some wisdom. It would be better there. It's military. They're not going to mess around. These dangerous terrorists will not be allowed to spread their hate, or hurt anyone else. Nobody knows better than me. I was a federal prison guard at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. In 2000, I was with a prisoner, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, taking him back to his cell....

For much of President Obama’s first year in office, his national security team worked to devise a secure plan to send dozens of Yemeni detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — the largest single group at the prison camp — home to Yemen, perhaps to a rehabilitation program. Then came the Christmas Day airliner bombing attempt, which was planned in Yemen, and the president put all transfers there on hold. Since November, the administration had been preparing to move the highest-profile Guantánamo prisoners — Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four accomplices accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — to...

Now that President Barack Obama's administration is considering moving the Sept. 11 trial away from a courthouse in Manhattan, the question is: Where to? Legally, the Justice Department could choose a variety of locations in which to bring an indictment. There is no requirement that the trials of professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others be held in the places where the most victims died, experts said. Politically, though, the administration faces a bigger challenge. Though the Justice Department has yet to publicly back down from its plan to try the suspects in New York City, officials have...

ALBANY - State Senator Vincent Leibell, (RC-40) Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs announced today that he will introduce a resolution in the New York State Senate opposing the Obama Administration’s decision to conduct the 9/11 terror trial in New York City in federal civilian court. “Holding the terror trial in New York City will unnecessarily put New Yorkers at risk and have a staggering economic impact on businesses, disrupt city residents, and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars”, Leibell said. Senator Leibell, a former Naval Officer, also said that he opposed...

UPDATE: 1/29: 10:57 P.M.: The administration is pushing back on reports that the Justice Department is looking to move the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial. An unnamed administration official told the HuffPo that stories suggesting a possible move have been "overwritten", and the administration merely has 'contingency plans' in place: "Conversations have occurred within the administration to discuss contingency options should the possibility of a trial in Lower Manhattan be foreclosed upon by Congress or locally," the administration official said in an e-mail. A Justice Department official, meanwhile, confirmed that there had not been "any order from the White House" to...

Here is video of Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner today admitting that Democrats are sounding like "we're flinching and scared" in the face of criticism over the Obama Administration's plan to hold a civil trial in New York City for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammed. The White House signaled today that they may change their tune and move the trial somewhere else. Weiner tried to stand up for the plan, but stopped short of an outright enthusiastic endorsement of the trial going forward, considering the security concerns, and the enormous cost. Below is video of New York residents' reaction to the...

Congressman Anthony Wienerschnitzel (D-Meathead): "I think this whole debate makes us seem like we're flinching and scared."

The Obama administration has abandoned its plan to put Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, on trial in Lower Manhattan, according to administration officials. The reversal marks the latest setback for an administration that has been buffeted at every turn as it seeks to close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And without the backdrop of Ground Zero for a trial, the administration will also lose some of the rich symbolism associated with its attempt to forge a new approach to handling high-value al-Qaeda detainees. "New York is out," said an administration...

Over the last few days, the Obama administration reliance on a law-enforcement approach to counterterrorism has come under bipartisan fire.  Reports that key CT officials were not consulted on how to handle the EunuchBomber angered Congress enough to propose a law requiring such consultation in the future.   Now, with Democrats beginning to object to the New York City trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the closure of Gitmo hopelessly mired in what the Washington Post calls “dwindling options,” Lindsey Graham will attempt to reintroduce a bill prohibiting any funding for federal trials of 9/11 terrorists, at least: The closure of...

A group of eight New York lawmakers have written to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder expressing concern about plans to prosecute the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks in Manhattan, AFP reported Thursday. The members of the House of Representatives and state officials, said they agreed with President Barack Obama's decision to prosecute five men accused of the attacks before a civilian court. But they warned that the courthouse selected for the trial, just steps from the site of the World Trade Centers among the attack's targets, was poorly chosen.

The White House ordered the Justice Department Thursday night to consider other places to try the 9/11 terror suspects after a wave of opposition to holding the trial in lower Manhattan. The dramatic turnabout came hours after Mayor Bloomberg said he would "prefer that they did it elsewhere" and then spoke to Attorney General Eric Holder. "It would be an inconvenience at the least, and probably that's too mild a word for people that live in the neighborhood and businesses in the neighborhood," Bloomberg told reporters.

Senior administration officials confirm alternate trial locations are being sought because Congress is almost sure to deny President Obama the funds necessary to proceed with its original planBowing to intense and deepening bipartisan opposition to conducting the criminal trials for the 9/11 hijackers in the heart of New York City, the Obama White House has begun discussing alternate locations with the Justice Department, senior administration officials told Fox News. The White House denied a New York Daily News report that it ordering the Department of Justice to find a new location for the trials, which are sure to attract massive...

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...

White House officials have told the Justice Department to consider other venues for the 9/11 terror trial that was to be held in lower Manhattan, the Daily News has learned. The decision came after Mayor Bloomberg and other politicians across the state railed against President Obama's plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan Federal Court.... It was not immediately clear if the reassessment means the trial will definitely be moved out of the city.

Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it? Did you know his trial is over? Did you know he was sentenced? Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV or Radio? Didn't think so. Everyone should hear what the judge had to say. Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court. Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to say. His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admitted his "allegiance to Osama bin Laden,...

New York City's Police Commissioner Ray Kelly addressed the New York Young Republican Club on Thursday. Two hundred and fifty members of the organization were in attendance and mainly peppered the commissioner with questions regarding the upcoming 9/11 terror trials that are to be staged in lower Manhattan. When asked how the decision for the trials to be hosted in New York came about, Commisioner Kelly's response produced gasps among audience members (h/t Loud Citizen).: “We were not consulted,” Kelly said tersely of the decision. He stated that the trial “will raise the threat level of this city,” a threat...

A blog piece I wrote yesterday on the KSM terror trial, reporting on remarks made by NYPD’s Ray Kelly, has been climbing up the blogosphere today. First I posted it at my site, LoudCitizen.org. Then I cross-posted it to FR and UrbanElephants. Next, The Washington Times quoted an entire paragraph of the piece, giving me a “hat tip” and linking directly to my blog. Their blogger Kerry Picket was tipped off by a friend of mine. From there, I managed one rung up the ladder when Josh Goldberg made it a “Must Read” at Lucianne.com this afternoon. Based on that...

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly addressed the New York Young Republican Club on Thursday. 250 members of the organization were in attendance and mainly peppered the commissioner with questions regarding the upcoming 9/11 terror trials that are to be staged in lower Manhattan. When asked how the decision for the trials to be hosted in New York came about, Commisioner Kelly's response produced gasps among audience members (h/t Loud Citizen).:

"'Lady Al Qaeda's' lawyers angry over extra security checks at court where she's on trial" BY ALISON GENDAR DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Friday, January 22nd 2010, 3:38 AM SNIPPET: "Lawyers for the so-called "Lady Al Qaeda" are up in arms because spectators at her trial have to show identification and sign in. The extra security check comes on top of a metal detector placed outside the doorway of the Manhattan courtroom where Aafia Siddiqui is on trial for attempted murder. Her defense team said Thursday the precautions are depriving her of a fair trial." Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/01/21/2010-01-21_lady_al_qaedas_lawyers_angry_over_extra_security_checks_at_court_where_shes_on_t.html#ixzz0dKS2tvgx

The man accused of killing one soldier and wounding another outside an Arkansas military recruiting center has asked a judge to change his plea to guilty, claiming ties to al-Qaida. Abdulhakim Muhammad's attorney, Claiborne Ferguson, said Thursday night that his client sent a letter earlier this month to the judge in his case asking to change his plea to capital murder and attempted capital murder charges. Ferguson said he hadn't discussed the request with his client before the letter was sent. Under Arkansas law prosecutors would have to agree and waive the death penalty before the judge could consider it,...

EXCERPT (John Yoo, author of Crisis and Command and a former official in the Bush Justice Department) The Constitution requires that we have an open public trial for any criminal defendant tried by our government, and one of the rights that every defendant has is to force a government to open up its files and provide all the information it has on the defendant.This is going to be terrible for our efforts against al-Qaeda because we will have to explain, for example, how we knew where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was, how we were able to intercept his cell phone calls,...

A Tennessee man accused of killing a soldier outside a Little Rock, Ark., military recruiting station last year has asked a judge to change his plea to guilty, claiming for the first time that he is affiliated with a Yemen-based affiliate of Al Qaeda. In a letter to the judge presiding over his case, the accused killer, Abdulhakim Muhammad, calls himself a soldier in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and calls the shooting “a Jihadi Attack” in retribution for the killing of Muslims by American troops. “I wasn’t insane or post traumatic nor was I forced to do this...

Saddam Hussein's notorious cousin "Chemical Ali" has been sentenced to death by hanging for his involvement in a poison gas attack on the city of Halabja. Families of some of the 5,000 Kurds killed in the 1988 attack cheered when the guilty verdict against Ali Hassan al-Majid was handed down Sunday. Other officials in Saddam's regime, including former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim al-Taie, also received jail terms at the Iraqi High Tribunal. The brutal attack on Halabja close to the Iranian border 22 years ago killed mostly women and children through a series of mustard and nerve gas bombings by...

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A jury was chosen Thursday in the "Lady Al Qaeda" trial - but not before the defendant interrupted the process with more outbursts and was tossed from the courtroom. A day after she demanded Jews be excluded from the jury, Aafia Siddiqui went to deliver more rants about Jews and the 9/11 terror attacks. "I have nothing to do with 9/11," she said when a potential juror who cited her personal experience on Sept. 11 was dismissed. Siddiqui is on trial in Manhattan federal court for attempted murder. She was arrested by Afghan police after being caught in July 2008...

The blazing hypocrisy from Team Obama is amazing. Last April, Team Obama told Iran it didn't want some top terrorists they were willing to turn over to us because they didn't want terrorists in the USA! Now they bring them here for trials and give them the welcoming gift of all the rights of a US Citizen! "The Iranian regime was going to turn over scores of top Al Qaeda operatives, including some on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists" list. To Samavati's surprise, the State Department officials he met declined the offer. "They told him they did not want any...

President Barack Obama is under fire over claims that the Christmas Day underwear bomber was "singing like a canary" until he was treated as an ordinary criminal and advised of his right to silence. The chance to secure crucial information about al-Qaeda operations in Yemen was lost because the Obama administration decided to charge and prosecute Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as an ordinary criminal, critics say. He is said to have reduced his co-operation with FBI interrogators on the advice of his government-appointed defence counsel. The potential significance became chillingly clear this weekend when it was reported that shortly after his...

Via JWF, the canary in the coal mine keels over. In a ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan also said the government failed to establish that 23 statements the detainee made to interrogators at Guantanamo Bay were untainted by the earlier coerced statements made while he was held under harsh conditions in Afghanistan. However, the judge said statements he made during two military administrative hearings at the U.S. detention center in Cuba, where he was assisted by a personal representative, were reliable and sufficient to justify holding the detainee… The logical inference from the record, said the judge,...

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has tossed out most of the government’s evidence against a terrorism detainee on grounds his confessions were coerced, allegedly by U.S. forces, before he became a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.

Airplane bomb suspect pleads not guiltyJanuary 8, 2010 2:11 p.m. EST Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab allegedly hid an explosive chemical in his underwear aboard an airliner.STORY HIGHLIGHTS Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab arraigned for airliner incident Indictment charges AbdulMutallab with attempted use of weapon of mass destruction AbdulMutallab also accused of attempted murder of other 289 people aboard U.S.-bound flight He faces life in prison if convicted (CNN) -- Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, the man charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane on December 25, pleaded not guilty Friday to six federal charges. AbdulMutallab was arraigned in a Michigan federal courtroom...

DETROIT — A Nigerian man pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he tried to blow up a packed U.S. Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab said little during a federal court hearing that lasted less than five minutes. The 23-year-old, who wore a white T-shirt, tennis shoes and light olive pants, said "yes" in English when asked if understood the charges against him. Authorities say Abdulmutallab was traveling from Amsterdam when he tried to destroy the Northwest Airlines plane carrying nearly 300 people by injecting chemicals into a package of explosives concealed in his underwear. The failed...

Nigerian indicted in U.S. for airline bomb plot 3:13pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. grand jury on Wednesday indicted Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on six counts for trying to blow up an American airliner in a plot that exposed large breakdowns in U.S. security and intelligence. The 23-year-old man, who has told investigators that he was given an explosive device by al Qaeda in Yemen and trained there, had been previously charged with trying to blow up Northwest flight 253 on Christmas as it was approaching Detroit from Amsterdam. A grand jury in Michigan indicted him on six counts...

RICHMOND, Va. - A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the conviction of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person to stand trial in a U.S. court in the Sept. 11 attacks, rejecting arguments that he was denied access to evidence and the right to choose his own attorney. Moussaoui, 41, is serving life in a federal prison in Colorado, after pleading guilty to helping plan the attacks. Since his sentencing, he has said he lied when testifying that he plotted to hijack a fifth jetliner on Sept. 11, 2001. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously...

You ever notice that President Obama finds a way to blame others every time he screws up or makes a controversial decision? Like during the campaign he threw his grandma under the bus, or when his economic adviser went to Canada to reassure the government that the Senator's bravado about NAFTA was just for effect, Obama said the campaign worker was operating on his own. After his election the Obama blame-game continued. All the problems with the world could be blamed on President Bush, Rush Limbaugh,The Republican Party, Chrysler's evil investors, Wall Street, The Insurance Lobby, Fox News, Israel's Settlements...

... [M]eet Umar Abdulmutallab’s lawyer, Miriam Siefer, whose salary you are paying. [...] During the Detroit terror cell case, she represented Karim Koubriti, an Islamic terrorist in a cell, which plotted to blow up the U.S. Air Force Base in Turkey, where U.S. AWACS and Israeli F-16s are based and from where they took off. They also plotted to blow up hotels and casinos in Las Vegas and planned to detonate in Disneyland. During the course of her “representation” of terrorist Koubriti, Siefer and her fellow public defender, Richard Helfrick a/k/a Rick Helfrick (who will probably also assist her in...

The lawyer appointed to represent the man accused of attempting to bomb Northwest Flight 253 had prior success helping to defend an alleged terrorist. Miriam Siefer, the chief public defender in Detroit, also has handled cases involving disturbances on other Northwest flights, including one in which a man pleaded guilty after illegally transporting ammunition and saying he was traveling overseas to kill Osama bin Laden. Defense lawyers with experience in terrorism-related cases say Ms. Siefer's latest job -- representing 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was charged with trying to blow up a Christmas Day flight to Detroit -- will be...