Posted on 06/16/2009 4:49:06 PM PDT by Sergeant Tim
Very quickly after the Nairobi bombing, FBI agents and their Kenyan counterparts picked up and questioned Mohamed Rasheed Daoud al-Owhali, a Saudi national pretending to be a Yemeni of a different name. Though the lead that had prompted their desire to question al-Owhali was only one of hundreds, agents became increasingly convinced — over two weeks of intermittent questioning — that he was a college-educated al-Qaeda operative, well-schooled in counter-interrogation techniques, who was complicit in the atrocity. In fact, he had been the main bomber, helping drive the explosives-laden truck to the detonation site at the embassy. Finally he confessed, and Kenya released him to the United States for trial. Without the confession, it is highly unlikely there would have been a case against him.
Once in New York, he moved to suppress his confession. I was one of the government lawyers who opposed his motion. Leonard B. Sand, the trial judge, who had been appointed by Jimmy Carter in 1978, is deservedly a highly respected jurist, but of an unmistakably progressive bent. In proceedings that started in January 2001, Judge Sand initially granted the suppression motion on the ground that al-Owhali had not been given Miranda warnings The decision was outrageous on multiple levels.
Al-Owhali was an alien whose only connection with our country was to make war on it. His claim to any Fifth Amendment protection should have been preposterous. But it wasn’t — because he was being treated as a criminal defendant, not an enemy combatant. The Supreme Court has held that even illegal aliens and foreigners brought into the U.S. justice system against their will have Fifth Amendment due-process rights. It is thus virtually certain that such aliens also enjoy the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and the introduction in court of coerced statements...
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
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