Judge bans key witness from detainee's NY trial

AP via Yahoo News ^ | 10/06/10 | LARRY NEUMEISTER

[Enchante]

Ghailani is charged with conspiring in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. The attacks killed 224 people, including a dozen Americans.

He was smiling and conversing with his lawyers at the defense table after the judge ruled.

[Retain Mike]

Thank you. I also sent it to about a half dozen columnists I regularly send letters to. I think it is good to remember how we got here.

[brityank]

[Judge] Kaplan said, "Abebe was identified and located as a close and direct result of statements made by Ghailani while he was held by the CIA. The government has elected not to litigate the details of Ghailani's treatment while in CIA custody. It has sought to make this unnecessary by asking the court to assume in deciding this motion that everything Ghailani said while in CIA custody was coerced."

Seems Kaplan had no choice based on this. Coerced testimony is usually always inadmissible. Our government persecutors threw the case away!

[bayouranger]

Look at the Defense lawyer Peter E. Quijano ;as well as, Elaine Quijano, from CNN & all the stories she’s shown her mule face on too.

It’s an ugly picture.

[Enchante]

no, there’s been no hint (that I have seen) that the witness, Abebe, was coerced.

The issue is that the govt did not know of this witness without the “interrogation” of the captured terrorist Ghailani.

anyway, my point is that counter-terrorism is WAR and cannot be conducted (properly, successfully) under the kid-gloves civilian rules such as “exclude all evidence obtained” when terrorist prisoner has been coerced, etc.

[Hoodat]

(Especially when idiot judges like Kaplan get a hold of it)

I can't really fault the judge here. In civilian court, testimony that is coerced by force from a defendant should be inadmissible, which is exactly why this case should not be tried in civilian court. If anyone is at fault here, it is the US Justice Department. They know full well that there is no way to win this case, but they are following through with it anyway. What does that tell you?

[Canedawg]

Good points, well taken.

[brityank]

Never said Abebe was coerced - but Ghailani was. Without that illegal interrogation the prosecutor would not have acquired any link to Abebe; he is ‘fruit of the poisoned tree’ and therefor disallowed. Re-read the two lines that I underlined as stated by the Judge.

Me - I’d rather they’d given Ghailani a lead injection - would have saved us all a lot of pain.

[SunkenCiv]

additional:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2602569/posts

[Enchante]

thanks I do understand why a civilian US court barred this witness — my point remains that counter-terrorism, especially when dealing with bombings overseas by non-US-citizens, has no place in the US courtroom

Ghailani does not merit the protection or oversight of US courts, and giving it to him weakens the pursuit of terrorists worldwide.