The prosecution of five alleged terrorists charged with conspiring to attack Fort Dix is plodding along. Thirteen days of testimony by paid government informant Mahmoud Omar revealed how the defendants trained for their mission: they played paintball. If you don't have any real guns to train with, paintball seems like a sound alternative. Besides, it's fun.

Omar has been a less than impressive witness, but that's what you'd expect from a criminal who was being paid $1,500 a week to act as an informant (reaping a total of $240,000), not to mention the free pass he received for his own crimes. To keep the paychecks coming, Omar had to give the government a plot, even if he had to make it up as he went along.

Omar's testimony against the five alleged conspirators veered off course when he acknowledged that two of the five didn't know anything about the plan to attack Fort Dix. [more ...]

Here's a breath of fresh air:

President-elect Obama's advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

Under plans being put together in Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

Here's an interesting twist:

A third group of detainees — the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information — might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks.

I hope the "new court" has more protections than those set up by the Military Commissions Act.

As Jeralyn discussed earlier today, a military commission jury voted to convict Ali Hamza al-Bahlul of 35 crimes, including solicitation to commit murder and providing material support to terrorism. This result should not shock, given Bahlul's refusal to defend himself and his lawyer's decision to respect Bahlul's desire to present no defense. You may recall that the judge allowed the proceeding to proceed even after Bahlul's lawyer refused to participate.

The 35 convictions do not shock, but this does:

[more ...]

Bump and Update: Ali Hamza al Bahlul has been found guilty at his Guantanamo Military Commissions trial.The ACLU says (statement to be available here shortly):

“The conviction of Al Bahlul is yet another example of a military commission system set up to produce convictions, not to deliver real justice. Unfortunately, because the system is fundamentally flawed and lacks any semblance of due process, a cloud of illegitimacy hangs over this verdict. The world deserves better than that from America. The next president should close Guantánamo and future prosecutions should occur in criminal or military courts where the Constitution still means something and where verdicts, no matter what they are, can be trusted.” ...The ACLU calls on the next president to close Guantánamo, ban torture and end extraordinary rendition.

Original Post:

McCain vs. Obama on Gitmo Trials

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They just don't know when to stop. Guantanamo prosecutors wanted a sentence of 30 years to life for Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver. A military jury gave him 5 1/2 years, 5 years of which he's already served. The prosecutors should have taken that slap in the face gracefully. Instead, they asked the military judge to reassemble the jury to resentence Hamdan. They argued that the judge should not have instructed the jury that Hamdan would receive credit for time served because the judge has no authority to award that credit to an enemy combatant.

The prosecutors want the five years and one month Hamdan has already served to be "dead time" -- time a prisoner spends in custody that never gets credited to any sentence. They wanted to argue to the jury that Hamdan should serve an additional 5 1/2 years. But the jury already decided that Hamdan should be done with his sentence at the end of the year. There's no reason to put him in jeopardy of a longer sentence. The presiding judge appropriately denied the prosecution's latest shameful effort to save face.

The U.S. today moved to dismiss the cases of five Guantanamo detainees facing criminal charges: Binyam Mohamed, Noor Uthman Muhammed, Sufyiam Barhoumi, Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi and Jabran Said Bin al Qahtani.

Clive Stafford Smith, a civilian attorney representing one of the five, Binyam Mohamed, said he has already been notified that charges against his client will be reinstated. "Far from being a victory for Mr. Mohamed in his long-running struggle for justice, this is more of the same farce that is Guantanamo," Stafford Smith said. "The military has informed us that they plan to charge him again within a month, after the election."

Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles, who represents another of the five detainees, said the military might be preparing the tribunals to face increased scrutiny following next month's presidential election. John McCain and Barack Obama have both said they want to close Guantanamo Bay.

The Government's less than credible explanation: [More...]

photo from L.A. Times

After weeks of jury selection, the Fort Dix Six terror trial begins today, with five of the original defendants, four of whom are pictured above. (One pleasded guilty to lesser charges.) They are charged with "conspiring to gun down military personnel at the sprawling South Jersey base in a jihad-inspired attack last year."

Keep your eye on the snitch testimony. The FBI is using two "cold insert" informants, Mahmoud Omar and Besnik Bakalli, to make the case.

A Justice Department official admits the two men are 'not squeaky-clean.' The trial, which starts Monday, will test the FBI's controversial tactic of using 'cold inserts' to infiltrate groups. [More...]

The military judge presiding over the trial of accused "9/11 mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has ordered he and five other detainees be provided battery power in their cells 12 hours a day to use their laptops and prepare for trial. They won't be allowed to use the internet. The opinion is here (pdf).

The Government is seeking death for Mohammed. The Military Commissions Procedures are not fair, and the trial won't be fair, but to deny the accused the opportunity to adequately review the evidence against him would be completely unacceptable.

Guantanamo has eroded our reputation in the world. It should be closed. Those accused of crimes should be tried either in our federal courts, an international tribunal or under the Military Code of Justice. Providing laptops with discovery is a crumb that won't cure the problem.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed the terrorism convictions of Yemeni clerics Sheik Mohammed Ali Al-Moayad and Mohammed Mohsen Zayed.

The 68 page opinion is here (pdf).The Court said the defendants were prejudiced by the introduction of inflammatory evidence at trial.

The men were convicted in federal court in Brooklyn after a six-week trial in early 2005 on charges of conspiring to support al-Qaida and Hamas, supporting the Palestinian group and attempting to support al-Qaida. Their trial featured testimony by an FBI informant who set himself on fire outside the White House, saying he wanted more money from the FBI.

Al-Moayad, 60, was sentenced to 75 years in prison. Zayed, 34, was sentenced to 45 years.

More...

Jury selection is underway in the trial of five men who were arrested for allegedly plotting an attack upon the soldiers at Fort Dix. As Wonkette noted, if a small group of guys who trained in the Poconos thought they could successfully attack a heavily armed military base, this was the dumbest terrorist plot ever.

But was it a plot? The government's strongest evidence comes from the informant who was paid to infiltrate the group. Whether there was ever a plot in the mind of anyone other than the informant will be the key to the trial's outcome. The prosecution will play some tapes that the informant recorded, but the defense says it will play even more tapes to prove their clients' innocence. [More...]

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed this week took the lead for himself and four other accused terrorists during pre-trial hearings in their military commissions proceeding.

Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali are charged with conspiring with al Qaeda to kill civilians in the September 11 attacks. All face the death penalty. While blasting the procedures as an "inquisition" and requesting recusal of the judge, Mohammed also offered to try and convince Ramzi Binalshibh to come out of his cell voluntarily and attend the proceedings. [More...]

Do you get the feeling BushCo wants the Hamdan case to just go away? This news should fuel that view:

A military jury gave Osama bin Laden's driver a stunningly lenient sentence on Thursday, making him eligible for release in just five months despite the prosecutors' request for a sentence tough enough to frighten terrorists around the globe. Salim Hamdan's sentence of 5 1/2 years, including five years and a month already served at Guantanamo Bay, fell far short of the 30 years to life that prosecutors wanted. It now goes for mandatory review to a Pentagon official who can shorten the sentence but not extend it.

Here is an issue:

It remains unclear what will happen to Hamdan once his sentence is served, since the U.S. military has said it won't release anyone who still represents a threat.

George Bush won't be President then. Hamdan will be released imo. And the dirty truths will be swept under the rug.