Ghailani Verdict Won’t Close Trial Options, Gibbs Says
The Obama administration won’t rule out future trials for terrorism suspects in civilian courts after a New York jury convicted an alleged al-Qaeda bomber on only one of 285 counts in the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.
“I don’t think that anything that’s happened forecloses” options for dealing with suspected terrorists, Gibbs said. He also said President Barack Obama remains committed to closing down the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to using “all tools at our disposal” to try the detainees.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, 36, a Tanzanian citizen and the first detainee to face civilian trial, was found guilty yesterday in Manhattan federal court of conspiracy and cleared of all other charges, including 224 counts of murder stemming from the bombing of the embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.
The case may serve as a test for the administration’s plans to try terror suspects in civilian courts. Attorney General Eric Holder’s plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, in New York has run into a wall of opposition from members of Congress and city and state officials.
Opposition in New York
Obama began reconsidering the trial’s venue in January, when New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined Governor David Paterson, U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and U.S. Representative Peter King of Long Island in opposing a Manhattan trial for Mohammed.
New York Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo has added his voice to the opposition.
Bloomberg has said it would cost more than $200 million a year to provide security for trials of the five Guantanamo Bay detainees accused in the 2001 attacks, in the event they faced prosecution in U.S. District Court. The courthouse is about a quarter-mile from where the World Trade Center towers stood.
The mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.
Ghailani, who was indicted in December 1998, was captured in Pakistan in July 2004. In September 2006, he was transferred to the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He was sent to New York last year for trial after the Obama administration said it planned to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and try terrorism suspects held there in civilian courts.
Ghailani faced a mandatory life sentence had he been convicted of any of the murder counts. He faces a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison when U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan sentences him on Jan. 25.
To contact the reporters on this story: Hans Nichols in Washington at hnichols2@bloomberg.net; Nicholas Johnston in Washington at njohnston3bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net
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