Terror suspect should be charged in federal court, victim's widow says
Apr. 2, 2008
Carol Rosenberg - McClatchy NewspapersIssue date: 3/27/08 Section: MCT News
MIAMI _ An American college professor whose Kenyan husband was killed in the 1998 al-Qaida suicide bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania said Tuesday that a Guantanamo captive accused in the attack should be tried in a federal court, not by military commissions.
"These commissions have been fraught with challenges _ from coerced evidence to secret evidence," said Susan Hirsch, a professor at George Mason University outside Washington D.C.
She called the Guantanamo war court, established after the Sept. 11 attacks, "an unprecedented newly created procedure" that has been "roundly condemned worldwide."
Hirsch, 48, spoke to The Miami Herald a day after the Pentagon prosecutor filed proposed death penalty charges against Ahmad Ghailani, in his 30s, for helping collect materials for a truck bomb that blew through the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Aug. 7, 1998.
The Pentagon maintains that the trials by commissions are fair and give accused terrorists many of the same rights as American soldiers.
In a coordinated attack, al-Qaida suicide bombers also struck in Nairobi, Kenya, killing more than 220 people, including 12 Americans, and injuring more than 4,000.
Among those killed in Tanzania was Abdurahman Abdalla, a Muslim from Kenya, who was waiting outside the embassy while his American wife, Hirsch, was inside, cashing a check. Both were 38.
Hirsch testified as a victim left widowed by the bombings at the 2001 federal trials in New York City of four men captured in East Africa and brought to the United States in the attacks.
All four were convicted and are serving life sentences.
Ghailani was indicted in New York at the same time as the four men, along with Osama bin Laden, but eluded capture _ until Pakistani security forces captured him in Punjab province in July 2004.
Rather than send him to New York, the CIA kept him for two years in its "black site" interrogation secret prisons overseas. Then, President Bush ordered his transfer to Guantanamo in September 2006 to face commissions, along with 13 other alleged senior al-Qaida captives.
"These commissions have been fraught with challenges _ from coerced evidence to secret evidence," said Susan Hirsch, a professor at George Mason University outside Washington D.C.
She called the Guantanamo war court, established after the Sept. 11 attacks, "an unprecedented newly created procedure" that has been "roundly condemned worldwide."
Hirsch, 48, spoke to The Miami Herald a day after the Pentagon prosecutor filed proposed death penalty charges against Ahmad Ghailani, in his 30s, for helping collect materials for a truck bomb that blew through the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Aug. 7, 1998.
The Pentagon maintains that the trials by commissions are fair and give accused terrorists many of the same rights as American soldiers.
In a coordinated attack, al-Qaida suicide bombers also struck in Nairobi, Kenya, killing more than 220 people, including 12 Americans, and injuring more than 4,000.
Among those killed in Tanzania was Abdurahman Abdalla, a Muslim from Kenya, who was waiting outside the embassy while his American wife, Hirsch, was inside, cashing a check. Both were 38.
Hirsch testified as a victim left widowed by the bombings at the 2001 federal trials in New York City of four men captured in East Africa and brought to the United States in the attacks.
All four were convicted and are serving life sentences.
Ghailani was indicted in New York at the same time as the four men, along with Osama bin Laden, but eluded capture _ until Pakistani security forces captured him in Punjab province in July 2004.
Rather than send him to New York, the CIA kept him for two years in its "black site" interrogation secret prisons overseas. Then, President Bush ordered his transfer to Guantanamo in September 2006 to face commissions, along with 13 other alleged senior al-Qaida captives.
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