Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani
Encyclopedia
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is a conspirator of the al-Qaeda
terrorist
organization convicted for his role in the bombing of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He was indicted in the United States as a participant in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. He was on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists
list from its inception in October 2001. In 2004, he was captured and detained by Pakistan
i forces in a joint operation with the United States
, and was held until June 9, 2009, in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp; one of 14 Guantanamo detainees who had previously been held at secret locations abroad. According to The Washington Post
, Ghailani told military officers he is contrite and claimed to be an exploited victim of al-Qaeda operatives.
Ghailani was transported from Guantanamo Bay to New York City to await trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
in June 2009. When the case came to trial, the judge disallowed the testimony of a key witness. On November 17, 2010, a jury found him guilty of one count of conspiracy, but acquitted him of 284 other charges including all murder counts. Critics of the Obama administration said the verdict proves civilian courts cannot be trusted to prosecute terrorists because it shows a jury might acquit such a defendant entirely. Supporters of the trial have said that the conviction and the stiff sentencing prove that the federal justice system works.
On Tuesday, January 25, 2011, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan
, the presiding judge in the case, sentenced Ahmed Ghailani, 36, to life in prison for the bombing, stating that any sufferings Ghailani experienced at the hands of the CIA or other agencies while in custody at Guantanamo Bay pales in comparison to the monumental tragedy of the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and left thousands injured or otherwise impacted by the crimes. The attacks were one of the deadliest non-wartime incidents of international terrorism to affect the United States; they were on a scale not surpassed until the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks three years later. Ghailani, who had said he was never involved and did not intend to kill anyone, had been portrayed as cooperating with investigators- yielding information wanted by investigators- and as remorseful by his defense counsel, but that argument of relative non-involvement or remorse was not accepted. He is the fifth person to be sentenced. Four others were sentenced to life in prison in a 2001 trial in Manhattan federal court. Osama bin Laden
is also named in the indictment.
, Tanzania
(possibly on March 14, April 13, or April 14 of that year, or on 1 August 1970) and is a Tanzanian citizen. He speaks Swahili
and had served as a tabligh
, a Muslim traveling preacher, and probably visited Pakistan in this capacity.
according to convicted fellow Embassy bombing conspirators Mohammed Sadiq Odeh
and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed. This role was complicated by the fact that Ghailani could not drive so whatever purchases were too large or heavy for his bicycle such as oxygen
and acetylene
tanks would have to be picked up by another person in a car. Ghailani was in Nairobi
by August 6, 1998, where he is thought to have rented a room at the Hilltop Hotel used for meetings by the bombers and flew to Karachi
on a Kenya Airways
flight before the bombs exploded.
At some time in Pakistan or Afghanistan, he married an Uzbek
and had children. Many Uzbek Islamists had moved into Pakistan and the woman is thought to be from that group.
announced that reports indicated that Ghailani was one of seven al-Qaeda members who were planning a terrorist action for the summer or fall of 2004. The other alleged terrorists named on that date were Fazul Abdullah Mohammed
, who had also been earlier listed with Ghailani by the FBI as a Most Wanted Terrorist for the 1998 embassy attack, and Abderraouf Jdey
, Amer El-Maati
, Aafia Siddiqui
, Adam Yahiye Gadahn
, and Adnan G. El Shukrijumah. Jdey was already on the FBI Seeking Information – War on Terrorism list since January 17, 2002, to which the other four were added as well.
American Democrats
labeled the warning "suspicious". Dismissing the threat, they said it was held solely to divert attention from President Bush's plummeting poll numbers and to push the failings of the Invasion of Iraq off the front page. CSIS director Reid Morden
voiced similar concerns, saying it seemed more like "election year" politics, than an actual threat—and The New York Times
pointed out that one day before the announcement, they had been told by the Department of Homeland Security
that there were no current risks.
On July 25, 2004, a nearly eight hour battle ensued in the town of Gujrat
in central Pakistan. Ghailani and thirteen others, included his wife and children, were arrested. A police officer was wounded in the battle. Pakistani Interior Minister Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayyat announced the capture of Ghailani on July 29, 2004. The US Government had offered a $5,000,000 USD bounty offered for information leading to the arrest of Ghailani.
Some press reports (including the New Republic
) questioned whether the timing of the announcement of Ghailani's capture was politically motivated at the behest of the Bush
administration. The announcement was made just hours before U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry
was due to make his acceptance speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention
, an event at which a candidate usually receives a significant boost in the polls. Hayyat made the announcement after midnight local time, despite having apparently known Ghailiani's identity for some days beforehand. Pakistani officials denied there was any such motivation.
Soon after the capture of Ghailani and the others with him, The Boston Globe
, quoting a United Nations
source, said that Ghailani was one of several al-Qaeda personnel who had been in Liberia
around 2001, handling conflict diamonds under the protection of then-dictator Charles Taylor. Ghailani is said to have spent more than three years in Liberia.
was prepared for the tribunal of each detainee.
Ghailani's memo accused him of the following:
The Al-Qaeda suspect alleged to have been involved in the 1998 United States embassy bombings
that killed 223 people and injured approximately 4,085 faces nine war crimes charges, six of them offenses that could carry the death penalty, if he is convicted by a military tribunal, it was reported on March 31, 2008. Scott L. Fenstermaker
and David Remes are in a rare dispute as to who has been authorized to assist Ghaliani.
In June 2009, Ghailani was transferred to New York to face trial in a federal court. The Department of Justice, under U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
, directed the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara
, to not seek the death penalty in an October 2009 memorandum.
On August 31, 2009, Corrections One, a trade journal
for the prison industry, speculated that
"Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani" was one of ten captives they speculated might be moved to a maximum security prison in Standish, Michigan
.
Instead Ghailani was transferred to New York City
to stand trial in a civilian court there.
Ghailani learned that being transferred from military to civilian jurisdiction meant that he could no longer be assisted by
Colonel
Jeffrey Colwell and Major Richard Reiter.
On February 10, 2010, United States district court
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan
ordered the Prosecution to review the record of Ghailani's detention in CIA's network of black sites.
According to The New York Times
any materials that showed the decisions “were for a purpose other than national security” had to be turned over to Ghailani's lawyers. It was reported that Kaplan was considering dismissing the charges on the grounds that due to Ghailani's long extrajudicial detention he had been denied the constitutional right
to a speedy trial.
On April 23, 2010, a 52 page unclassified summary of Ghailani's 2007 Guantanamo interrogations was published in preparation for his trial.
Benjamin Weiser, writing in The New York Times
reported that the summary, published during Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani
's civilian trial, revealed new details about Ghailani's life as an Osama bin Laden bodyguard
.
According to Weiser the interrogation summary asserted that during the year he was a bodyguard Ghailani met several other individuals who were among those who later became 9-11 hijackers.
Following his work as a bodyguard the summary asserts Ghailani became a forger, where he became "very good with Photoshop".
Ghailani's trial commenced Oct. 4, 2010, in the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Federal Court Building in lower Manhattan, in front of U.S. District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan
. There were no protests or demonstrations during the trial, as observed by Human Rights First
. On Wednesday, October 6, 2010, in a short ruling that the judge said he would expand upon later that day, it was determined that a key witness, the Tanzanian Hussein Abebe, who may have issued statements crucial to implicating Ghailani during the time he was under CIA custody, would not be testifying in the trial. Judge Kaplan agreed to delay the start of the trial until the following Tuesday, October 12, 2010, pending a possible appeal of that ruling. On Oct. 11, 2010, the government announced it would not appeal Judge Kaplan's ruling. Steve Zissou
, one of Ghailani's lawyers, commented that the government's decision not to appeal was "a significant victory for the Constitution." On November 17, 2010, Ghailani was convicted for conspiracy, but was acquitted of all other charges. On January 25, 2011, Ghailani was sentenced to life in prison.
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
terrorist
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
organization convicted for his role in the bombing of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He was indicted in the United States as a participant in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. He was on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists
FBI Most Wanted Terrorists
The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Most Wanted Terrorists is a list of fugitives who have been indicted by sitting Federal grand juries in the United States district courts, for alleged crimes of terrorism. The initial list was formed in late 2001 in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks...
list from its inception in October 2001. In 2004, he was captured and detained by Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i forces in a joint operation with the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and was held until June 9, 2009, in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp; one of 14 Guantanamo detainees who had previously been held at secret locations abroad. According to The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, Ghailani told military officers he is contrite and claimed to be an exploited victim of al-Qaeda operatives.
Ghailani was transported from Guantanamo Bay to New York City to await trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York is a federal district court. Appeals from the Southern District of New York are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case...
in June 2009. When the case came to trial, the judge disallowed the testimony of a key witness. On November 17, 2010, a jury found him guilty of one count of conspiracy, but acquitted him of 284 other charges including all murder counts. Critics of the Obama administration said the verdict proves civilian courts cannot be trusted to prosecute terrorists because it shows a jury might acquit such a defendant entirely. Supporters of the trial have said that the conviction and the stiff sentencing prove that the federal justice system works.
On Tuesday, January 25, 2011, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan
Lewis A. Kaplan
Lewis A. Kaplan is a United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. He took senior status on February 1, 2011....
, the presiding judge in the case, sentenced Ahmed Ghailani, 36, to life in prison for the bombing, stating that any sufferings Ghailani experienced at the hands of the CIA or other agencies while in custody at Guantanamo Bay pales in comparison to the monumental tragedy of the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and left thousands injured or otherwise impacted by the crimes. The attacks were one of the deadliest non-wartime incidents of international terrorism to affect the United States; they were on a scale not surpassed until the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks three years later. Ghailani, who had said he was never involved and did not intend to kill anyone, had been portrayed as cooperating with investigators- yielding information wanted by investigators- and as remorseful by his defense counsel, but that argument of relative non-involvement or remorse was not accepted. He is the fifth person to be sentenced. Four others were sentenced to life in prison in a 2001 trial in Manhattan federal court. Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
is also named in the indictment.
Identity
Ghailani has used a variety of different aliases including Ahmad Khalafan Ghilani, Ahmed Khalfan Ahmed, Abubakar K. Ahmed, Abubakary K. Ahmed, Abubakar Ahmed, Abu Bakr Ahmad, A. Ahmed, Ahmed Khalfan, Ahmed Khalfan Ali, Abubakar Khalfan Ahmed, Ahmed Ghailani, Ahmad Al Tanzani, Abu Khabar, Abu Bakr, Abubakary Khalfan Ahmed Ghailani, Mahafudh Abubakar Ahmed Abdallah Hussein, Shariff Omar Mohammed, "Foopie", "Fupi", and "Ahmed the Tanzanian."Early life
Ghailani was born around 1974 in ZanzibarZanzibar
Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...
, Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
(possibly on March 14, April 13, or April 14 of that year, or on 1 August 1970) and is a Tanzanian citizen. He speaks Swahili
Swahili language
Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...
and had served as a tabligh
Tablighi Jamaat
Tablighi Jamaat is a religious movement which was founded in 1926 by Muhammad Ilyas al-Kandhlawi in India. The movement primarily aims at Tablighi spiritual reformation by working at the grass roots level, reaching out to Muslims across all social and economic spectra to bring them closer to...
, a Muslim traveling preacher, and probably visited Pakistan in this capacity.
1998 U.S. embassy bombings
After joining al Qaida, he became an explosives expert and was assigned to obtain the bomb components in Dar es SalaamDar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam , formerly Mzizima, is the largest city in Tanzania. It is also the country's richest city and a regionally important economic centre. Dar es Salaam is actually an administrative province within Tanzania, and consists of three local government areas or administrative districts: ...
according to convicted fellow Embassy bombing conspirators Mohammed Sadiq Odeh
Mohammed Odeh
A Palestinian, Mohammed Saddiq Odeh is one of the four former al-Qaeda members sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 for their parts in the 1998 United States embassy bombings. He is in a supermax prison known as ADX Florence....
and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed. This role was complicated by the fact that Ghailani could not drive so whatever purchases were too large or heavy for his bicycle such as oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
and acetylene
Acetylene
Acetylene is the chemical compound with the formula C2H2. It is a hydrocarbon and the simplest alkyne. This colorless gas is widely used as a fuel and a chemical building block. It is unstable in pure form and thus is usually handled as a solution.As an alkyne, acetylene is unsaturated because...
tanks would have to be picked up by another person in a car. Ghailani was in Nairobi
Nairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
by August 6, 1998, where he is thought to have rented a room at the Hilltop Hotel used for meetings by the bombers and flew to Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
on a Kenya Airways
Kenya Airways
Kenya Airways Ltd., more commonly known as Kenya Airways, is the flag carrier and largest airline of Kenya. The company was founded in 1977, after the dissolution of East African Airways. The carrier's head office is located in Embakasi, Nairobi, with its main base at Jomo Kenyatta International...
flight before the bombs exploded.
At some time in Pakistan or Afghanistan, he married an Uzbek
Uzbeks
The Uzbeks are a Turkic ethnic group in Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Pakistan, Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China...
and had children. Many Uzbek Islamists had moved into Pakistan and the woman is thought to be from that group.
Wanted and arrest for terrorist activities
On May 26, 2004, United States Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert MuellerRobert Mueller
Robert Swan Mueller III is the 6th and current Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation .-Early life:...
announced that reports indicated that Ghailani was one of seven al-Qaeda members who were planning a terrorist action for the summer or fall of 2004. The other alleged terrorists named on that date were Fazul Abdullah Mohammed
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was a member of al-Qaeda, and the leader of its presence in East Africa as of November 2009. Mohammed was born in Moroni, Comoros Islands and had Kenyan as well as Comorian citizenship...
, who had also been earlier listed with Ghailani by the FBI as a Most Wanted Terrorist for the 1998 embassy attack, and Abderraouf Jdey
Abderraouf Jdey
A Canadian citizen, Abderraouf bin Habib bin Yousef Jdey was found swearing to die as a shaheed on a series of videotapes found in the rubble of Mohammed Atef's house in Afghanistan...
, Amer El-Maati
Amer el-Maati
Born in Kuwait, Amro Badr Abou el-Maati is a Canadian citizen who the United States has alleged is a member of Al-Qaeda who attended flight school and discussed hijacking a Canadian plane to fly into American buildings...
, Aafia Siddiqui
Aafia Siddiqui
Aafia Siddiqui is an American-educated Pakistani cognitive neuroscientist who was convicted of assault with intent to murder her U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan. The charges carried a maximum sentence of life in prison; in September 2010, she was sentenced by a United States district court to 86...
, Adam Yahiye Gadahn
Adam Yahiye Gadahn
Adam Yahiye Gadahn is an American who is a senior operative, cultural interpreter, spokesman and media advisor for the Sunni islamist group Al-Qaeda. Since 2004, he appeared in a number of videos produced by Al-Qaeda as "Azzam the American"...
, and Adnan G. El Shukrijumah. Jdey was already on the FBI Seeking Information – War on Terrorism list since January 17, 2002, to which the other four were added as well.
American Democrats
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
labeled the warning "suspicious". Dismissing the threat, they said it was held solely to divert attention from President Bush's plummeting poll numbers and to push the failings of the Invasion of Iraq off the front page. CSIS director Reid Morden
Reid Morden
Reid Morden was the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service from 1988-1992.A graduate of Dalhousie University from which he received a law degree and later an Honorary Doctorate of Law, Morden started his career with the Canadian Department of External Affairs. His first posting was...
voiced similar concerns, saying it seemed more like "election year" politics, than an actual threat—and The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
pointed out that one day before the announcement, they had been told by the Department of Homeland Security
United States Department of Homeland Security
The United States Department of Homeland Security is a cabinet department of the United States federal government, created in response to the September 11 attacks, and with the primary responsibilities of protecting the territory of the United States and protectorates from and responding to...
that there were no current risks.
On July 25, 2004, a nearly eight hour battle ensued in the town of Gujrat
Gujrat
Gujrat is a city in Pakistan. It is the capital of Gujrat District and the Gujrat Tehsil subdivision in the Punjab Province. People living in Gujrat refer to themselves as Gujratis, which sometimes leads to confusion with people from the Indian state of Gujarat which adjoins Pakistan...
in central Pakistan. Ghailani and thirteen others, included his wife and children, were arrested. A police officer was wounded in the battle. Pakistani Interior Minister Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayyat announced the capture of Ghailani on July 29, 2004. The US Government had offered a $5,000,000 USD bounty offered for information leading to the arrest of Ghailani.
Some press reports (including the New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
) questioned whether the timing of the announcement of Ghailani's capture was politically motivated at the behest of the Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
administration. The announcement was made just hours before U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
was due to make his acceptance speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention
2004 Democratic National Convention
The 2004 Democratic National Convention convened from July 26 to July 29, 2004 at the FleetCenter in Boston, Massachusetts, and nominated John Kerry and John Edwards as the official candidates of the Democratic Party for President and Vice President of the United States, respectively, in the 2004...
, an event at which a candidate usually receives a significant boost in the polls. Hayyat made the announcement after midnight local time, despite having apparently known Ghailiani's identity for some days beforehand. Pakistani officials denied there was any such motivation.
Soon after the capture of Ghailani and the others with him, The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
, quoting a United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
source, said that Ghailani was one of several al-Qaeda personnel who had been in Liberia
Liberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
around 2001, handling conflict diamonds under the protection of then-dictator Charles Taylor. Ghailani is said to have spent more than three years in Liberia.
Combatant Status Review
Ghailani was among the 60% of prisoners who participated in the tribunal hearings. A Summary of Evidence memoSummary of Evidence (CSRT)
Counter-terrorism analysts prepared a Summary of Evidence memo for the Combatant Status Review Tribunals of the 558 captives who remained in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba in the fall of 2004.-The 2005 release:...
was prepared for the tribunal of each detainee.
Ghailani's memo accused him of the following:
Charged before a military commission
1998 United States embassy bombings
The 1998 United States embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the East African capitals of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. The date of the...
that killed 223 people and injured approximately 4,085 faces nine war crimes charges, six of them offenses that could carry the death penalty, if he is convicted by a military tribunal, it was reported on March 31, 2008. Scott L. Fenstermaker
Scott L. Fenstermaker
-Education:-Legal career:He is notable for volunteering to serve detainees at Guantanamo Bay detention camp in their attempts to access the U.S. justice system...
and David Remes are in a rare dispute as to who has been authorized to assist Ghaliani.
In June 2009, Ghailani was transferred to New York to face trial in a federal court. The Department of Justice, under U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
Eric Holder
Eric Himpton Holder, Jr. is the 82nd and current Attorney General of the United States and the first African American to hold the position, serving under President Barack Obama....
, directed the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara
Preet Bharara
Preetinder S. Bharara , commonly known as Preet Bharara, is U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.-Early life and education:Bharara was born in 1968 in Firozpur, Punjab, India, to a Sikh father and Hindu mother...
, to not seek the death penalty in an October 2009 memorandum.
Transfer to the USA
Trade journal
A trade magazine, also called a professional magazine, is a magazine published with the intention of target marketing to a specific industry or type of trade. The collective term for this area of publishing is the trade press....
for the prison industry, speculated that
"Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani" was one of ten captives they speculated might be moved to a maximum security prison in Standish, Michigan
Standish, Michigan
Standish is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 1,581. It is the county seat of Arenac County.The town was platted by John D. Standish in 1871...
.
Instead Ghailani was transferred to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to stand trial in a civilian court there.
Ghailani learned that being transferred from military to civilian jurisdiction meant that he could no longer be assisted by
Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
Jeffrey Colwell and Major Richard Reiter.
On February 10, 2010, United States district court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan
Lewis A. Kaplan
Lewis A. Kaplan is a United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. He took senior status on February 1, 2011....
ordered the Prosecution to review the record of Ghailani's detention in CIA's network of black sites.
According to The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
any materials that showed the decisions “were for a purpose other than national security” had to be turned over to Ghailani's lawyers. It was reported that Kaplan was considering dismissing the charges on the grounds that due to Ghailani's long extrajudicial detention he had been denied the constitutional right
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
to a speedy trial.
On April 23, 2010, a 52 page unclassified summary of Ghailani's 2007 Guantanamo interrogations was published in preparation for his trial.
Benjamin Weiser, writing in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reported that the summary, published during Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is a conspirator of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization convicted for his role in the bombing of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He was indicted in the United States as a participant in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. He was on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list from its...
's civilian trial, revealed new details about Ghailani's life as an Osama bin Laden bodyguard
Osama bin Laden bodyguard
American officials have reported that the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had numerous bodyguards. They reported that the detainees held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp included at least 30 of Bin Laden's bodyguards.-Sources of the allegations:...
.
According to Weiser the interrogation summary asserted that during the year he was a bodyguard Ghailani met several other individuals who were among those who later became 9-11 hijackers.
Following his work as a bodyguard the summary asserts Ghailani became a forger, where he became "very good with Photoshop".
Ghailani's trial commenced Oct. 4, 2010, in the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Federal Court Building in lower Manhattan, in front of U.S. District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan
Lewis A. Kaplan
Lewis A. Kaplan is a United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. He took senior status on February 1, 2011....
. There were no protests or demonstrations during the trial, as observed by Human Rights First
Human Rights First
Human Rights First is a nonprofit, nonpartisan human rights organization based in New York City and Washington, D.C....
. On Wednesday, October 6, 2010, in a short ruling that the judge said he would expand upon later that day, it was determined that a key witness, the Tanzanian Hussein Abebe, who may have issued statements crucial to implicating Ghailani during the time he was under CIA custody, would not be testifying in the trial. Judge Kaplan agreed to delay the start of the trial until the following Tuesday, October 12, 2010, pending a possible appeal of that ruling. On Oct. 11, 2010, the government announced it would not appeal Judge Kaplan's ruling. Steve Zissou
Steve Zissou (jurist)
Steve Zissou is an American attorney, with a practice in Federal criminal law in the Bayside, Queens district of New York City. He is also known for having borne that name before the creation of the film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou....
, one of Ghailani's lawyers, commented that the government's decision not to appeal was "a significant victory for the Constitution." On November 17, 2010, Ghailani was convicted for conspiracy, but was acquitted of all other charges. On January 25, 2011, Ghailani was sentenced to life in prison.
External links
- Guantanamo man loses torture bid to avoid U.S. trial ReutersReutersReuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
May 10, 2010 - Superseding Indictment (U.S v. bin Laden, et al.), FindLawFindLawFindLaw is a business of Thomson Reuters that provides online legal information and online marketing services for law firms. FindLaw was created by Stacy Stern, Martin Roscheisen and Tim Stanley in 1995, and was acquired by Thomson West in 2001....
- Lawyer: Feds Chose Torture Over Trial for Detainee January 11, 2010
- Call to throw out Guantanamo case January 12, 2010
- Chronology Amnesty International
- Jury Appears Deadlocked in Civilian Trial - video report by Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...