Can We Try a Man We Tortured?

Will accused major terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ever end up in a federal courtroom? The answer is yes—starting right now.

FBI/Zumapress.com

Karen Greenberg — Mother Jones

Today is a day that many Americans thought would never arrive: At 9:30 a.m., in the courtroom of Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York, the first-ever trial of a Guantanamo detainee in a federal court is scheduled to begin. It is the case civil libertarians like me have been waiting for, the first real chance to prove that the civilian court system can work in trying Guantanamo terrorists. And yet, on the eve of the trial’s opening, many of us are still wondering what the rules of the game will be—and even whether this was such a good idea after all.

It’s not, of course, that terrorists aren’t commonly tried in US courts: The federal courthouse in Manhattan, within walking distance from the World Trade Center site, is a veritable cineplex of terrorism cases. In the past few weeks alone, it has been the site of three other high-profile proceedings: Aafia Siddiqui, who had been convicted of taking up arms against officers of the FBI and the Army in Afghanistan, was sentenced to 86 years on September 23rd; Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, was sentenced to life in prison yesterday; also yesterday, attorneys finished their summation arguments in the case of four men accused of plotting to blow up synagogues in the Bronx.

But the trial scheduled to begin this morning is by far the most important in terms of symbolism—and potential repercussions. It is the case of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, and on its outcome rest the prospects for other Guantanamo detainee trials, including that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of 9/11.

Ghailani’s is the perfect test case. The 30-something Tanzanian (no one seems to know precisely how old he is) stands accused of being involved in the attack on the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, bombings that resulted in hundreds of deaths. This is a crime the American judicial system knows how to try. Three of those accused in the embassy bombings were tried and convicted in this same federal court district and are now serving life sentences in a supermax prison in Colorado.

But, ironically, there is another reason that the Ghailani case is a test case for Mohammed and the other “high value detainees” in Guantanamo—those accused of major attacks or of holding high-level positions in the Al Qaeda network. Ghailani, like Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and others, was subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques, more commonly known as torture. Presumably, if it proves possible nonetheless to try his case in civilian courts, the same would be true for Mohammed and others.

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