Osama bin Laden
SHUT UP:
Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (right), an al Qaeda spewer of hate and Osama bin Laden son-in-law, was grabbed in a CIA operation overseas and whisked into New York City to await trial. (
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Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law — who claimed victory after 9/11 and may have helped plan the attack — was secretly captured in Jordan and brought to New York to face justice.
Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, 47, had been hunted for more than a decade after boasting of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks and calling on “the nation of Islam” to wage war on “the Jews, the Christians and the Americans.”
He was seized in a CIA operation and flown to New York last week, according to law-enforcement officials. Abu Ghaith is scheduled to be arraigned this morning in Manhattan federal court, blocks from Ground Zero.
Rep. Peter King (R-LI) called his capture a “very significant victory” in the war on terror.
He “held a key position in al Qaeda, comparable to the consigliere in a mob family or propaganda minister in a totalitarian regime,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge George Venizelos.
But Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) blasted the Obama administration’s decision to bring Abu Ghaith to Manhattan rather than the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“This guy didn’t rob a liquor store. He’s a spokesman close to the people who killed over 2,000 Americans,” said Graham.
“Why in the world are we treating him as if he’s some common criminal?”
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) said a civilian trial entitles Abu Ghaith to legal rights “before he has been fully interrogated to make sure that we know everything he knows about al Qaeda.”
But federal officials told The Post why he’s in New York: Bin Laden was originally indicted in New York 15 years ago — three years before 9/11 — and the agents and prosecutors on that case all worked in New York.
“The knowledge about bin Laden and al Qaeda is all here,” one official said.
Also, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, off Foley Square, has the facilities for high-value detainees. Abu Ghaith is believed to be in the “terror wing” of the building, where radical preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri and others were held.
The six-page federal indictment charges Abu Ghaith with “conspiracy to kill United States nationals.” It said on the eve of the 9/11 attacks that bin Laden “summoned” him and asked for his assistance. The next morning, Abu Ghaith warned the US and its allies that a “great army is gathering against you.”
Later, he said, of the 9/11 terrorists, “The actions by these young men who destroyed the United States and launched the storm of planes against it have done a good dead.”
After 9/11, Abu Ghaith mysteriously surfaced in Iran, where he remained, possibly under house arrest, for several years.
He sneaked into Turkey using a forged Saudi passport, but Turkish authorities arrested him after being tipped off by the CIA, according to local media reports. He was then deported to Jordan, where US officials took custody of him.