Is there any better proof that Team Obama’s preferred approach to fight ing terror — through civilian courts — is dangerously misguided than yesterday’s acquittal of one of the 1998 US embassy bombers on all but one of 285 charges?
Ahmed Ghailani, the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried in a civilian court, was convicted of only a single count of conspiracy to destroy government property and buildings using explosives.
Murder? No.
Terrorism? No.
He was up to his ears in a plot that took 224 lives, and he’s not a terrorist?
Preposterous.
He might as well have blown up an empty phone booth in some desert.
That obscene verdict — and the tortured, civilian-court process the led to it — should put an end, once and for all, to any thought of trying other terrorists in similar fashion.
Particularly, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
Unless, that is, Team Obama is willing to roll the dice on seeing him and his ilk walk free.
As we’ve long said, enemy combatants simply don’t belong in federal courtrooms in a time of war.
After all, on the merits, the evidence against Ghailani was overwhelming:
* He helped buy the truck that carried the bomb in the attack on the embassy in Tanzania.
* A detonator was linked to him.
* A key witness had told authorities that he sold Ghailani the explosives.
Indeed, Ghailani practically confessed to his role in the affair himself. But his statements weren’t introduced at trial.
Defense lawyers had argued that Ghailani’s disclosures were inadmissible because they were coerced — and prosecutors were loath to risk having their entire case tossed by the judge.
Under normal circumstances, that’s fine. But this case involved a foreigner making war on America.
The result: A bloody-handed terrorist will now largely escape accountability for his heinous acts.
Yes, Ghailani is facing 20 years to life — but that’s only about a month for each of the 224 people he helped kill.
Team Obama is still trying to figure out what to do about KSM & Co. There’s no longer any question: Trying them in a civilian court would invite disaster.
President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder need to learn from this horrific case.
No more civilian trials for terrorists.