GITMO Detainee To Be Tried In New York

Ahmed Ghailani will be the fist Guantanamo detainee to be brought to the United States for trial in a civilian criminal court.

An official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to disclose the decision, tells The Associated Press that the administration has decided to bring Ghailani to trial in New York. He was indicted there for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa – attacks that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

Ghailani, a Tanzanian, is a high-value detainee captured in Pakistan in 2004 and transferred to the U.S. detention center in Cuba two years later.

Ghailani was on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list from the time it was created in October 2001.  He was described in a February Washington Post story as being “contrite”.

The former Islamic cleric now presents himself as a contrite and exploited victim of al-Qaeda conspirators.

“I would like to apologize to the United States government for what I did before,” said Ghailani at a hearing at Guantanamo Bay. “It was without my knowledge what they were doing, but I helped them.”

Ghailani, however, had obtained a passport under a false name before the bombing and admitted that he vanished into al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan after the attack, according to military documents.

Ghailani was captured after a 10-hour shootout in the small Pakistani city of Gujrat in July 2004. He was taken to a CIA secret prison, and within months, intelligence officials reported that he was cooperating and linked his interrogation to the breakup of a plot to strike financial targets in the New York area and London.

In 2006, Ghailani and 13 other “high value” detainees, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, were transferred to Guantanamo, where they are being held at the top-secret Camp 7. Ghailani, who speaks excellent English, has spent time reading the entire Harry Potter series, according to his military attorney.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.