Another failure for lawfare with light sentence for al Qaeda op

Washington Post:

An al-Qaeda sleeper agent who arrived in the United States on Sept. 10, 2001, was sentenced to eight years and four months in federal prison Thursday, ending a legal saga that focused on the ability of the government to hold people indefinitely without criminal charges.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm rejected prosecutors' request that Ali Saleh Kalah al-Marri be sentenced to the maximum 15-year prison term. The lesser sentence essentially credits Marri, 44, for enduring six-and-a-half years in a U.S. Navy brig in what his lawyers had called "a legal black hole."

As the sole remaining enemy combatant on American soil, Marri drew international attention from legal scholars and human rights advocates. His case was singled out in an executive order issued in the first days of the Obama administration. And the U.S. Supreme Court had agreed to hear Marri's arguments about indefinite detention, a process that was averted in February when new Justice Department officials charged him in a federal court in Illinois with conspiracy to support terrorists.

Marri pleaded guilty to a single criminal charge this year after intense negotiations that included the personal intervention of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. At the time, Justice Department officials said Holder rejected requests by Marri's attorneys to recommend the judge issue a lower prison term.

Authorities pointed out in court filings that Marri had close contact with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and another man described as a chief financier of the operation. They also cited an FBI search of Marri's property that uncovered evidence he had been performing research on dangerous chemicals and bookmarking dams, reservoirs and other possible U.S. targets.

For months the Justice Department and defense attorneys have battled over whether Marri should receive credit for time he spent in the U.S. naval brig in Charleston, without criminal charges. His lawyers presented videotaped evidence in court this week that Marri was held for long stretches in chilly isolation with only a small blanket, without eyeglasses and at times with his mouth duct-taped shut. The treatment, they say, took a steep toll on his mental health.

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Oh poor baby!

This guy was associated with the leadership of al Qaeda's mass murder for Allah and should have been confined at Gitmo for the duration of this war. That he will be free in a matter of months is a disgrace and is clear evidence of the failure of the lawfare model for dealing with terrorism It is also a mark of the incompetence of the current administration.