Has Holder come to his senses?--Not really
Image via WikipediaThe Obama administration, under fire for saying it would bring the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington to trial in federal court, has changed its mind and will take the suspected terrorist before a military tribunal.I think Holder have been guilty of prosecutorial malpractice in teh handling of these cases. When he came into office the accused were ready to plead guilty and were not opposed to receiving a death sentence.
The retreat was reluctantly announced Monday by Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., who started the controversy in November 2009 when he said Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four cohorts — Waleed bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali — would be tried in civilian court in New York as part of administration efforts to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“Had this case proceeded in Manhattan or in an alternative venue in the United States, as I seriously explored in the past year, I am confident our justice system would have performed with the same distinction that has been its hallmark for over two hundred years,” Mr. Holder said Monday.
“Unfortunately, since I made that decision, members of Congress have intervened and imposed restrictions blocking the administration from bringing any Guantanamo detainees to trial in the United States, regardless of the venue,” he said. “As the president has said, those unwise and unwarranted restrictions undermine our counterterrorism efforts and could harm our national security.”
As a result, Mr. Holder has referred the cases to the Defense Department to proceed in military commissions and directed his prosecutors to dismiss an indictment handed down under seal in New York in December 2009. He said a federal judge had granted that motion.
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Instead Holder want a show trial in Manhattan where he and the President assured us the outcome was already determined. He still seems to desire his show trial, but is reluctantly going where Congress has told him he could go with these cases. It is about time.
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