PrairiePundit

Washington Free Beacon: The International Criminal Court is working alongside several organizations and individuals tied to terrorism as it seeks to prosecute American and Israeli personnel for war crimes, according to a new report out of Israel. The findings call into question the court's integrity at a time when it is facing international backlash over its pursuit of politically motivated cases. The report—from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), an Israel-based research group headed by a former adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—concludes that under the leadership of Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, the ICC collaborated with terror-tied groups to pursue charges against American and Israeli military officials it claims are guilty of committing war crimes against civilians, including in Afghanistan and Palestinian territories. The cases originated with complaints filed to the court by two nonprofit advocacy groups with ties to terrorism. In its report, ...

Legal Insurrection: Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic are in breach of the European Union law by refusing to take in migrants under the bloc’s mandatory migrant quota scheme, the top EU legal adviser says. According to Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston, who advises the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the members countries of the bloc have “no legitimate security grounds to reject the quota scheme” that proposes to settle hundreds of thousands migrants arriving in Europe. The eastern European countries are facing legal action at the top EU court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ), for blocking the EU plan to assign each country with a quota of migrants to take in. The Eastern European countries have so far frustrated Brussels’ efforts to impose mandatory quotas on member states for the mass resettlement of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East swarming the continent through the Mediterranean route. Poland rejected the Advocate General’s statement citing the gove...

Legal Insurrection: The United States has accused the German government of letting a convicted terrorist escape American justice. Turkish national Adem Yilmaz, responsible for the murder of two U.S. servicemen, was deported to Turkey despite an American extradition request to face trial in a New York court. “Adem Yilmaz is responsible for the deaths of U.S. servicemembers,” U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell said on Thursday. “This failure to extradite him to the United States violates the terms and spirit of our Extradition Treaty.” Yilmaz, who served eleven years in German prison for the foiled 2007 terror plot to target U.S. citizens and facilities, including the Ramstein air base, was also behind the 2008 suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed two U.S. servicemen and injured 11 others. “We are gravely disappointed by Germany’s decision to deport a dangerous terrorist — Adem Yilmaz — to Turkey, rather than to extradite him to the United States to face justice for...

Sunday Telegraph: More than 40 foreign terrorists have used human rights laws to remain in the UK, according to an unpublished report delayed by the Home Office. The study highlights the near insurmountable problem for the Government in deporting dangerous jihadists and follows a series of Islamic State-inspired attacks in the UK. In the court cases, lawyers - typically funded through legal aid - have successfully prevented foreign-born terror suspects from being sent back to their home countries. At a time when Britain’s security services are fully stretched, the additional burden of monitoring so many foreign terrorist inevitably adds to the strain. ... Prof Walker said: “My research suggests there are more than 40 foreign terrorists convicted in the UK who have avoided deportation using the human rights act. The figure is much larger than was previously thought.” Among those understood to have used the Human Rights Act to resist deportation including jihadists with links...

Washington Free Beacon: The Trump administration needs to significantly rebuild and expand law enforcement agencies' ability to target and take down terrorist financing networks after President Obama systematically disbanded the work in an attempt to ease relations with Iran for the nuclear deal, according to former senior U.S. officials with decades of experience in the field. There was a mass exodus of top officials who spent years trying to bolster the U.S. government's ability to target these terrorist networks' illicit financing after the Obama administration dismantled their investigative units over the past several years, these experts say. Trump now has a chance to reconstruct and redouble economic warfare against terrorist entities tied to Iran and others, but both Congress and the White House need to devote the necessary resources to do it. Hezbollah, an Iranian terrorist organization based in Lebanon, has morphed into a transnational criminal terrorist or...

NY Times: A Somali man accused of ties to two Islamist militant groups was captured by the American military in April and interrogated for months aboard a navy ship without being warned of his Miranda rights to remain silent and have a lawyer. On Tuesday, the Obama administration announced that the man has been flown to New York City to face prosecution before a civilian court. In an indictment unsealed in the Southern District of New York, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame was charged with nine counts related to accusations that he provided support to the Somalia-based Al Shabaab and the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Mr. Warsame was captured on April 19, and a plane carrying him arrived in New York City around midnight Monday night, officials said. While the Justice Department called Mr. Warsame an “Al Shabaab leader,” it also noted that he is in his “mid-twenties” and does not accuse him of plotting any particular attack. Still, his case is likely to have outsized signi...

NY Times: A sharply divided federal appeals court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit involving the Central Intelligence Agency’s practice of seizing terrorism suspects and transferring them to other countries for imprisonment and interrogation. The ruling handed a major victory to the Obama administration in its effort to advance a sweeping view of executive secrecy power. By a six-to-five vote, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, reversing an earlier decision, dismissed a lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing subsidiary accused of arranging flights for the C.I.A.’s “extraordinary rendition” program, as it is known. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the case on behalf of five former prisoners who say they were tortured because of the program – and that Jeppesen was complicit in their treatment. ... The current case turns on the question of whether the executive branch can invoke the “state secrets privilege” to shut down entire lawsuits, or...

Daily Mail: Hate preacher Abu Hamza could escape extradition to the US because he faces a lengthy jail term if convicted, it emerged today. In an astonishing ruling, European judges said sentences of up to 50 years for Hamza and three other alleged terrorists could breach their human rights. The judgment is likely to send the cost of their already expensive legal battle spiralling with many more months of wrangling. It will also raise further concerns about the European Court of Human Rights' interference in the British justice system. The hook-handed radical, 52, and his trusted lieutenant Haroon Aswat, 30, are wanted by the US authorities for plotting to set up a jihadi training camp in Oregon. Two other men, Baba Ahmad and Seyla Ahsan, are accused of conspiracy to commit terrorist atrocities overseas and supporting terrorist groups. ... This is a court that needs to be abolished. They are constantly siding with terrorist and forcing countries to keep the jerks and ma...

BBC: American missiles were used in a raid against al-Qaeda militants in Yemen in which women and children died in December, rights group Amnesty International says. Amnesty has released images taken after the raid that it says show remnants of a US-made Tomahawk cruise missile. Cluster bombs were also apparently used in the attack, which Amnesty described as "grossly irresponsible". The US has said its troops gave support for the raid, in Abyan province. But Yemeni officials have denied any US involvement. ... On 17 December two attacks on militant targets were said to have killed more than 30 militants The raids were hailed as a big success in Yemen. US President Barack Obama telephoned his Yemeni counterpart, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, to offer his congratulations. But Amnesty now says the US in fact supported the raid with cruise missiles. "A military strike of this kind against ...

AP has the story of the court marshal of Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas who was accused of dereliction of duty for not reporting an alleged roughing up of the terrorist responsible for the murder of four contractors in Fallaja in the early days of the Iraq war.

Washington Times: Civil liberties groups are reacting angrily to reports that President Obama could reverse his administration's stance and try the alleged Sept. 11 conspirators in a military tribunal -- a move that would leave many of his staunchest allies out on a limb. Top supporters like Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Richard Durbin of Illinois -- both of whom have vehemently defended Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.s decision to try suspected al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in federal court -- said they would wait for an official announcement from the White House before weighing in. But advocacy groups are fuming over a report in the Washington Post that advisers to Mr. Obama want him to do an about-face and prosecute Mohammed in a military commission. America's enemies "certainly should be delighted with what appears to be great confusion, great ambiguity and inability to address the issue, so they should feel they are making progress if ...

Eli Lake: The House Democratic leadership stopped a vote Thursday night on the $50 billion classified intelligence budget after Republicans mounted a campaign against one of its provisions to ban degrading treatment of detainees and some moderate Democrats indicated they would not vote for the bill. The Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Michigan Republican, opposed what they saw as backdoor legislation that would impose fines and prison terms on intelligence officers who abuse captured terrorism suspects. A Democratic House aide told The Washington Times that the leadership supported the amendment and urged the House Rules Committee to place it in a slate of provisions to the bill known as a managers amendment. Courtney Littig, a spokeswoman for the House intelligence committee said, "To my knowledge the first time we learned of the McDermott amendment was when we received copies of the amendments from the Rules Committee [Wednesday] afternoon." Rep. Jim McDer...

Byron York: A number of lawyers who work on terrorist issues at the Justice Department represented terrorist detainees before joining the Obama administration. At a hearing three months ago, Sen. Charles Grassley raised the possibility of a conflict with Attorney General Eric Holder. Grassley, a senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, posed three simple questions: Who are they, who did they represent, and what are their duties at the Justice Department today? At the time, Grassley knew from press reports that two high-ranking department officials now working on detainee issues had previously worked for detainees: Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal once represented Osama bin Laden's driver, and Jennifer Daskal, an official in the National Security Division, worked on behalf of detainees at the liberal organization Human Rights Watch. "This prior representation, I think, creates a conflict of interest problem for these individuals," Grassley said...

Left opposed Military Commissions for seven years and when Congress finally passed the Commissions Obama voted against them. Maybe that is why he does not want to use them.

Washington Post: When a window of opportunity opened to strike the leader of al-Qaeda in East Africa last September, U.S. Special Operations forces prepared several options. They could obliterate his vehicle with an airstrike as he drove through southern Somalia. Or they could fire from helicopters that could land at the scene to confirm the kill. Or they could try to take him alive. The White House authorized the second option. On the morning of Sept. 14, helicopters flying from a U.S. ship off the Somali coast blew up a car carrying Saleh Ali Nabhan. While several hovered overhead, one set down long enough for troops to scoop up enough of the remains for DNA verification. Moments later, the helicopters were headed back to the ship. The strike was considered a major success, according to senior administration and military officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the classified operation and other sensitive matters. But the opportunity to interrogate one of the ...

An old prosecutor argues his case pretty well.

Michael Mukasey: ... When Abdulmutallab tried to detonate a bomb concealed in his undershorts, he committed a crime; no doubt about that. He could not have acted alone; no doubt about that either. The bomb was not the sort of infernal device readily produced by someone of his background, and he quickly confirmed that he had been trained and sent by al-Qaeda in Yemen . What to do and who should do it? It was entirely reasonable for the FBI to be contacted and for that agency to take him into custody. But contrary to what some in government have suggested, that Abdulmutallab was taken into custody by the FBI did not mean, legally or as a matter of policy, that he had to be treated as a criminal defendant at any point. Consider: In 1942, German saboteurs landed on Long Island and in Florida. That they were eventually captured by the FBI did not stop President Franklin Roosevelt from directing that they be treated as unlawful enemy combatants. They were ultimately tried before a militar...

Richard Littlejohn: Maybe I'm in a minority of one here, but I still don't understand the fuss over Binyam Mohamed. He has become the poster boy for all those who want to undermine our security services and destroy our special relationship with the United States. Why did the Government go to such lengths to secure his release from Guantanamo Bay and then charter a private jet to fly him 'home' to Britain? For the umpteenth time, he's not British. He's not even a British 'resident'. He is an Ethiopian national who lived here for a few years before choosing to move to Afghanistan, where he is said to have attended an Alky Ada training camp. At the time of his arrest, he was attempting to board a plane in Pakistan using a forged passport. Frankly, he is not our responsibility. We owe him nothing. Why would anyone in their right mind want him back? British intelligence officers are accused of colluding in his alleged torture on the basis of supplying a few...

NY Times: The European Parliament on Thursday broadly rejected an agreement with the United States on sharing information on bank transfers that was aimed at tracking suspected terrorists through their finances. The vote in Strasbourg, France, underlined differences between the United States and the European Union over how to balance guarantees of personal privacy with concerns about national and international security. A resolution to reject the deal passed 378-196, with 31 abstentions. The vote means that the agreement, which provisionally went into force at the beginning of February, cannot be used as planned. The agreement would have freed the United States from having to seek bank data on a country-by-country basis. But Washington still could press for access to the data through such avenues. Many members of the Parliament complained that the agreement — meant to last for nine months while a more permanent arrangement was sought — failed to guarantee the privacy rights of E...

Ralph Peters: ... * The administration claims Abdulmutallab is now cooperating . That's either dishonest or idiotic -- or both. If he is cooperating, jeez, you don't tell the terrorists. Why on earth leak it that the guy's blabbing, thus warning the enemy? Could the administration -- just possibly -- be playing politics? * Even if he's talking now, Abdulmutallab won't provide actionable intelligence . It's too late: His contacts had time to vacate the premises and alter their modes of operation. The best information that a low-level operative like the Jockey-shorts jerk possesses is highly perishable -- the captive isn't privy to long-term plans, just the immediate details of his mission and a few basic contacts. Information that might have been valuable on Dec. 26 may be worthless by Jan. 26. Yet, in that critical early window we convinced Abdulmutallab to clam up -- thanks to the folly of treating him to a lawyer. In the intelligence world, where I...