Scott Brown's election was not a wake-up call to Obama; maybe this test of his effort to try terror suspects in civilian courts will be.
A jury convicted a former Guantanamo detainee of one count of conspiracy in the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa, but acquitted him of more than 280 other counts in a case widely seen as a test of the Obama administration's effort to try terror suspects in civilian courts.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, 36, of Tanzania, was the first former detainee of the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to be tried in a U.S civilian court. He faces 20 years to life in prison.
Mr. Ghailani's acquittal of the vast majority of charges could boost the arguments of those who maintain that military tribunals, and not civilian courts, are the proper venues for major terrorist trials. It also bolsters the view from others who say the security fears that surrounded the decision to try Mr. Ghailani in lower Manhattan were overblown.
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See also this article in The New York Times.
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