ACLU tapping top legal talent to defend accused 9-11 conspirators

[laststeamtrain]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

ACLU tapping top legal talent to defend accused 9-11 conspirators
Carol Rosenberg | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: April 04, 2008 07:00:19 PM

The American Civil Liberties Union, which for years has scorned Pentagon military commissions as "kangaroo courts,'' announced Friday that it will try to provide top civilian defense attorneys for alleged terrorists facing trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — including the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Former Attorney General Janet Reno is among top lawyers who've endorsed the $8.5 million effort, which will help coordinate and defray the expenses of civilian defense attorneys working on the terrorism cases. Under the military commissions scheme, the Pentagon won't reimburse volunteer civilian attorneys for their expenses.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said a major thrust of the effort will be to defend Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who military officials say has confessed to masterminding the 9-11 attacks and several other terrorist acts, including the beheading in Pakistan of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl.

The ACLU chose to focus on Mohammed's defense, Romero said, because he appears to be "the government's top priority in the prosecution. And whether or not they are able to convict Khalid Sheik Mohammed under these rules may well determine the fate of the almost 300 other men who are detained at Guantanamo.''

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/32758.html

[jody]

1. I wish ACLU had defended Heller in D.C. v. Heller and fought for the natural, inherent, inalienable

right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self defense.

It's sad to see ACLU support the rights of foreign citizens while ignoring the rights of Americans.

[sce56]

2. Seems to me they are defending our constitution by trying to keep us from having Kangaroo Courts If

this man could talk Then maybe we will finally find out who was really behind 9-11!
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a93ksmisi
Spring 1993: US Discovers that Ramzi Yousef and KSM Have Ties with ISI

US agents uncover photographs showing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) has ties with the Pakistani ISI. Several weeks after the World Trade Center bombing (see February 26, 1993), US agents come to Pakistan to search for Ramzi Yousef for his part in that bombing. Searching the house of Zahid Shaikh Mohammed, Yousef’s uncle, they find photographs of Zahid and KSM, who is also one of Yousef’s uncles, with close associates of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. According to another account, the pictures actually show Zahid with Sharif, and also with Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, president of Pakistan until his death in 1988. Pictures of Osama bin Laden are also found. US agents are unable to catch Yousef because Pakistani agents tip him off prior to the US raids. Yousef is able to live a semi-public life (for instance, he attends weddings), despite worldwide publicity naming him as a major terrorist. The Financial Times will later note that Yousef, KSM, and their allies “must have felt confident that their ties to senior Pakistani Islamists, whose power had been cemented within the country’s intelligence service , would prove invaluable.” Several months later, Yousef and KSM unsuccessfully attempt to assassinate Benazir Bhutto, who is prime minister of Pakistan twice in the 1990s (see July 1993). She is an opponent of Sharif and the ISI. The Los Angeles Times will later report that KSM “spent most of the 1990s in Pakistan. Pakistani leadership through the 1990s sympathized with Osama bin Laden’s fundamentalist rhetoric. This sympathy allowed to operate as he pleased in Pakistan.”

Entity Tags: Ramzi Yousef, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, Nawaz Sharif, Zahid Shaikh Mohammed, Benazir Bhutto
Shaikh Mohammed is considered by many analysts to be an agent of the Pakistan intelligence service ISI, which is generally considered to be controlled by the CIA.

Robert Fisk, 3 March 2003, in the Independent: "Mr Mohammed was an ISI asset; indeed, anyone who is 'handed over' by the ISI these days is almost certainly a former (or present) employee of the Pakistani agency, whose control of Taliban operatives amazed even the Pakistani government during the years before 2001. Mr Pearl, it should be remembered, arranged his fatal assignation in Karachi on a mobile phone from an ISI office." A Breakthrough in the War on Terror? I'll Believe it When We See ...

US counter-terrorism officials claim Shaikh Mohammed was in Germany before the 9 11 attacks, liaising with Mohamed Atta. A secretive U.S. eavesdropping agency monitored telephone conversations. But, the Germans weren't told about it – and when they asked Washington for further information, none was forthcoming.

There was already a $2 million reward for Mohammed in 1998. In 2000, the CIA monitered his presence at an al Qaeda meeting, yet they didn't arrest him. Why wasn't the 9/11 plot discovered in June 2001 when US intelligence learned Mohammed was sending terrorists to live in the US. Context of 'May 11, 2004: White House Gives Top Prisoner Access to ...
And is Shaikh Mohammed still alive?

Asia Times, 30 February 2002, "Ever since the frenzied shootout last month on September 11 2002 in Karachi there have been doubts over whether Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed head of al-Qaeda's military committee, died in the police raid on his apartment.

"Now it has emerged that Kuwaiti national Khalid Shaikh Mohammed did indeed perish in the raid, but his wife and child were taken from the apartment and handed over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in whose hands they remain." Asia Times
"The person making the confession in the secret military tribunal in Cuba can barely speak English. The real KSM, on the other hand, was educated in the United States and had obtained a degree in mechanical engineering from an American university in 1986." Terror Mastermind KSM is an Imposter - The Confession is Fak

[jody]

7. You missed my point. I've been an ACLU member and contributor for decades. It's not that

ACLU should not have defended the case cited in the OP, they did and I support that.

My point is ACLU has failed to defend the natural, inherent, inalienable right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense that is a passionate cause of many ACLU members and citizens.

[Solon]

4. To be frank, that's stupid...

and I really don't understand that argument, generally speaking, for years, the courts have always interpreted the 2nd Amendment as a state right, rather than an individual right. The ACLU actually sides with the courts here. Besides that, to be honest, the right to keep and bear arms is actually quite minor compared to many of our other rights. Does keeping a gun prevent the government from wiretapping your phones, bugging your offices, arresting you on the street for no cause, or stopping you from speaking your mind? No, of course not, it would be silly to argue that, and if anyone thinks that possessing a firearm actually ensures your freedom, that's also a silly argument, unless you are a billionaire, you couldn't afford to even come close to matching the government in firepower. They are the ones with the tanks, missiles, equipment, APCs, etc. Stuff that, even if it was legal to buy, 99.9% of the populace couldn't afford to buy it in the first place.

[annabanana]

3. There is no real justice when the defendant is accused with "evidence"

that was gained by torture, accused by people he cannot cross examine..

[elleng]

5. THAT is why evidence acquired by torture

is excluded from consideration by the jury or judge.

And that's one of the reasons this admin fights against 'rights' for those captured, keeps them in guantanamo, etc; anything to keep them 'out' of our proper system.

[annabanana]

6. morning kick. . . . . . . n/t