February 21, 2009

Good News: Obama to Release Gitmo Terrorist, Send Him to UK (UPDATED)

After being released from Guantanamo, Binyam Mohamed will be sent to the UK next week. Which is, er, odd, since he's Ethiopian.

Just some poor Ethiopian in Afghanistan to study Islam swept up in the fog of war. Right.

I'm sure the British Left will turn him into a minor celebrity. For all the rest of you in the UK, apologies in advance.

According to Military Families United (thanks to Terresa) Mohamad is accused of:

* Training at various Al-Qaida training camps, where he specialized in firearms and explosives

* Being taught by senior Al-Qaida leaders how to falsify documents

* Receiving money by Al-Qaida leaders to travel to the United States

* Implementing plans to blow up high-rise apartment buildings in the United States

* Holding meetings with Saif al Adel (a top level al Qaida planner and leader) and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (Mastermind of 9/11 attacks)

* Attempting to illegally enter the United States on April 4, 2002 but was turned away due to his forged passport

You know, there's a real easy way to solve the problem of what to do with low level al Qaeda operatives: After a short and swift trial kill them all, exactly as the Geneva Conventions allow us to do.

Feasible? I dunno, but it just feels so right.

UPDATE: The Long War Journal has a great background story about Mohamad, subtitled the false martyr.

Something that kept bothering me about Robert Mackey's post at the NY Times blog as I was reading it was why he kept emphasizing the possibility that Mohamad had been tortured, with no mention whatsoever of the things the alleged al Qaeda terrorist was accused of? I just chalked this up to liberal bias given that this is the New York Times, but, it turns out, there's more to the story.

The New York Times was involved in the lawsuit on behalf of the al Qaeda terrorist trying to get the British courts to release classified materials. From the Long War Journal article mentioned above:The outrage over Mohamed's detention was fanned earlier this month when the British High Court denied a petition seeking the release of classified documents detailing his case. The petition had been filed by news outlets such as the New York Times and the Associated Press, acting at the urging of Mohamed's civilian attorney and human rights groups. All of these parties believe that the classified US intelligence documents, which were shared with the British government, verify Mohamed's allegations of torture. Two judges from the High Court denied the petition, however, citing a threat by US authorities to cut off vital intelligence cooperation if the United Kingdom released the classified documents without American acquiescence.All the news that fit to print!

What is it the Times fails to mention, exactly? That Mohamad admitted to his lawyer of being an al Qaeda trained terrorist. His defense lawyer stipulated the following at his hearing:

2. The detainee arrived in Islamabad, Pakistan, in June 2001, and traveled to the al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan, to receive paramilitary training.

3. At the al Farouq camp, the detainee received 40 days of training in light arms handling, explosives, and principles of topography.

4. The detainee was taught to falsify documents, and received instruction from a senior al Qaeda operative on how to encode telephone numbers before passing them to another individual.

He went to the poppy growing capital of the world .... as rehab.