*Last week*, did you notice that, when John Allen Mohammed was first brought before a judge in Maryland he looked fit, well-nourished, alert, and neat, but that after a week or so in custody when he was removed to Virginia and was arraigned there that he seemed to be disoriented, confused, haggard, and fatigued? HMMMMMMM. Maybe we could get him to try to represent himself! [Full disclosure: I've been reading Les Miserables and listening to Bill Hicks in the last few weeks.]
posted at 7:38 AM |
link
Who cares about Moussaoui?
An analyst on the radio this evening said that if the gov't does drop charges and take Moussaoui (a French citizen) out of Virginia to Camp X-Ray (in Cuba) or to wherever they decide to take him for their tribunal, Judge Brinkema would still retain some jurisdiction (because trial proceedings have alreday begun), and that Moussaoui could file for a writ of habeus corpus to basically challenge the gov't's right to remove him from her court.
As an NYT article alludes to oh, so elliptically, successfully removing Moussaoui to a military tribunal and trying him as an unlawful combatant (that is, as in violation of the law of war) may require (but who can stop them?) the gov't to build a persuasive case that on the morning of September 11, 2001 (or possibly earlier, because Moussaoui had been detained three weeks before then and was in custody at the time) the United States was in a recognizable state of war in which Moussaoui was involved.
I can almost, but not quite, understand why this isn't bigger news.
Now. Although Moussaoui's trial isn't scheduled to start until next June (because the judge gave him time to review the evidence against him that he's been supplied), the gov't will probably make some sort of move well before then: they will soon either have to refuse access to suspected al Qaeda members who are detained in other countries, who the gov't are trying to use to link Moussaoui to the events of September 11, 2001, and who Moussaoui has requested access to (in an exercise of his constitutional rights to review the evidence brought against him) or grant the request. This news story has been leaked to "test the waters of public opinion" (here and abroad) to determine whether the potential outcry is a price worth paying for trying Moussaoui in a military tribunal in which he would not have access to all the evidence used against him and in which he may not have access to the lawyers who, although he is refusing their help, are still on the case by Judge Brinkema's orders in case he should at some point be declared unfit to defend himself. He probably would not have access to all of the equipment and room that Judge Brinkema has ordered supplied to him in order to review the evidence that he has already been granted access to. He would not have the right of appeal. If he were to plead guilty (again) because he was confused about procedures used in U.S. court system(s) he most likely would be allowed to enter that plea; if he were to make some other legal blunder in the course of his trial he most likely would have no recourse whatsoever. If Mossaoui ends up being tried in a military tribunal I will bet anyone who reads this dollars to donuts that he'll be executed within one year of his conviction.
Zacarias Moussaoui is the only person to date who has been charged in connection with the events in New York City and elsewhere on September 11, 2001.
posted at 10:58 PM |
link
/archives