"Illegal Enemy Combatant"
...Military lawyers here said the same flaw would affect every other potential war crimes case here. The ruling, the latest in a history of legal setbacks for the government’s effort to bring war-crimes charges against detainees, appeared to raise far-reaching questions, because it involved central principles of detention procedures....
Military tribunals are about war, not civil liberties. These 'detainees' are POWs in a "Global War on Terror." Detainee is just a fancy word for it. Osama bin Laden would be a prisoner of war just like any of the others. Unlike what occurred with Ramzi Yousef and the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing Trials, Bush 'created' a new system that is formualted to victimize people. We all know it. The USA has never had such incompetent leadership. When is someone going to impeach Bush and Cheney. This is an outrage. There was nothing "W"rong with trying those responsible before, now there isn't even a competent method of trying people Bush claims is so dangerous they have to be sequestered on Gitmo. What next?
Judges Uphold Convictions In '93 Bombing (click here)
By BENJAMIN WEISER
Published: April 5, 2003
A federal appeals panel in Manhattan yesterday upheld the convictions of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and a 1994 plot to blow up a dozen American airliners as they flew across the Pacific.
The 186-page ruling, issued by a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, also rejected Mr. Yousef's claim that his sentence of life plus 240 years violated the ban on cruel and unusual punishments.
The Eighth Amendment forbids only extreme sentences that are ''grossly disproportionate'' to the crime, the court said, adding, ''Yousef's sentence, even if well beyond his life expectancy, is not 'grossly disproportionate' to his crimes.''
The 1993 trade center attack, led by Mr. Yousef, killed six people and injured more than 1,000. The airline conspiracy, which was hatched in Manila, was not carried out, but a bomb placed on a Philippine Airlines jetliner in a test run resulted in the death of a Japanese passenger. ''I am a terrorist, and I am proud of it,'' Mr. Yousef proclaimed when he was sentenced in 1998.
The Manila plot has received increased attention since the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, an aide to Osama bin Laden who is suspected of helping to mastermind the Sept. 11 attacks....
