The Funny French

Only in France - where leaders as soon as they leave office face criminal charges for all types of crimes.  Also quite funny that Chirac spoke of the crimes committed by former president -  Valery Giscard d'Estaing, while he is investigated for similar crimes.  It seems the requirement for the French presidency is that you are a criminal.

Funny - the French people elect them knowing all this.




French court allows Chirac being tried in default




English.news.cn
2011-09-06 03:38:01




PARIS, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- Former French President Jacques Chirac would be tried in default due to his deteriorating health situation, a Paris court ruled on Monday, letting the trial move on with the 78-year-old represented by his lawyers.

"The personal appearance is not ordered," Judge Dominique Pauthe in charge of the case announced as response to the medical report submitted by Chirac's lawyers.

As the first former French president to be tried on corruption allegations, Chirac faces charges of abusing the public funds to pay aides and counsellors who were actually his partisans during his mandate of Paris mayor from 1977 to 1995.

The trial has been delayed several times with judges ruled the trial should be opened in May, but his lawyers have submitted a medical report to the court diagnosing the ex-president with "anosognosia", a brain disorder making people suffering memory loss.

After 12 years as head of state, two terms as prime minister and 18 years as mayor of Paris, Chirac is dogged by a corruption-related allegation dated back to 2007. The trial starting Monday afternoon would last to Sept. 23.

Chirac has said he wanted the trial to proceed to its end and hoped himself to be tried like any other French citizen.

If found guilty, the ex-president faces up to 10 years in jail and a fine of 150,000 euros (about 212,000 U.S. dollars) on charges including embezzlement and breach of trust.

The case also involves nine other defendants. The current French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, who received a suspended prison sentence in 2004 over the case, agreed to appear as a witness.

French public opinion is divided on Chirac's role in the case, according to local survey. Some said they feel for the old ex-president who is aged and fragile while others said his influence and health state should not spare him from justice in front of which everybody should be treated equal.

















france

Pakistani laws

It is quite simple.  In some countries, the idea of justice is justice.  In the US - carrying out justice is justice.

Mocking justice does not make it so.

12 August 2011

BBC

 

Pakistani shooting film paramilitary sentenced to death

A Pakistani paramilitary soldier has been sentenced to death for killing an unarmed man in an incident caught on videotape and broadcast on TV.

Sarfaraz Shah, 22, was shot at point-blank range in Karachi in June.

The anti-terrorism court in Karachi found Shahid Zafar guilty of the killing and sentenced six other men to life imprisonment.

The killing sparked public anger and increased complaints of brutality by the security forces.

Judge Bashir Ahmed Khoso also fined Shahid Zafar 200,000 rupees ($2,300).

The judge ordered each of the other defendants - five paramilitaries and a civilian - to pay 100,000 rupees in compensation to Sarfaraz Shah's family.

[Which would bring the total value of this man's life to less than $3,500.  Interestingly, about the cost of a couple camels.]


The Sindh branch of the Pakistan Rangers paramilitary force had argued that he was caught trying to rob someone, a charge his family denied.



Prosecutor Muhammad Khan Buriro said: "We have found justice. The court has given the right decision."

A lawyer for the defendants said there would be an appeal.

Death sentences are rarely carried out in Pakistan.

Sarfaraz Shah's brother, Salik, said: "We are satisfied with the punishment and we hope that the higher courts will also keep them and overturn the appeals of the accused."

Officials removed

The disturbing video shows a young man in a black T-shirt being dragged by his hair in a public park by a man in plain clothes.

Sarfaraz Shah's brother consoles his mother at an earlier hearing in Karachi He is pushed towards a group of Sindh Rangers, who are in uniform and armed. The young man pleads for his life as one of the Rangers points a gun at his neck.

A little later, a Ranger shoots him twice at close range, hitting him in the thigh. The young man is seen writhing on the ground, bleeding heavily and begging for help.

The paramilitaries remain close to the injured man but do nothing to help him. Sarfaraz Shah died from his injuries.

The public outcry led to the removal of the Sindh police chief and the director-general of the Sindh branch of the Rangers.

The Rangers are a paramilitary force under the interior ministry.

There are about 10,000 Rangers in Karachi but rights groups say they are not sufficiently trained to deal with keeping civilian order.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
pakistan

Gert Wilders, Fitna, Islam and Free Speech

Dutch populist Geert Wilders acquitted of hate speech




12:38pm EDT
Reuters
By Gilbert Kreijger and Aaron Gray-Block



AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch populist politician Geert Wilders was acquitted of inciting hatred of Muslims in a court ruling on Thursday that may strengthen his political influence and exacerbate tensions over immigration policy.

The case was seen by some as a test of free speech in a country which has a long tradition of tolerance and blunt talk, but where opposition to immigration, particularly from Muslim or predominantly Muslim countries, is on the rise.

Instantly recognizable by his mane of dyed blond hair, Wilders, 47, is one of the most outspoken critics of Islam and immigration in the Netherlands.

His Freedom Party is now the third-largest in parliament, a measure of support for its anti-immigrant stance, and is the minority government's chief ally. But many of Wilders' comments -- such as likening Islam to Nazism -- are socially divisive.

The presiding judge said Wilders's remarks were sometimes "hurtful," "shocking" or "offensive," but that they were made in the context of a public debate about Muslim integration and multi-culturalism, and therefore not a criminal act.

"I am extremely pleased and happy," Wilders told reporters after the ruling. "This is not so much a win for myself, but a victory for freedom of speech. Fortunately you can criticize Islam and not be gagged in public debate."

The ruling could embolden Wilders further. He has already won concessions from the government on cutting immigration and introducing a ban on Muslim face veils and burqas.

"This means that his political views are condoned by law, his political rhetoric has been legalized," said Andre Krouwel, a political scientist at Amsterdam's Free University.

"This has made him stronger politically. He is needed for a political majority, he is basically vice prime minister without even being in the government."

Some Dutch citizens have started to question their country's traditionally generous immigration and aid policies, worried by the deteriorating economic climate, higher unemployment, incidence of ethnic crime and signs that Muslim immigrants have not fully integrated into Dutch society.

Similar concerns have helped far-right parties to gain traction elsewhere in Europe, from France to Scandinavia.

Farid Azarkan of the SMN association of Moroccans in the Netherlands said he feared the acquittal could further split Dutch society and encourage others to repeat Wilders's comments.

"You see that people feel more and more supported in saying that minorities are good for nothing," Azarkan said.

"Wilders has said very extreme things about Muslims and Moroccans, so when will it ever stop? Some will feel this as a sort of support for what they feel and as justification."

Minorities groups said they would now take the case to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, arguing the ruling meant the Netherlands had failed to protect ethnic minorities from discrimination.

"The acquittal means that the right of minorities to remain free of hate speech has been breached. We are going to claim our rights at the U.N.," said Mohamed Rabbae of the National Council for Moroccans.

Wilders, who has received numerous death threats and has to live under 24-hour guard, argued that he was exercising his right to freedom of speech when criticizing Islam.

The Amsterdam court had used a Supreme Court ruling -- that an offensive statement about someone's religion was not a criminal offence -- as the basis of its decision, leading to acquittal, the judge said.

Unusually, the prosecution team had also asked for an acquittal, arguing that politicians have the right to comment on problem issues and that Wilders was not trying to foment violence or division.

"I think it is good that he has been acquitted," said Elsbeth Kalff, an 83-year-old retired sociologist in Amsterdam.

"He has been told that he has been rude and offensive but it is on the border of what the criminal law allows. It is good, the Netherlands is, after all, a tolerant country and we should keep it that way."





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
dutch

Pakistan: Our Friend and Ally

Just another culture, no better, no worse, just the same, equal ...

A culture and people have the right to decide what is best for them and no one has the right to judge that action.  Stay out of their business!





Pakistan pack rape as reform laws stall


Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent
The Australian September 19, 2006



REPORTS of yet another pack rape in Pakistan emerged over the weekend as plans to amend laws aimed at making it easier to punish rapists stalled in the Islamabad parliament because of opposition from ultra-conservative Islamic parties.

The News International said a mother and daughter in a rural area had been abducted and gang-raped for 12 days because the daughter continued her schooling in defiance of villagers in her home near Multan.

The newspaper said the daughter had recently attained a masters degree in education at the Bahauddin Zahariya University. Precise details of what happened are sketchy, but it appears that the girl's father was also attacked by the assailants and that police took 12 days to act and save the women.

Reports of the rape claimed involvement by "a minister of state" but did not name him.

The case recalls that of Mukhtaran Mai, a woman who was imprisoned after she was raped in June 2002. She was freed only after intervention by the Pakistan Supreme Court.

Her case caused a global outcry at the time and highlighted the injustice of Pakistan's Islamic Hudood Ordinances, which criminalise all sex outside marriage.


Under the ordinances, unless the complainant in a rape case produces four male witnesses to support her claims, she will herself face punishment.

As a result, it has been almost impossible to prosecute rape cases, and thousands of Pakistani victims of rape are languishing in jail.

According to Pakistan's Human Rights Commission, a woman is raped every two hours and there is a gang rape every eight hours in Pakistan.

The Hudood Ordinances were introduced 17 years ago when the then military dictator General Zia ul-Haq was installing shariah law in Pakistan as a way of impressing his conservative Islamic backers at home and abroad.

Successive governments - including civilian administrations headed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawz Sharif - failed to change the Hudood Ordinances, despite persistent pressure from human rights groups.

Meanwhile, in India, more than 100 prominent intellectuals and others have launched a campaign against longstanding laws that outlaw homosexuality.









 
 
 
 
 
Pakistan

Obama and Chicago Politics

Obama to the Rescue?

January 25, 2011
NBCChicago


President Barack Obama top political adviser Valerie Jarrett said Tuesday that the president thinks Rahm Emanuel belongs back on the ballot.

“I think that [Obama] believes that [Emanuel] is eligible, and that he believes that Rahm will pursue his appeal in the courts,” Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama and fellow Chicagoan said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

The former chief-of-staff was bounced from the Chicago mayoral ballot Monday in a surprise decision by the Illinois Appellate Court. Jarrett said she doesn't think they'll be able to keep Emanuel down for long.

“You know Rahm, he’s going to appeal vigorously,” Jarrett said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “And I’m sure that you’ll see that happen right away.”

Rahm Emanuel's Ballot Fight

In fact it happened almost immediately. Lawyers for Emanuel filed an emergency petition to the Illinois Supreme Court Monday evening. Now the Supreme Court will have to accept the case. Meanwhile, Rahm is moving ahead as if he were still a candidate. Monday night he greeted voters at Waveland Bowl. He's out campaigning today and is expected to participate in a WGN debate this week.

***************************************

When decisions do not go their way - liberals immediately run to the Courts.  When the Court decision does not go their way they appeal.  Within our rights of course.  They should not be denied the opportunity, but remember when we are told that the law is the law, abide by the law - Proposition 8 is bad says the Court, so we must accept it.  Proposition 187 is bad says the Court so we must accept it.  Proposition 12 is good says the Court so we must accept it. 

And when the Courts say NO as this one did, appeal it.  Forget what effect it has on public opinion of political figures - appeal it, push your case, even if ethically you are naked standing on the head of a pin.

Doesn't matter.  Full speed ahead, forget the consequences.















chicago politics

The Government can .... do anything it wants.

Some times I wonder.  Liberals have always made it clear, unlike the foolish right, what Bush was doing to our civil liberties and to us ... unlike the left who were passionately opposed to such infringements. 

I can only imagine what it would have been like if Bush was still in charge, given how quickly the left is erasing all our civil liberties (not erased by Bush).




The Government's New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS


By ADAM COHEN
Time
August 25, 2010



Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.

That is the bizarre - and scary - rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants - with no need for a search warrant. (Read about one man's efforts to escape the surveillance state.)

It is a dangerous decision - one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.

This case began in 2007, when Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents decided to monitor Juan Pineda-Moreno, an Oregon resident who they suspected was growing marijuana. They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle's underside.

After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA's actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand. (Pineda-Moreno has pleaded guilty conditionally to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and manufacturing marijuana while appealing the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained with the help of GPS.)

In fact, the government violated Pineda-Moreno's privacy rights in two different ways. For starters, the invasion of his driveway was wrong. The courts have long held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the "curtilage," a fancy legal term for the area around the home. The government's intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy.

The judges veered into offensiveness when they explained why Pineda-Moreno's driveway was not private. It was open to strangers, they said, such as delivery people and neighborhood children, who could wander across it uninvited. (See the misadventures of the CIA.)

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month's decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people's. The court's ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.

Judge Kozinski is a leading conservative, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but in his dissent he came across as a raging liberal. "There's been much talk about diversity on the bench, but there's one kind of diversity that doesn't exist," he wrote. "No truly poor people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for that matter." The judges in the majority, he charged, were guilty of "cultural elitism."

The court went on to make a second terrible decision about privacy: that once a GPS device has been planted, the government is free to use it to track people without getting a warrant. There is a major battle under way in the federal and state courts over this issue, and the stakes are high. After all, if government agents can track people with secretly planted GPS devices virtually anytime they want, without having to go to a court for a warrant, we are one step closer to a classic police state - with technology taking on the role of the KGB or the East German Stasi.

Fortunately, other courts are coming to a different conclusion from the Ninth Circuit's - including the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That court ruled, also this month, that tracking for an extended period of time with GPS is an invasion of privacy that requires a warrant. The issue is likely to end up in the Supreme Court.

In these highly partisan times, GPS monitoring is a subject that has both conservatives and liberals worried. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's pro-privacy ruling was unanimous - decided by judges appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Plenty of liberals have objected to this kind of spying, but it is the conservative Chief Judge Kozinski who has done so most passionately. "1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it's here at last," he lamented in his dissent. And invoking Orwell's totalitarian dystopia where privacy is essentially nonexistent, he warned: "Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we're living in Oceania."













game up

Egypt announces it has abandoned law and order and has embraced insanity as a legal procedure.

Egypt to strip men married to Israelis of citizenship




AFP
by Jailan Zayan Jailan Zayan – Sat Jun 5, 11:14 am ET

CAIRO (AFP) – A Cairo court on Saturday upheld a ruling to strip Egyptian men married to Israeli women of their citizenship in a case that has highlighted national sentiment towards Israel.


Judge Mohammed al-Husseini, sitting on the Supreme Administrative Court, said the interior ministry must ask the cabinet to take the necessary steps to strip Egyptian men married to Israeli women, and their children, of their citizenship.

The court said that each case should be considered separately, in a ruling that cannot be appealed.

The ruling reflects Egyptian sentiment towards Israel, more than 30 years after Egypt signed an unpopular peace deal with the Jewish state.

Before reading the verdict, Husseini said the case would not apply to Egyptian men married to Arab Israeli women.

"The case for (Egyptian) men married to Israeli Arab women is different to those married to Israeli women of Jewish origin because (Israeli Arabs) have lived under Israeli occupation," Husseini told the court.

"The court's decision is taking into account Egypt's national security," the judge said.

[It is nice to know that Egypt's judicial system is a farce.  From the top to the bottom, it is entirely a joke.  The judicial appointees, lawyers,and eminent legal minds - are unable to distinguish between justice and buffoonery, between law and disorder, between a mockery of justice and criminal actions.  Nothing can repair this.]

Lawyer Nabil al-Wahsh said he originally brought the case to court in order to prevent the creation of a generation "disloyal to Egypt and the Arab world."

Children of such marriages "should not be allowed to perform their military service," he said.

The number of Egyptian men married to Israeli women is thought to be around 30,000, according to Wahsh. Only 10 percent of them are married to Arab Israelis.

"This ruling is for the benefit of Egypt, a nation of leadership, history and civilisation," Wahsh said. "It is for the protection of Egypt and Egypt's youth and its national security."

"The decision comes as Israel continues its assault on those who love peace. The latest example is the aggression against the aid boat which was heading towards the blockaded Gaza Strip," he added.

On Monday, Israeli naval commandos raided a humanitarian flotilla carrying aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip, in a bungled operation that left nine pro-Palestinian activists dead and scores injured.

A lower court ruled last year that the interior minister must look into the cases of Egyptian men married to Israeli women, and their children, in order to "take the necessary steps to strip them of their nationality."

The interior and foreign ministries had appealed the case, saying it was for parliament to decide on such matters.

Thousands of Egyptians, particularly a large number who lived in Iraq and returned after the 1990 Gulf War over Kuwait, moved to Israel in search of work and married Israeli women.

In 1979, Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace deal with Israel.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
fools

Transparency, Honesty, Integrity: They have none.

It is only a problem if it is a Republican who had forgotten to remember about six cases.  If it is a Democrat, and a Democrat who opposes military tribunals, then forgotten a few cases is fine.

How can a man who opposed the use of military hearings, military detention, and Bush's larger policy of holding detainees without trial, become the man charged with enforcing policies that, each day appear a little more like Bush's - Guantanamo is still open, new people are held there, Obama has decided (rightly) to not hold civilian trials for Mohammad and his cohorts, they are still being detained, without trial as yet ... amazing Holder can work as an agent for the government on this issue.

And before we dismiss this as a case of oversight, I would have to ask - if Joe was applying for the position of Attorney General in 2009, what few sets of questions (themeatic only) would you ask him?  Assuming the guy you would work for has promised to close Guantanamo and give the terrorists civilian trials.  And yes, those were biggies - mentioned every chance he got on the campaign trail.  Wouldn't Guantanamo be a big one.  Wouldn't trials for terrorists be a big one and if you wrote a brief for one of the only cases to go mto civilian trial, wouldn't that get found and mentioned???  I think so, nay, I am certain it would if they were being open and transparent, rather than being swamp monsters.

Holder is sitting in an office, perhaps he is at a park, walking with someone and as they walk they discuss the Padilla brief and one thought mentioned is to simply forget the Padilla brief, simply forget to give it to the Senate.  Perhaps one of the two people walking is a Senator.  And further, the Senator, holding a complete list of briefs and cases Holder has beenn involved, checks off a couple other cases and hands it back to the other man - maybe leave off a few others, so as to ensure no one believes we did it on purpose, if that was the only brief, it would be evident, but if it is one of six or seven ... it was an oversight. 

I wonder how close I might be.  Oh wait, Democrats did this with the secret meetings Cheney had - they imagined all sorts of subjects and theories and conspiracies, and attributed all sorts of malfeasance to the Vice President, knowing nothing, other than a meeting occured.  Sort of like the several secret meetings between Obama and Soros at the White House - no transcript or record of their conversation was demanded.  No Moveon.org people creating fictitious copnspiracy theories of Obama and Soros. 

Interesting how 'truth' works.  Interesting what 'transparency' really means. 




Att'y general failed to give legal briefs to Senate




WASHINGTON
Fri Mar 12, 2010 4:38pm EST


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General Eric Holder failed to tell the Senate about seven legal briefs he signed when lawmakers considered his nomination to his current job, according to a letter released on Friday.

Two of the briefs involved appeals to the Supreme Court for Jose Padilla, who sought release from a military prison in South Carolina where he was being held after then-President George W. Bush designated him an "enemy combatant."

Padilla was held in a military brig for three years before his case was moved to a criminal court in Miami, where he was convicted on charges of offering his services to militants.

The Justice Department sent the Senate Judiciary Committee, which vets presidential nominees, a list of briefs that were omitted on Friday. "We regret the omission," Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich said in a letter to the panel.

Holder has been facing intense scrutiny as the Obama administration tries to decide whether to prosecute terrorism suspects like the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in military or criminal courts.

The attorney general had been spearheading that effort but concerns about holding those trials in criminal court forced the White House to intervene and officials are now weighing whether to prosecute Mohammed and four of his alleged co-conspirators in a military court.

Previously, Holder has disclosed to the Senate five briefs he submitted to the Supreme Court during his law practice. From July 2001 until being confirmed by the Senate as attorney general, Holder worked at Covington & Burling in Washington.

Earlier this week, the Justice Department said Holder failed to tell the Senate about one brief he signed related to the Padilla case, prompting outcries from Republicans who said it offered more details about Holder's views on key policies.

The other six briefs related to issues such as race discrimination and a challenge to a prison sentence.

 
And dear Retardicans, lest we feel left out - all the members of Congress in the Republican party (the Retardicans) do not have the brains to comprehend the level of complexity of the lies and cover-up that Losercrats do daily.   It is very sad to watch.  You stack a Retardican against a Losercrat and the poor Retardican needs the Losercrat handicapped, bound, tied, gagged, drugged, and thrown into a sack, to even the odds, and they still lose.  And it is not because of the values held by Retardicans - their core values are far closer to the values of this country and our shared history than anything on the other side, rather it is simply the intellectual disparity between the two.  However, I know with certainty there are intellectual heavyweights on the Republican side, but for whatever reason (perhaps because the Retardicans keep hogging the news / spotlight) their arguments and cases are not as well known.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
obama

Bad Policy, Bad Idea, Bad Everything: Obama and 9/11

This administration is naive and foolish - living in an utopian world that does not exist nor has it ever existed, but within a world that will surely result in the deaths of many more Americans due to their feckless policy.

If Obama would simply go off and bow to the rest of the world's potentates and leave important decisions to men who can make decisions - unlike his waffling and wavering on Afghanistan.  While he has twiddled his thumbs, men have died.  While he has sat around contemplating his navel, men have died.  Men who pledged to protect this country - have died.  The pledge he took, apparently does not include protecting those men.





New York travesty


chicagotribune.com
Charles Krauthammer
November 23, 2009


WASHINGTON -- For late-19th-century anarchists, terrorism was the "propaganda of the deed." The most successful propaganda-by-deed in history was 9/11 -- not just the most destructive, but the most spectacular and telegenic.

And now its self-proclaimed architect, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has been given by the Obama administration a civilian trial in New York. Just as the memory fades, 9/11 has been granted a second life -- and KSM, a second act: "9/11, The Director's Cut," narration by KSM.

Sept. 11, 2001, had to speak for itself. A decade later, the deed will be given voice. KSM has gratuitously been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable -- a civilian trial in the media capital of the world -- from which to proclaim the glory of jihad and the criminality of infidel America.

So why is Attorney General Eric Holder doing this? Ostensibly to demonstrate to the world the superiority of our system where the rule of law and the fair trial reign.

Really? What happens if KSM (and his codefendants) "do not get convicted," asked Senate Judiciary Committee member Herb Kohl. "Failure is not an option," replied Holder. Not an option? Doesn't the presumption of innocence, er, presume that prosecutorial failure -- acquittal, hung jury -- is an option? By undermining that presumption, Holder is undermining the fairness of the trial, the demonstration of which is the alleged rationale for putting on this show in the first place.

Moreover everyone knows that whatever the outcome of the trial, KSM will never walk free. He will spend the rest of his natural life in U.S. custody. Which makes the proceedings a farcical show trial from the very beginning.

Apart from the fact that any such trial will be a security nightmare and a terror threat to New York -- what better propaganda-by-deed than blowing up the entire courtroom, making KSM a martyr and making the judge, jury and spectators into fresh victims? -- it will endanger U.S. security. Civilian courts with broad rights of cross-examination and discovery give terrorists access to crucial information about intelligence sources and methods.

That's precisely what happened during the civilian New York trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. The prosecution was forced to turn over to the defense a list of 200 unindicted co-conspirators, including the name Osama bin Laden. "Within 10 days, a copy of that list reached bin Laden in Khartoum," wrote former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the presiding judge at that trial, "letting him know that his connection to that case had been discovered."

Finally, there's the moral logic. It's not as if Holder opposes military commissions on principle. On the same day he sent KSM to a civilian trial in New York, Holder announced he was sending Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole, to a military tribunal.

By what logic? In his congressional testimony last week, Holder was utterly incoherent in trying to explain. In his Nov. 13 news conference, he seemed to be saying that if you attack a civilian target, as in 9/11, you get a civilian trial; a military target like the Cole, and you get a military tribunal.

What a perverse moral calculus. Which is the war crime -- an attack on defenseless civilians or an attack on a military target such as a warship, an accepted act of war which the U.S. itself has engaged in countless times?

By what possible moral reasoning, then, does KSM, who perpetrates the obvious and egregious war crime, receive the special protections and constitutional niceties of a civilian courtroom, while he who attacked a warship is relegated to a military tribunal?

Moreover the incentive offered any jihadi is as irresistible as it is perverse: Kill as many civilians as possible on American soil and Holder will give you Miranda rights, a lawyer, a propaganda platform -- everything but your own blog.

Alternatively, Holder tried to make the case that he chose a civilian New York trial as a more likely venue for securing a conviction. An absurdity: By the time Obama came to office, KSM was ready to go before a military commission, plead guilty and be executed. It's Obama who blocked a process that would have yielded the swiftest and most certain justice.

Indeed the perfect justice. Whenever a jihadist volunteers for martyrdom, we should grant his wish. Instead this one, the most murderous and unrepentant of all, gets to dance and declaim at the scene of his crime.

Holder himself told The Washington Post that the coming New York trial will be "the trial of the century." The last such was the trial of O.J. Simpson.












obama

Obama's Civilian Trials for Islamic Terrorists becomes a Platform to Attack America

Thank you Mr. Obama.




Attorney: 9/11 defendants want platform to air views




By Jordan Fabian - 11/22/09 05:27 PM ET
The Hill


A lawyer representing one of the 9/11 defendants said Sunday that the five defendants will plead not guilty to air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy.

Scott Fenstermaker, the attorney of accused 9/11 terrorist Ali Abd Al-Aziz Ali, said that his client will not deny his role in the attacks but instead "would explain what happened and why they did it," according to an Associated Press report.

The Justice Department earlier this month announced that Ali and four other accused terrorists, including so-called 9/11 "mastermind" Khlaid Sheikh Mohammad, will stand trial in a Lower Manhattan court close to Ground Zero. Ali is a cousin of Mohammad.

Congressional Republicans have opposed the trials in part because they feared the accused terrorists would use them as a stage to broadcast their viewpoints. But Democrats have supported the trials, saying they will serve as an opportunity to bring the terrorists to justice and help close the Guantamao Bay, Cuba detention center.
Mohammed, Ali and the others will explain "their assessment of American foreign policy," Fenstermaker said. "Their assessment is negative."

Fenstermaker met with Ali last week at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He has not spoken with the others but said the men have discussed the trial among themselves. Fenstermaker was first quoted in Sunday's New York Times.











terrorists

New York Trial for Khalid Sheihk Mohammad

Interesting.

The very last paragraph/sentence in addition to Obama having already found the guy guilty, and sentenced to death.  Both are worth reading.

The last sentence - $75 million in security costs.  At Guantanamo there would be no unusual costs.  In the US there will be.  For each it would be between $50-70 million each for security + $5-8 million for court costs, plus appeals ($10-15 million) + $80k a year in prison ... MULTIPLY all of that by about 200 prisoners.





Obama: Professed 9/11 mastermind will be convicted


Nov 18, 2009
08:54 AM US/Eastern
By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writer



WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama predicted that professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be convicted, as Attorney General Eric Holder defended putting him through the U.S. civilian legal system.

In one of a series of TV interviews during his trip to Asia, Obama said those offended by the legal privileges given to Muhammed by virtue of getting a civilian trial rather than a military tribunal won't find it "offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him."

Obama quickly added that he did not mean to suggest he was prejudging the outcome of Mohammed's trial. "I'm not going to be in that courtroom," he said. "That's the job of the prosecutors, the judge and the jury."

But he did say it!

In interviews broadcast on NBC and CNN Wednesday, the president also said that experienced prosecutors in the case who specialize in terrorism have offered assurances that "we'll convict this person with the evidence they've got, going through our system."

Obama said the American people should have no concern about the capability of civilian courts to try suspected terrorists. Attorney General Eric Holder last week announced the decision to bring Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a lower Manhattan courthouse.

Holder sought to explain U.S. prosecution strategy in remarks prepared for delivery later Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where lawmakers are likely to spar over his decision last week to send Mohammed and four alleged henchmen from a detention center at Guantanamo Bay to New York to face a civilian federal trial in New York.

Critics of Holder's decision—mostly Republicans—have argued the trial will give Mohammed a world stage to spout hateful rhetoric.

In his prepared remarks, Holder said such concerns are misplaced, because judges can control unruly defendants and any pronouncements by Mohammed would only make him look worse.

"I have every confidence the nation and the world will see him for the coward he is," Holder says in a written version of his remarks obtained by The Associated Press. "I'm not scared of what (Mohammed) will have to say at trial—and no one else needs to be either."

Holder says the public and the nation's intelligence secrets can be protected during a public trial in civilian court.

"We need not cower in the face of this enemy," Holder says. "Our institutions are strong, our infrastructure is sturdy, our resolve is firm, and our people are ready."

Holder announced Friday that five accused Sept. 11 conspirators currently held at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be transferred to federal court in Manhattan to face trial—just blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center.

Five other suspects, Holder said, will be sent to face justice before military commissions in the United States, though a location for those commissions has not yet been determined.

The actual transfer of the suspects to New York is still many weeks away. The transfers are a key step in Obama's pledge to close the detention center at Guantanamo, which currently houses some 215 detainees. The administration is not expected to meet its January deadline to shutter the facility.

The president echoed Holder's comments about the New York trial.

"I think this notion that we have to be fearful that these terrorists possess some special powers that prevent us from presenting evidence against them, locking them up and exacting swift justice, I think that has been a fundamental mistake," Obama said in an interview with CNN.

In addition to the 10 detainees named Friday, Holder is expected to send others to trials and commissions in the United States.

Another, larger group of detainees is expected to be released to other countries. Some, the president has said, are too dangerous to be released and cannot be put on trial, and those detainees will continue to be imprisoned.

The attorney general says his decisions between trials and commissions were based strictly on which venues he thought would bring the strongest prosecution.

Opponents of the plan, including Holder's predecessor Michael Mukasey, have accused him of adopting a "pre-9/11" approach to terrorism.

Holder emphatically denies that.

"We are at war, and we will use every instrument of national power—civilian, military, law enforcement, intelligence, diplomatic and others—to win," Holder says.

Separately, a member of the Judiciary Committee, Democrat Charles Schumer of New York, is urging the administration to reimburse the city for what he says could be $75 million in extra security costs related to the terror trials.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
trial in New York

Court Cases: New York

If anyone is interested in legal cases, and ghosts -


STAMBOVSKY v. ACKLEY (1991)
(169 AD 2d 254, 572 NYS 2d 672)

Stambovsky bought a home from Ackley (owner, and her realty - Ellis realtors) and was disappointed to find out later (after purchase) that the home had a phantasmal reputation (haunted). Stambovsky argued he should have been told in advance of such conditions and because he was not, Ackley had violated vendor/purchaser conditions of contract.

ONLY case I know where a COURT determined that a house is, as a matter of law, haunted.

It is, by the way, for anyone interested - located in the Village of Nyack, New York. The home is a Victorian style and is located on a river. May be a cheap buy today. I have no idea of what has become of this house - just the situation between 1977 and 1993.

The homes along the river are quite massive. The address is 1 LaVeta Place.

There is a book on the subject: Sir George, The Ghost of Nyack by Bill Merrill & Glenn Johnson (Deer Publishing, Beaverton, OR).

ghosts

A more controversial story -

- occured at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, New York in 1975. It instigated several lawsuits and many movies - and the house is still there although the address may or may not have been changed.

ghosts