Cuba
First Gitmo detainee to stand civilian trial gets life sentence
Judge calls former bin Laden cook and bodyguard's attacks on two U.S. embassies "horrific"
Ahmed Ghailani A judge sentenced the first Guantanamo detainee to have a U.S. civilian trial to life in prison Tuesday, saying anything he suffered at the hands of the CIA and others “pales in comparison to the suffering and the horror” caused by the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced Ahmed Ghailani to life, calling the attacks “horrific” and saying the deaths and damage they caused far outweighs “any and all considerations that have been advanced on behalf of the defedndant.” He also ordered Ghailani to pay a $33 million fine.
Kaplan announced the sentenced in a packed Manhattan courtroom after calling it a day of justice for the defendant, as well as for the families of 224 people who died in the al-Qaida bombings, including a dozen Americans, and thousands more who were injured.
Kaplan denounced the attacks and said he was satisfied that Ghailani knew and intended that people would be killed as a result of his actions and the conspiracy he joined.
“This crime was so horrible,” he said. “It was a cold-blooded killing and maiming of innocent people on an enormous scale. It wrecked the lives of thousands more … who had their lives changed forever. The purpose of the crime was to create terror by causing death and destruction on a scale that was hard to imagine in 1998 when it occurred.”
Ghailani, 36, was convicted late last year of conspiring to destroy government buildings but acquitted of more than 200 counts of murder and dozens of other charges. He had asked for leniency, saying he never intended to kill anyone and he was tortured.
Ghailani, a Tanzanian, was captured in Pakistan in 2004 and later interrogated overseas at a secret CIA-run camp. He was moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006 before being transferred to New York for prosecution in 2009.
The trial late last year at a lower Manhattan courthouse had been viewed as a test for President Barack Obama’s aim of putting other terrorism detainees — including self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed — on trial on U.S. soil.
Evidence at trial showed that Ghailani helped purchase bomb components prior to the attacks, including 15 gas tanks designed to enhance the power of the bombs, along with one of the bomb vehicles. Written descriptions of FBI interviews quoted Ghailani as saying he realized a week before the bombings that they were intended to strike a U.S. embassy.
The jury did not see those descriptions, but they were submitted for Kaplan to consider for sentencing.
The FBI also said Ghailani was trained by al-Qaida after the twin 1998 attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and became a bodyguard and cook for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan before becoming an expert document forger for the terrorist organization.
Ghailani’s lawyers argued that he was duped by friends into participating in the attack and was upset when he saw the damage done.
Ghailani is the fifth person to be sentenced. Four others were sentenced to life in prison after a 2001 trial in Manhattan federal court. Bin Laden is charged in the indictment, as well.
Before sentencing, defense attorney Peter Quijano portrayed his client as a hero, saying he had provided U.S. authorities with “intelligence and information that arguably saved lives and I submit that is not hyperbole.”
He also said Ghailani cried when he learned about the attacks. Ghailani declined to speak on his own behalf.
Obama to ease Cuba travel restrictions
Students seeking academic credit and churches traveling for religious purposes would be allowed to go unrestricted
A2REAC Cuba Havana bicycle taxi moving past Viva Cuba wall mural(Credit: Alamy) President Barack Obama plans to loosen Cuban travel policy to allow students and church groups to go to the communist country, the administration announced Friday.
Students seeking academic credit and churches traveling for religious purposes will be able to go to Cuba. The plan will also let any American send as much as $500 every three months to Cuban citizens who are not part of the Castro administration and are not members of the Communist Party.
Also, more airports will be allowed to offer charter service. Right now, only three airports in Miami, Los Angeles and New York City can offer authorized charters to Cuba. That will be expanded to any international airport with proper customs and immigration facilities as long as a licensed travel agencies asks to run charters from the airport.
Continue Reading CloseFidel Castro’s nemesis goes on trial in Texas
82-year-old avowed militant faces charges connected to decade-old bombings that killed an Italian tourist
Fidel Castro’s nemesis has filled the walls of his Miami-area condo with his canvases: Revolutionaries on horseback charging Spanish soldiers; dark waves crashing against the shore; the sun setting on a peaceful farmer.
For some Cuban exiles, avowed militant Luis Posada Carriles is like the horsemen, a patriot who has long battled a fearsome oppressor. To his foes, Posada is like the waves, a dangerous force responsible for Havana hotel bombings, assassination attempts on Castro and one of the deadliest pre-9/11 airliner explosions.
Continue Reading CloseProposed Florida immigration bill would exempt white immigrants
A Republican bill wouldn't make Canadians or western Europeans prove they're in Florida legally
Florida State Representative William Snyder Florida Republican state legislator William Snyder has proposed a great new immigration law for his state, modeled on that one in Arizona. But this one — which GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott supports, of course — has a special twist: White people are exempt!
The more articulate/acceptable-to-the-mainstream supporters of the Arizona law usually point out that the law forbids police from racial profiling. The proposed Florida bill doesn’t really bother pretending.
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Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.
Cuban leaders lay out details for massive layoffs
500,000 state workers to be laid off by March 2011 will raise rabbits, pilot ferries, collect garbage
Cuba’s communist leaders have already determined what they want soon-to-be-dismissed workers to do after they get their pink slips in massive government layoffs, detailing a plan for them to raise rabbits, paint buildings, make bricks, collect garbage and pilot ferries across Havana’s bay.
The plans, along with a timetable for which government sectors will get the ax first, are laid out in an internal Communist Party document obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. Cuba on Monday announced plans to cut 500,000 state workers by March 2011 and help them get work in the private sector, in the most sweeping reforms instituted since President Raul Castro took over from his brother in 2008.
Continue Reading CloseAndrea Rodriguez is a San Francisco writer. More Andrea Rodriguez.
Report: Castro blasts Ahmadinejad as anti-Semitic
Former Cuban dictator criticizes Iran president, questions his own actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962
Fidel Castro criticized Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for what he called his anti-Semitic attitudes and questioned his own actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 during interviews with an American journalist he summoned to Havana to discuss fears of global nuclear war.
Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, blogged on the magazine’s website Tuesday that he was on vacation last month when the head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington — which Cuba maintains there instead of an embassy — called to say Castro had read his recent article about Israel and Iran and wanted him to come to Cuba.
Continue Reading ClosePage 2 of 19 in Cuba