Feds: 9/11 mastermind's testimony should be barred

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Feds: 9/11 mastermind's testimony should be barred
By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press | March 16, 2014 | Updated: March 17, 2014 11:19pm

NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors on Monday tried to stop the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks from providing testimony at the terrorism trial of Osama bin Laden's son-in-law.

The government submitted written arguments asking U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to exclude the words of Khalid Sheik Mohammed from Sulaiman Abu Ghaith's trial.

Abu Ghaith is on trial on charges he conspired to kill Americans and aided al-Qaida as the terror group's spokesman after Sept. 11. The 48-year-old onetime imam at a Kuwaiti mosque was brought to New York from Turkey last year.

Prosecutors said defense lawyers should be blocked from calling Mohammed as a witness through live, closed-circuit video from Guantanamo Bay, where he is imprisoned.


Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Feds-9-11-mastermind-s-testimony-should-be-barred-5323223.php

[DeSwiss]

1. Today boys and girls.......

...we will be discussing an ancient bedrock legal concept which Americans used to use called: The Material Witness.

material witness n. a person who apparently has information about the subject matter of a lawsuit or criminal prosecution which is significant enough to affect the outcome of the case or trial. Thus, the court must make every reasonable effort to allow such a witness to testify, including a continuance (delay in a trial) to accommodate him/her if late or temporarily unavailable. link

- Of course children, these old ideas like rights to a fair trial or to call witnesses on your behalf, etc., are always subject to updating (see- renditioning, droning, et.al.). And these updates are needed more and more nowadays, whenever our government seeks to protect us further from the terrorists who are all around us and everywhere......

K&R

[center][/center]

[Demeter]

8. It's been a fiasco for decades, now. Ever since Reagan

The Rule of Law is broken, perhaps forever, unless...

[ReRe]

2. Is this not a civil trial?

It's NOT a military tribunal, is it? All of this should have been decided in pre-trial, shouldn't it? They don't want him to testify because they can't control what comes out of his mouth when he's allowed to testify? Is it because whatever Mohammed says might just incriminate the USG? It will be very interesting to hear what the judge says tomorrow.

[LuvNewcastle]

3. I think we'd all like to hear it.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: al-Qaida in 'war of attrition' with US

The accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks has said al-Qaida is in “a war of attrition” with the United States, in one of the only statements he has issued since his capture in 2003 and subsequent torture.

In the course of an interview with US defense attorneys for Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law filed to the New York federal court where the son-in-law faces conspiracy charges, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed mused expansively on the ideology that powered the 2001 terrorist attacks and changed the course of US foreign policy.

Throughout the interview, which was facilitated by the US military command at Guantánamo Bay where the man known internationally as “KSM” has been detained since 2006, Mohammed portrayed al-Qaida as a scrappy underdog compelled to assault a vastly more powerful US and thwart what he sees as the mastermind of global iniquity, hypocrisy and godlessness.

“The enemy occupier of the Islamic world is a super power with a budget of billions while we are a small organization whose members are limited in numbers and capabilities. There is no comparison between the two sides, so it is obvious that we would have to resort to a long war of attrition to which the military and media alike contribute,” Mohammed told attorneys for Suleiman Abu Ghaith during an interview conducted around 27 February this year.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/17/khalid-sheikh-mohammed-al-qaida

[cosmicone]

5. The main reason is that KSM has been extremely unreliable

giving several versions of the same event and story depending upon the circumstances.

He was a Pakistani ISI agent and a liaison between Usama and Pakistani military.

Calling him as a witness is almost like calling Louis Gohmert or Lyndon B. Laroche or Sarah Palin --- just gives them a forum to grandstand and spew something outrageous which is definitely not the truth.

[soundsgreat]

7. doesn't matter

the defense can summon as many "unreliable" witnesses as they like. This is jurisdiction, not politics.

[reddread]

9. torture will do that n/t

[JoeyT]

13. +1

Torture someone until they make things up to make the torture stop, then complain they're unreliable because they lied.

[dotymed]

6. Rec for visibility and basic legal rights n/t

[olddad56]

10. 911 mastermind? Oh, I thought they meant Dick Cheney.

[RC]

11. That is exactly what I thought when I read the title.

The way 9/11 went down, with the emphasis on 'down', looks very much like there was some inside help.

[reddread]

12. on a you dont need to know basis

the founding principle of modern American government/justice/demockracy.

[Berlum]

14. "Smirk." - xCommander George AWOL Bush

[Eugene]

15. Judge Bars 9/11 Mastermind's Testimony in NYC

Source: Associated Press

Judge Bars 9/11 Mastermind's Testimony in NYC

NEW YORK March 18, 2014 (AP)
By TOM HAYS Associated Press

The self-described architect of the Sept. 11 attacks will not be allowed to testify in the terrorism trial of Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected a request by defense lawyers to call Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as a witness at the trial of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith using live, closed-circuit video from Guantanamo Bay, where Mohammed is imprisoned.

At a hearing during an off day at Abu Ghaith's trial, Kaplan told the defense that the testimony would be irrelevant because there was no evidence that Mohammed and Abu Ghaith had ever met or even been in the same country. He also criticized Abu Ghaith's lawyers for making the request at such a late stage.

"I have considered this very carefully," Kaplan said. "This is much ado about nothing."

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Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judge-bars-911-masterminds-testimony-nyc-22954668