The confusion over renditions

[unhappycamper]

The confusion over renditions
By Richard Clarke
January 29, 2009

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S order to close the Guantanamo prison provoked comments from the right about the risks of bringing terrorist prisoners to the United States. His order banning torture, but not outlawing "extraordinary renditions," caused some on the left to complain. Both groups of critics, though, either overlook relevant parts of recent history or simply get that history wrong.

Before George W. Bush, there was no real question about what the United States should do with people who broke American anti-terror laws. It did not matter whether they were arrested in the United States or overseas. In the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, for example, one suspect, Muhammad Salameh, was caught in New Jersey. Another, Ramzi Yousef, was caught in Pakistan. Upon arrest, both were given their Miranda rights, arraigned before a US magistrate, given a free lawyer appointed by the court, tried and convicted before a jury, and sentenced to the "Supermax" prison in Florence, Colo.

Nor did it matter whether terror suspects broke American law in the United States or abroad. The laws that make terrorist violence directed at Americans a crime also provide "extraterritorial jurisdiction," meaning the United States can try someone for such acts even if the crimes did not occur domestically. Mohammed Sadeek Odeh, who bombed the US embassy in Kenya, was arrested in Pakistan, returned to the United States, placed into the US justice system, afforded all the rights as an accused criminal, convicted, and is also now in Supermax.

Even in cases where the terrorist act was planned but not perpetrated, criminals were arrested and processed in federal courts. The so-called "Blind Sheik," Omar Abdul Rahman, was accused of plotting to bomb the United Nations, tunnels from Manhattan to New Jersey, and other iconic facilities. He too was convicted and placed in that same Colorado prison.

These examples demonstrate three things. First, the US criminal justice system has a history of successfully prosecuting terrorism cases and can continue doing so. There simply was no need for the special "kangaroo courts" created by the Bush administration.


Rest of article at: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/01/29/the_confusion_over_renditions/