Editorial: Judging the first Gitmo trial

For the first time, the Justice Department transferred a Guantanamo detainee to a U.S. civilian… For the first time, the Justice Department transferred a Guantanamo detainee to a U.S. civilian court for trial. Despite complex questions and complications, this is important progress for the United States’ recommitment to constitutional ideals.

Ahmed Ghailani, a Tanzanian, is accused of aiding Osama bin Laden and conspiring in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies. Captured in 2004 and held in secret CIA prisons until his transfer to Guantanamo Bay in 2006, Ghailani now faces 286 charges.

Obviously, the Justice Department is using this initial test case as a cherry-picked example that the closing of Guantanamo will not necessarily result in the release of terrorists. Though he apologized and denied knowledge of his co-conspirators’ intent, Ghailani confessed to supplying equipment for the bombings that killed 224 people.

This time, that’s a good thing. Too often, critics like Dick Cheney claim that the closing of Guantanamo will free would-be killers and expose the United States to grave dangers. This case should prove those paranoid critics wrong. For both citizens and foreign captives, this country must protect basic human liberties, of which an impartial trial is one example. At its pinnacle, a truly fair and equal judicial system — for which the United States claims to strive — exonerates the innocent, but it also punishes guilty offenders.

U.S. correctional facilities are proficient at housing those convicts. Anyone worried that detainees might somehow escape and endanger Americans should inspect the nation’s current jail system. Federal super-max prisons are fortresses from which no prisoner has ever escaped. Also, other facilities already house criminals as heinous as anyone likely to come out of Guantanamo, including the Unabomber, the 1993 World Trade Center bombers and a Sept. 11 attack conspirator, not to mention Charles Manson and serial killer the Son of Sam. U.S. prisons are quite capable of housing threats to citizens’ safety. That’s the point.

However, the Justice Department must not only offer trials to detainees with nigh-guaranteed guilty verdicts. This judicial process bears tremendous importance in the restoration of the United States’ values and image. A perpetual succession of death sentences and life imprisonments would cast almost as much doubt on this country’s commitment to justice as the continued denial of habeas corpus. This can’t just be more merciless posturing to showcase the United States’ unchecked ability to punish anyone suspected of transgressions.

A recent Pentagon report found that one in seven of the 534 Guantanamo detainees released without charge are “engaged in terrorism or militant activity,” according to the New York Times. This claim conversely means that six in seven are not. Also, factor in the likelihood that a few of those offenders might be engaging in terrorism for the first time, following years of unjustified imprisonment.

It seems the biggest worry is that some people might actually be found innocent and released. Though this sentiment doesn’t spawn so much from a worry that false detention has created terrorists. Rather, it seems to manifest from a belief that mistakenly detaining some innocents is worth the risk of releasing even one terrorist.

This runs antithetical to the United States’ historic ideals of equal justice under the law. Since President George W. Bush opened the Guantanamo facility in 2001, some prisoners might finally get a chance to touch that justice, so long as the scales of liberty aren’t unfairly tipped in one direction.