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November 18, 2010

Gitmo Prisoner Acquitted of All But One Charge in Embassy Bombings
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A federal jury has acquitted former Guantánamo prisoner Ahmed Khalfan
Ghailani on all but one charge in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in
Kenya and Tanzania. After five days of deliberations, the jury found
Ghailani not guilty on 284 of 285 counts. Although the lone guilty
verdict came on a minor conspiracy charge, he still faces a minimum
sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life. Ghailani was the
first former Guantánamo prisoner tried in a U.S. civilian court.
Prosecutors had described him as a mass murderer with "the blood of
hundreds on his hands." But the defense argued Ghailani was a pawn
unwittingly exploited by al-Qaeda. Outside the courtroom, Ghailani’s
attorney, Peter Quijano, hailed the verdict.

Peter Quijano: "This verdict is a reaffirmation that this nation’s
judicial system is the greatest ever devised. It is truly a system of
laws and not men. We’re in the shadow of the World Trade Center. This
jury acquitted Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani of 284 out of 285 counts. At the
start of this trial, we believed that Ahmed was truly innocent of all
these charges. Please understand that we still truly believe he is
innocent of all of these charges."

Ghailani was captured in Pakistan in 2004, taken to a secret overseas
CIA jail, then moved to Guantánamo in 2006. At the start of the trial,
the presiding federal judge barred the government from calling in their
star witness, ruling that information about the witness had been
revealed by Ghailani while he was being tortured in a secret CIA prison.
His trial had been seen as a potential test for the Obama
administration’s stated plans to try other former prisoners on trial in
U.S. courtrooms.



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