Terror Trial Setback

The lead story in The New York Times this morning, “Judge Prohibits Key U.S. Witness in Terror Trial,” shows that the United States really is a place where the rule of law reigns supreme. Ahmed Ghailani, accused of blowing up a U.S. embassy in East Africa in 1998, won a ruling from the judge regarding the inadmissibility of testimony from a witnes whose existence was revealed during torture.

Mr. Ghailani spent five years at a dark site, a prison overseas run by the C.I.A., when he provided the name of the person who sold him the TNT for his action. But the judge yesterday ruled that the Fifth Amendment mandated that any evidence derived while he was there was tainted due to violation of his rights.

The ruling immediately called into question President Obama’s policy of trying current Guantanamo detainees in federal court instead of a military tribunal where the rules of evidence are less strict. But Eric Holder retorted that hundreds of terrorism subjects have been convicted in civilian court, and that this was just one ruling by one judge.

The point may be moot in any case. The judge noted that the accused would not go free even if he were acquitted due to his status as an enemy combatant.