The Obama administration has dropped the charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is suspected of being a high level Al Qaeda operative and planning the bombing on the U.S.S. Cole. When Obama directed prosecutors to ask for 120-day continuances in Gitmo detainee trials, Army Col. James L. Pohl, the judge in al-Nashiri’s case, refused saying that the government’s reasoning was “not persuasive.”
Yesterday there was a bit of a freakout among civil libertarians that Obama would decide to go ahead with the trial against al-Nashiri, who claims he only confessed to a role in the U.S.S Cole bombing because he was tortured. But it looks more like the administration was dragging its feet because, according to Jake Tapper, it had a meeting with the families of the victims of the Cole bombing and didn’t want to drop the charges until afterwards.
Tapper quotes Commander Kirk Lippold, the commanding officer on the U.S.S. Cole when it was bombed expressing disappointment with Obama’s decision, saying “I’m looking forward to hearing what the president has to say tomorrow when he meets with the families of the U.S.S. Cole.” No disrespect to Commander Lippold, but the military commissions have, at this point, been discredited as an effective engine for justice in terrorism cases. The fact that the Obama administration has dropped the charges does not mean that al-Nashiri will not be charged again in the future, and if guilty, convicted. But the place for that is in a civilian court, where the case against al-Nashiri won’t be tainted by torture or coercion.
— A. Serwer
