Vol. 73/No. 48      December 14, 2009

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to “a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” Defendants must be “informed of the nature and cause of the accusation,” against them, the amendment says, allowed “to be confronted with the witnesses” against them, and be represented by an attorney.

Statements by President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have made it clear there will be no such constitutional guarantees for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi. They are accused of “conspiring to commit the September 11 attacks” on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Currently incarcerated at the U.S. prison at Guantánamo, they are scheduled to be tried in federal court in lower Manhattan.

Banking on widespread revulsion over the September attacks, the government hopes to win acceptance for curtailing rights for those accused of “terrorism,” in effect making it more difficult for workers across the country who are already denied basic rights in the class-biased capitalist courts.
 
No presumption of innocence
The denial of rights to the five defendants begins with refusing them the presumption of innocence, the assumption that they are not guilty until proven so beyond “reasonable” doubt in a courtroom.

All have been incarcerated under extremely inhumane conditions since their arrest six to seven years ago. The case of Mohammed is perhaps best known. A 2005 Justice Department memorandum, released earlier this year, revealed that Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding 183 times during interrogation. In this method of torture, the prisoner’s head is covered while water is poured over the face, simulating the sensation of drowning.

Top administration figures have stated that the men are already guilty as far as Washington is concerned. Asked at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing November 18 what would happen if the men are not convicted, Holder flatly stated: “Failure is not an option.”

Obama went further, telling reporters the same day that those offended by a civilian trial for Mohammed—portrayed by Washington as the “mastermind” of the attacks—won’t think it’s offensive “when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.”

The Justice Department has explained that the five men will not have access to all the “evidence” against them. Holder told the Senate hearing the government will use the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) to “protect classified material during trial.” CIPA allows the government to withhold from defendants any “evidence” deemed “classified information,” which is loosely defined as anything that “would cause identifiable damage to the national security of the United States.” Instead of knowing what the “classified information” is, the defendant can be given a mere “generic” description, despite the fact the information is being used as “evidence” of a crime.

Holder also told the Senate panel that Mohammed would not be allowed to “spew his hateful ideology” in court and that the judge would impose “appropriate decorum” in the courtroom. Such broad restrictions further narrows what constitutes a fair trial, a danger to workers’ rights.
 
No right to choose counsel
Meanwhile, another dangerous precedent is being set in the “terror” trial of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian accused of “conspiring” to aid al-Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Ghailani requested that the military lawyers assigned to him at Guantánamo since 2008 be allowed to continue representing him in civilian court. The Pentagon rejected Ghailani’s right to choose his own counsel and prohibited the Guantánamo lawyers from continuing to represent him. Judge Lewis Kaplan upheld that decision.

Kaplan said that while the Sixth Amendment does give defendants the right to an attorney, the “right to counsel of choice does not extend to defendants who require counsel to be appointed for them.”
 
 
Related articles:
Eight more Somali men indicted in FBI probe
Civil liberties attorney to be resentenced in April  
 
 
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