- The Washington Post reported on the tragedy and travesty
of the convictions of six men in Lackawanna, New York, the so-called "Lackawanna
Six." John Ashcroft's prosecutors charged the men with conspiring
to attend an al-Qaeda terrorist camp. Does that sound a little far-fetched
to you? Like two lovers conspiring to have an illicit affair that is never
consummated? Or two stock brokers talking about how they might pull off
some scam?
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- The men were never charged with any act of terrorism.
They were nailed for briefly attending a training camp for jihadists in
Afghanistan. They didn't stay long, and only one of the had any evidence
that suggested he might engage in terrorism. Five of the six were born
in Lackawanna, and all had gone to school there and continued to live there
as adults.
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- The Justice Department publicly condemned the men as
operating a terrorist cell in Lackawanna, a charge that did not stick.
Indeed, the conspiracy charge itself was so weak that as I followed the
case, I was hoping for a win to put Ashcroft in his place.
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- But that did not happen. All six pled guilty and will
serve an average of nine years in prison. Their lawyers are sick about
it, the men and their families resigned to their fates. Why did they plead?
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- Simply, because they knew that if they did not plead
guilty, and if the government's case ran into trouble (as it seemed it
would), the prosecutors would do as the prosecutors in the Zacarias Moussaoui
case may do; ask President Bush to declare the men enemy combatants, and
remand them to a military jail somewhere where they can, under current
court decisions, stay for the rest of their lives--without being charged
or tried. Or they could be charged, tried, and perhaps executed by a military
tribunal, as the Pentagon is preparing to do with enemy combatants seized
from overseas and detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
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- Their defense began to unravel when the two witnesses
capable of testifying about their lack of involvement in al-Qaeda could
not be produced--one was thought to be held in Guantanamo, but the government
refused to admit he was there. The other was killed by the US in a car
bombing in Yemen. Coincidence? Perhaps, perhaps not. But convenient for
the prosecution, regardless.
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- The men were not willing to resist disappearing into
the black hole reserved for enemy combatants, and who could blame them?
For one federal court of appeals, the 4th Circuit in Richmond, ruled that
once Bush declares someone an enemy combatant, the judiciary must not look
behind the designation and question its propreity or credibility. That's
right, no meaningful judicial review.
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- The prosecutors may just as well have put a gun to the
men's heads and threatened to kill them on the spot if they did not plead.
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- That is not what prosecutors are supposed to do. They
are supposed to charge fairly and uphold the rule of law. Their duty is
not to get convictions but to do justice. Funny, what the Lackawanna prosecutors
called justice looks more like that of China, Pakistan, and the Sudan,
than that required under the Constitution of the United States.
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- But that was the first Constitution, the one before the
Constitution according to Bush, Ashcroft, and Rumsfeld.
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- -----
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- Elaine Cassel practices law in Virginia and the District
of Columbia, teachers law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime's
dismantling of the Constitution at Civil Liberties Watch. She can be reached
at: ecassel1@cox.net
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- http://www.counterpunch.org/cassel07302003.html
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