Jury selection began today in Chicago in the trial of Tahawwur Hussein Rana, charged with conspiracy in the Mumbai bombings and a planned attack on a news agency in Denmark. The jury was given a questionnaire and told to return tomorrow. You can view the questionnaire here.

The trial may have major implications for the Pakistani ISI:

The proceedings are likely to add fuel to a diplomatic crisis over suspicions of official Pakistani complicity with terrorism after U.S. commandos killed Osama bin Laden on May 2 in a garrison city just 55 kilometers from Islamabad.

Pakistani intelligence, under the microscope following the revelation that the al-Qaida chief lived for years under the noses of Pakistani authorities, will come in for further scrutiny because the indictment names officers of Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency as conspirators in the Mumbai attacks.

More on the implications for Pakistan-US relations today at The Guardian. All of our coverage is available here.

When the Chicago terror case against Daood Gilani, aka David Coleman Headley and Tawawwur Hussein Rana first came to light, the most striking fact was that Headley had two prior heroin convictions and bargained his way out of heavy time for both by cooperating for the DEA. After 13 years of on and off again cooperation, he wasn't a newbie at the cooperation game, and he was well known to his handlers. Yet the DEA dropped the ball on Headley big time. And no heads have rolled.

In 1988 Gilani/Headley was busted at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, when a customs officer asked to check his belongings. Finding 2 kilos of heroin inside, he called for a D.E.A. agent stationed nearby and who arrived at the scene? Derek Maltz. Maltz, who has since been promoted to head of DEA Special Operations, is 48 now. (He still crows after every big bust, but he's been focused more on Mexico and South America lately, it seems. Here's a You Tube video of him a few months ago, pleased as punch with his new perps. Or read this description of one of his many talks.

He's been with the agency 25 years (his father also spent his career in drug enforcement). He would have been 25 when he was stationed in Frakfurt and made Headley's bust. Within two days (probably on the flight home) Headley agreed to cooperate. Two days later, he was back home at his apartment in Philly, all wired up for his first snare. [More...]

Jury selection begins next week in the Chicago terror trial of Tahawwur Hussain Rana, charged with participation in the 2008 Mumbai bombings, the planned attack on a news agency in Denmark, and providing matierial support to Lashkar e Tayyiba (LeT.) The Second Superseding Indictment is here. Both Rana and the Government's star witness, former DEA informant David Headley, who cooperated in exchange for taking the death penalty and extradition to India and Pakistan off the table, insist they were receiving instructions from Pakistan's ISI and military. While the Judge won't let the information about ISI and Army in the front door, it's bound to come in the back door.

Today the Court entered a minute order directing Rana to respond to the Government's motion to exclude his expert witness, Marc Sageman. Sageman is a counter-terror expert, former CIA agent and psychiatrist who is the leading proponent of the theory that al Qaeda as a central organization is no longer a big threat, that Pakistan houses the main terror groups in the region. Here's his 2009 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Global terror is more of a grass-roots thing in recent years, composed of leaderless jihadis. They may be affiliated with or inspired by al Qaeda but al Qaeda, the core group, is too weak to provide much more.

So why does Rana want to call Sageman, and why does the Government object? [More...]

India today released its dossiers on the five new defendants in the upcoming federal terror trial of Tahawwur Hussain Rana, charged with conspiracy in the Mumbai bombings and planned attack in Denmark. Rana will be on trial by himself, as none of the others have been arrested. David Headley, aka Daood Giliani, who was originally a defendant, will be the star witness against Rana, having cooperated and pleaded guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty and extradition to India or Pakistan.

The dossiers, available here, expose the connections between Lashkar e Tayyiba (leT) and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). [More...]

The Pentagon is considering a death penalty trial for Abd al Rahim al Nashiri at Guantanamo. al-Nashiri is accused of orchestrating the U.S.S. Cole bombings near Yemen in 2000.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes and New Mexico criminal defense attorney Nancy Hollander are already on the case. This week, the Pentagon agreed to also fund death penalty lawyer, Rick Kammen of Indiana, at the CJA rate of $178 per hour. The Pentagon authorized 200 hours for Kammen, who previously represented al-Nashiri, to cover the period up to the Pentagon's final decision on whether to seek death. The order is here. The order says Kammen's representation will benefit both the Government and the defense.

The Pentagon is required, by law, to pay for an experienced death penalty counsel under 18 U.S.C. § 949a(b)(2)©(ii) and R.M.C. 506(b).

I don't know Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes, but I do know both Nancy and Rick, and they will be great advocates for al-Nashiri. [More...]

Here are Attorney General Eric Holder's remarks today explaining the Administration's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 detainees before a military tribunal rather than in a federal criminal court.

[W]e must face a simple truth: those restrictions are unlikely to be repealed in the immediate future.

Holder said the five detainees, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Al Hawsaw, were indicted in the Southern District of New York in December, 2009, but he has now instructed prosecutors to dismiss the sealed indictment and turned the cases over to the Department of Defense. Today, a federal judge in New York granted the motion and unsealed the Indictment. [More...]

Attorney General Eric Holder will announce at 2:00 pm today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 detainees at Guantanamo will be tried by military commission instead of in federal criminal court.

Obama and Holder deserves there lumps over this, but the primary fault lies with Congress and officials in New York. [More...]

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, aka the Underwear Bomber, will go to trial on October 4. The federal judge presiding over his case today refused to set a later date.

Judge Nancy Edmunds tried to talk the 24 year old out of representing himself -- he fired his public defenders months ago -- to no avail. He does have a standby counsel.

As Abdulmutallab repeatedly affirmed that he wished to continue as his own lawyer, the judge reminded him that -- even if he accepted representation -- he could always come to her directly with any concerns or questions.

"I understand you may worry about losing control over what happens to you," she said. "I can understand that is a frightening prospect and I am here to listen."

Abdulmutallab faces life in prison if convicted. His stand-by counsel says it's a very defensible case. Apparently, the Public Defender's office has expert reports that the device in his underwear could not have blown up the airplane.

A federal judge today sentenced Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani,convicted of conspiracy in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa, to life without parole.

Ghailani, whose case was moved from Guantanamo to federal criminal court in New York, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property and acquitted of more than 280 charges of murder and conspiracy.

Mr. Ghailani received the same maximum life sentence, without parole, that he would have faced had he been convicted of all counts; and it seems likely that he will be sent to the so-called Supermax federal prison in Florence, Colo., where other defendants convicted in the same embassy plot are being held.

Ghailani's lawyers raised his torture while being held in a CIA "black hole" prison, and the fact that he had provided valuable intelligence as mitigation.

Judge Lewis Kaplan has issued a 56 page opinion upholding the conviction of Ahmed Ghailani for the 1988 U.S. Embassy bombings.

From the ruling (available on PACER): Judge Kaplan notes that Ghailani's defense from the beginning "was the contention that he was an innocent dupe – that is, that he innocently performed benign acts which, with the benefit of hindsight, turned out to have furthered plans of others to bomb the embassies." He quotes the defense stating to the jury:

“One question. I'll make this as easy for you today as possible because there is one question for you to decide. Did he know? After four weeks of trial, dozens of witnesses, hundreds of exhibits, 200-some charges, I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, there is one question: Did he know and did he know beyond a reasonable doubt? And based on the facts and the law, the answer to that one question simply is no. Ahmed did not know.”

[More...]

President Obama is about to lift the ban on military commission trials at Guantanamo.

One of those expected to be recharged and tried is Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, who was captured in 2002. Al-Nashiri was originally charged by the Bush Administration with participating in the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. He was facing the death penalty. The Obama Administration moved to dismiss the charges against in in 2009. Al-Nashiri's co-defendants were moved to federal court. Why wasn't Al-Nashiri? The obvious answer is because the evidence against him was obtained by torture. His lawyer, Lt. Com. Stephen Reyes says:

“Nashiri is being prosecuted at the commissions because of the torture issue,” Mr. Reyes said. “Otherwise he would be indicted in New York along with his alleged co-conspirators.”

[More...]

Karl Rove has an op-ed in the Wall St. Journal taking issue with President Obama's view that one of the reasons Guantanamo should be closed is that it serves as a training ground for terrorists. Rove argues that al Qaeda doesn't view Guantanamo as a significant issue, and that trying detainees in federal court will play into al Qaeda's hands by making them martyrs.

It's the second point, the "martyr" issue, where Rove's argument falls far short of the mark and also weakens his first point.

New York juries in the past have beaten al Qaeda at the martyr game, by rejecting the death penalty and returning verdicts of life in prison. Once the terror defendants are whisked away to Supermax for life, we rarely hear from them again. No martyrdom, just decades of isolation. What have you heard from Zacarias Moussaoui or Richard Reid since they began serving their life sentences? Zip. They have been silenced, except for their occasional pro se court pleadings, which get little if any coverage. Any chance for martyrdom has been effectively eliminated. [More...]