Let us talk to Sept 11 planner, US lawyers ask

[NNN0LHI]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080208/ts_nm/guantanamo_dc

By Jane Sutton
Fri Feb 8, 4:43 PM ET



GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Military lawyers defending Osama bin Laden's former driver on terrorism charges in the U.S. war court at Guantanamo Bay have offered a compromise in their quest to interview September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

They promised not to ask Mohammed about his treatment in U.S. custody or about the CIA's admission that it subjected him to a simulated drowning technique known as "waterboarding" during interrogations.

Bin Laden's former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 and faces life in prison if convicted in the Guantanamo court of conspiring with al Qaeda and providing material support for terrorism.

The Yemeni man said he never joined al Qaeda, had no advance knowledge of its attacks and became bin Laden's driver in Afghanistan because he needed the salary of $200 per month. snip

"The defense is asking for access to some of the most notorious terrorists the world has ever seen," said one of the prosecutors, Air Force Lt. Col. William Britt.

There was a risk of endangering U.S. agents if Mohammed revealed to the defense lawyers the sources and methods the government used to get information from him, prosecutors said.

The CIA has acknowledged using waterboarding, which critics say is a form of illegal torture, on Mohammed and two other senior al Qaeda leaders who were later sent to Guantanamo.

[L. Coyote]

1. Welcome to the world of two-tiered justice, like when things were black and white

Remember the days when blacks and whites had separate justice?
You should because those days are still here, of course!

Well, now we have another new legal underclass, and you can be assigned to this new class without regard to color!
That's really handy, and a "much more constitutional" form of discrimination, right? Because the distinction is your politics!

It is too easy to divide the world into good and bad, black and white.
Once done, the problem is controlling who sets the boundary.