President Obama's plan to close the Guantánamo Bay prison is facing its first test, said Edith Honan in Reuters. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was moved to New York from the controversial detention center for foreign terrorism suspects to face trial for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. What happens next will show whether Obama was right when he contended that "some of the around 240 detainees at the camp can be brought to trial in criminal cases and imprisoned in the United States."
"This is going to get curiouser and curiouser before it ends," said Hot Air. Will evidence obtained in interrogations be admissible in court? Does a New York judge even have jurisdiction over a Tanzanian national accused of a bombing in Kenya? And what happens if Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani hires a dream team of lawyers who "pull off an epic O.J.," and he's acquitted? "I got a bad feeling about this one."
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani's transfer to New York won't quiet protests about bringing "Gitmo goons" onto U.S. soil, said James Gordon Meek in the New York Daily News. But praise from relatives of embassy bombing victims has quieted Obama's congressional critics. And Attorney General Eric Holder said U.S. courts and prisons can keep Americans safe from terrorists—if convicted, Ghailani will join 216 convicted terrorists already being held in essentially escape-proof "supermax" prisons.
