Archive

Ex-Gitmo Prisoner Acquitted on Most Terror Counts

Landmark

Found guilty only of conspiracy in 1998 bombings.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the ex-Guantanamo detainee, was acquitted on Wednesday on all but one of the terrorism charges against him in a civilian court in New York. The first Guantanamo detainee to be tried in civilian courts, Ghailani was acquitted of 280 charges of terrorism and murder in the 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. The jury, comprised of six men and six women, found Ghailani guilty of one charge of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property. Ghailani had been captured in Pakistan in 2004 was held for five years at Guantanamo Bay, and the prosecution had a largely circumstantial case against Ghailani, since they chose not to introduce statements Ghailani made during his CIA interrogation at Guantanamo Bay.

Read it at The New York Times