I like Diane, but this is just a silly question. The short answer to her question, how could any lawyer represent one of the 9/11 defendants, as I repeatedly stated during my representation of Timothy McVeigh, is simple: "With pride and dedication." Even the TL kid, a high school senior at the time, worked on the McVeigh defense team for its leader Stephen Jones.

It was a great introduction to the criminal defense lawyer way of thinking, and I'm sure contributed in large part (along with his having interned at Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld's Innocent Project) to the development of his passion for helping the underdog, the person accused of a serious federal crime, and led him to become a criminal defense attorney in his own right last year.

One of my biggest accomplishments as a parent was to teach this lesson and others like them to my child, who now has them embedded within him. It's not an act. They have become his values too.

I feel the same way today. Were I called upon to represent one of the 9/11 detainees (unlikely since I'm in Denver and they will be in Illinois or New York), I'd jump at the opportunity.

A federal magistrate judge in Chicago yesterday denied bail for Tahawwur Hussain Rana, co-defendant of David Headley, aka Daood Gilani. Rana is charged with providing material support to terrorists via a planned attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The Court found Rana had immigration expertise and a net worth of $1.6 million and was a flight risk. The Government alleged in a brief (available on PACER) that recorded conversations showed Rana knew of the Mumbai attacks before they happened and expressed his approval of them. Rana is not alleged to have participated in the Mumbai attacks. His lawyer argued the recorded conversations were in large part unintelligible and Rana is not a flight risk. [More...]

Earlier we reported on President Obama's decision to move the Guantanamo detainees to Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois.

Also today, a senior administration official told the Chicago Tribune and others on a conference call the administration plans to conduct the military tribunals of the detainees at that facility.

So those going to Thomson will be those tried by military commissions -- and those who, like at Gitmo, are being held indefinitely without charges or trials. (The others will be released to their home or other countries.)

Is this any more than a change in zip code? The ACLU has more on Gitmo, Illinois.

Scott Fenstermaker is the habeas lawyer for Ammar al-Baluchi, the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and one of the detainees accused of participation in the September 11th attacks. A. Scott Piraino of The Populist has a three part interview with him on the anticipated upcoming federal trials. Here's Part I, Part II and Part III, and some background on the lawyer[whose] " persistence in securing the legal rights of detainees led to his suspension, and even drove him to sue several members of the Bush administration, including the President.."

From Part II, on the soon-to-be defendants' chances for acquittal at trial: [More...]

New charges have been filed (pdf)in Chicago against accused terrorist and former DEA cooperator David Headley, aka Daood Gilani. The U.S. Attorney's office confirms he is cooperating with both the investigation into the Danish newspaper plot and that of the 2008 Mumbai bombings. The text of the new complaint is here (pdf).

In March 2008, Headley and his co-conspirators discussed potential landing sites for a team of attackers who would arrive by sea in Mumbai, and he was instructed to take boat trips in and around the Mumbai harbor and take surveillance video, which he did during his visit to India starting in April 2008, the charges allege.

At various times, Headley allegedly conducted surveillance of other locations in Mumbai and elsewhere in India of facilities and locations that were not attacked in November 2008, including the National Defense College in Delhi, India.

The Government today also unsealed charges (available here, pdf)filed in October against retired Pakistani army major Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed (Abdur Rehman). The two-count complaint charges him with conspiracy to murder and maim persons in a foreign country, and providing material support to that foreign terrorism conspiracy, in connection with the Danish plot. [More...]

It turns out David Headley, aka Daood Gilani, the former DEA cooperator now indicted for terrorism in Chicago and suspected of playing some role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, is the half-brother of the Public Relations Officer to Pakistan's Prime Minister. In a statement, Danyel Gilani says:

Seeking to de-emphasize the connection, the PRO said, “Being much younger to Daood, I have heard that he studied at the Hasan Abdal Cadet College for sometime and in the mid-1970s shifted to America to live with his mother. Since then, the family here only had occasional links with him. In fact, because of his involvement with issues related to drugs my father wanted the rest of the family to stay away from his influence.”

Speculation keeps mounting that the feds here used Headley to infiltrate Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and that at some point he either went rogue and joined LeT, or became a double agent. [More...]

Thomas Wilner, who represented some of the Guantanamo detainees in their babeas cases in the Supreme Court has an op-ed in todays' Wall St. Journal explaining why the Obama Administration made the correct call in deciding to prosecute the 9/11 detainees in federal court. What's truly frightening is the abundance of ignorant comments to his article.

I've been writing about the curious case of David Headley, former heroin smuggler who got a sweetheart deal from the DEA and DOJ in exchange for cooperation that included travel to Pakistan.

Today, the Times of India picks up on the DEA connection, and asks, Is Headley an American agent who turned rogue?

To make the tale even more dramatic, Headley may just have provided American intelligence agencies information that prevented a Lashkar attack on Mumbai in September. The theory -- and it's still a theory -- is that Headley was used to infiltrate the Lashkar, but gradually went astray under the influence of the very terrorists he was supposed to be spying upon.

Torn between conflicting loyalties, he may have continued to give information to his American handlers, and a tip-off by him may even have helped avert a Laskar attack orginally planned for September. But he seems to have commited fully to Lashkar shortly after that, which could be one reason why American agencies were caught napping by 26/11.

Also, the Telegraph reports it was British Intelligence that tipped the FBI to both Headley and Najibullah Zazi.

The Chicago Tribune reports that terror suspect David Headley, aka Daood Gilani, is cooperating with authorities and providing information about the Mumbai terror attacks of November, 2008.

David Coleman Headley, who has been cooperating with authorities, is being investigated as a scout for the Mumbai attack, which targeted multiple sites, including two hotels, a train station, a cafe and a Jewish community center. A source familiar with the probe said Headley's co-defendant in the newspaper case, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, is suspected to have paid for Headley's India missions.

As I wrote here, it wouldn't be the first time Headley has cooperated. Under his original name, Daood Gilani, he worked his way out of a 1997 heroin case by providing information to the DEA. He ended up with a 15 month sentence (his co-defendant James Lewis got 100 months.) After Headley/Gilani was released from prison, and while he was on supervised release, the court granted him permission to travel to Pakistan. The Government then joined his request to terminate his supervised release three years early. [More...]

The Chicago terror charges against David Headley, formerly Daood Gilani, and Tahawwur Hussain Rana are interesting for a number of reasons. They are particularly big news in India, where FISA surveillance information has authorities connecting them to the Nov. 2008 Mumbai attacks and to high level people in Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (Lashker e Taiba) and Harkat-ul Jihad Islamid.

What's getting some, but not enough news, is Headley's 1997 bust in New York for conspiracy to import heroin into the U.S. (The New York Times briefly refers to it here.)He was charged under his original name, Daood Saleem Gilani, along with a codefendant James Leslie Lewis. (Lewis was sentenced to 120 months, later reduced to 100 months.)

After Headley's arrest, he was ordered detained pending trial. But, he began cooperating with the DEA. The U.S. Attorney's office submitted some sealed documents (obviously cooperation letters) and got him out on bond. He was sentenced to only 15 months and when he got out from Ft. Dix, the DEA sent him to Pakistan to make some cases. [More...]

James Comey and Jack Goldsmith, high-ranking Department of Justice officials under Bush, have an op-ed in the Washington Post defending Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other detainees in federal criminal court instead of a military commission proceeding. The conclusion is fine:

But Holder's critics do not help their case by understating the criminal justice system's capacities, overstating the military system's virtues and bumper-stickering a reasonable decision.

In reaching that correct assessment, however, there's a few statements I take issue with. They posit that Holder made the decision to keep the U.S.S. Cole detainees in a military proceeding not for the reasons he said (that the attack happened outside the U.S.) but because the case against them is weak and the chance of conviction is greater in a military commission trial. In other words, Holder forum-shopped (as, they say, Bush's DOJ did before him) and there's nothing wrong with that. I think when it's done hoping to skirt the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt because you know you can't meet it, there's definitely something wrong with it.
[More...]

Today, many of us are only familiar with Khalid Sheik Mohammed or Ramzi Binashibh, who have garnered the most press. Months from now, those of us who follow these cases will know the histories of all five 9/11 defendants like the back of our hands. Here's a helpful primer of links for those who want to get a head start.

Short Profiles of the Soon to Be 9/11 Defendants:

• Human Rights First
• the Guardian

Individually, With Lots of Links

• Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
• Ramzi Binalshibh,
• Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash,
• Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and
• Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.

More....