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August 17, 2007
Incroyable!
The BushReich and its brutish minions strike again! What chance did poor Jose Padilla stand against the concerted might of a battery of Justice Department lawyers armed with a seemingly endless supply of quotation marks?
A federal jury convicted former "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla on Thursday of terrorism conspiracy charges, handing a courthouse victory to the Bush administration, which had originally sought to imprison him without a criminal trial.Padilla was arrested in 2002 for allegedly plotting a radiological "dirty bomb" attack, but prosecutors chose not to pursue those allegations in court here. But after a three-month trial, they had convinced the jury that Padilla, 36, participated in a South Florida-based al-Qaeda support cell that in the '90s began to send money and people to wage holy war in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo and Somalia.
What a travashamockery. If the Editorial Staff didn't know any better, we'd think the so-called "jury" had examined the "evidence" presented at "trial" and decided the "defendant" had done something "wrong". Fortunately, we have professional "journalists" to explain these complicated legal issues to us so we don't get the wrong "idea" about the "verdict":
"This trial clearly undermines the Bush administration's unfounded fear that terrorists cannot -- in their view -- be tried in our criminal courts," said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida. The verdict proves, he said, "that the Bush administration should close Guantanamo and pursue terrorists in the criminal justice system, not outside the confines of the rule of law."Entering the courtroom before the verdicts were read, Padilla smiled at his mother in the audience and seemed to crack a joke with one of his lawyers. Padilla was stone-faced as a clerk announced the guilty findings. One of his relatives began to sob loudly.
"No evidence, and they found him guilty," his mother, Estela Lebron, said, seeming stunned.
Glenn Reynolds, on the otter heiny, finds Padilla guilty on all counts, the big fascist. But this should not surprise us. As we all know, Mr. Reynolds has always been an enthusiastic advocate of torture.
The incisive commentary of Peter Whoriskey, WaPo staff writer, only confirms our longstanding belief that the judiciary is the only branch capable of safeguarding our civil rights against the depradations of the evil executive.
Word.
Posted by Cassandra at August 17, 2007 06:22 AM
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Comments
There are big meanies everywhere!
Posted by: Ymarsakar at August 17, 2007 03:22 PM
In the Beginning there was the Word.
Posted by: Ymarsakar at August 18, 2007 04:30 PM