Questions for Abdulmutallab
The would-be airplane bomber needs to be
interrogated.
By Victoria Toensing
WSJ.com
On the third day after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's
attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, President Barack Obama finally
interrupted his Hawaiian vacation to announce that our government "will not rest
until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable." But how are we
going to do that now that the terrorist is lawyered up and is even challenging
what should be a legal gimme: giving the government a DNA sample?
It was not wise to try enemy combatants such as
Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker in the 9/11 attacks, in our
regular criminal courts. And it is unwise that Mr. Obama has decided to try some
Guantanamo detainees in New York City. Never in our country's history prior to
2001 have we done so, for good reason.
The constitutional protections designed to ensure a
person is not wrongfully convicted have no relevance to wartime military needs.
The argument that our system is strong enough to try a terrorist is a non
sequitur. It equates to the argument that if a person is in excellent health,
she can withstand being set ablaze.
Moussaoui tied the Virginia federal court in knots for
over three years, principally by insisting on the Brady rule, which requires
that the defendant be given access to any evidence that could be exculpatory. (Moussaoui
was convicted because he pleaded guilty, not because there was a trial and jury
decision.)
The Brady rule is a needed constitutional protection
for the accused bank robber, where the government wants to produce only the one
witness who identifies the defendant as the perpetrator but not the other six
witnesses who cannot identify him. It does not work where a terrorist demands
access to all the servicemen and women who witnessed his capture on the
battlefield.
Yet even the legal issues of a trial are of little
importance compared to the threat to our security putting this terrorist into
the regular criminal justice system presents. Abdulmutallab is in effect in
possession of a ticking bomb, but we cannot interrogate him. His right to remain
silent, as required by the Miranda rule, thwarts Mr. Obama's hollow attempt on
Tuesday to "assure" us he is "doing everything in [his] power" to keep us safe.
Questions need to be answered. Where was Abdulmutallab
trained? Who trained him? Where is the training facility located? Where is the
stash of PETN, the explosive used in the bomb? What are the techniques he was
told to use for getting through airport security? Was there a well-dressed man
who helped him board the plane without a passport as claimed by another
passenger? And, most important, are future attacks planned?
Yes, we could try him first and then interrogate him.
But by then the information is stale, especially if he utilizes the same legal
challenges Moussaoui did to drag out the process for years.
As the president told us, there were indeed "human and
systemic failures" that "contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of
security." By placing this terrorist into the regular criminal process, he
continues and magnifies those failures, which could leave to an actual
catastrophe.
Abdulmutallab is not a United States citizen. By
detonating a bomb on an airplane filled with 269 civilians, he committed an
illegal act of war. A military commission, which has been used for such conduct
since Gen. George Washington, will give him due process. But first, he must be
interrogated.
Ms. Toensing was deputy assistant attorney
general in the Reagan administration, where she supervised all terrorist cases.
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