Guantanamo Lawyer Invokes King's 'Dream' Speech in Tribunal Challenge

[DeSwiss]

NTDTV·Published on Aug 23, 2013

A lawyer for one of the five detainees accused of plotting the September 11 attacks asks the judge to throw out charges against the detainees, alleging the "alien-only" Guantanamo court violates the Constitutional right to equal protection under the law.

Full story:
A U.S. military lawyer invoked Reverend Martin Luther King Junior's "I Have a Dream Speech" in his argument on Thursday. The lawyer said the tribunal prosecuting the alleged 9/11 conspirators illegally discriminates because it only has jurisdiction over non-U.S. citizens.

"They are separate and they are unequal," said Air Force Lieutenant Commander Sterling Thomas of the war crimes tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba. Thomas, who represents Pakistani defendant Ammar al Baluchi, noted that most of the tribunal participants will be returning during the weekend to Washington.

There, a week-long celebration will mark the 50th anniversary of King's historic speech. The address is considered a key impetus toward the adoption of landmark U.S. civil rights laws mandating equal treatment among the races.

Thomas says the Guantanamo tribunals are emblematic of the discrimination King fought against. Americans accused of identical crimes are tried in the U.S. federal courts where they enjoy greater legal protections, while the Guantanamo tribunals are reserved for foreigners.

In the 2009 law authorizing the Guantanamo tribunals, which are also known as military commissions, Congress specifically exempted U.S. citizens from their jurisdiction. During previous wars ranging from the Revolutionary War to the Second World War, U.S. citizens were tried alongside foreigners in military commissions.

Defense lawyers asked the judge to throw out the charges against five prisoners accused of plotting the hijacked plane attacks that killed nearly three-thousand people in the US on September 11, 2001. The judge planned to hear further arguments on that and other issues before the week-long pre-trial hearing ends on Friday evening.

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The Secret US Government that runs everything, we now know thanks many (but in particular to Julian, Chelsea and Edward), is a law unto itself. It does not have to adhere to the laws that apply to the rest of the world. They can start wars. Listen-in on your phone calls to your grandma. Get politicians to give your tax money to bankers and charge it to your grandchildren. Provide protection for poppy growers. Spend billions on the war on drugs. Spy on American protestors. And even take a life if deemed appropriate. Sometimes Presidents get shot. Sometimes reporter's cars blow up. And sometimes teenagers from Pakistan who were in the wrong place at the wrong time when the US military showed up, get imprisoned at the American gulag, Guantanamo.

- Have you thanked your neighborhood conspiracy theorist lately?