Justice for a Terrorist, German-Style The "war" on terror doesn't play well in Europe, where fighting al Qaeda is more likely to be viewed as a job for the justice system. If so, the protracted trial of 9/11 terrorist buddy Mounir el Motassadeq, which ended yesterday in Germany, is not one of the system's finest moments. Motassadeq was sentenced to 15 years in prison, the maximum possible under German law, for being an accessory to murder in the September 11, 2001 attacks against America. He was a friend of three of the hijackers, looking after their apartments and arranging money transfers and logistics. (...) Germany isn't the only Western country to discover that ordinary courts of law, with their rules of evidence designed for civil societies in peace time, are ill-equipped for fighting Islamist terrorism. It took five years to convict Zacarias Moussaoui in the U.S. In Spain, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, accused of having helped the September 11 plotters, was acquitted on appeal. He's serving a 12-year sentence for being an al Qaeda leader.
The "war" on terror doesn't play well in Europe, where fighting al Qaeda is more likely to be viewed as a job for the justice system. If so, the protracted trial of 9/11 terrorist buddy Mounir el Motassadeq, which ended yesterday in Germany, is not one of the system's finest moments.
Motassadeq was sentenced to 15 years in prison, the maximum possible under German law, for being an accessory to murder in the September 11, 2001 attacks against America. He was a friend of three of the hijackers, looking after their apartments and arranging money transfers and logistics.
(...)
Germany isn't the only Western country to discover that ordinary courts of law, with their rules of evidence designed for civil societies in peace time, are ill-equipped for fighting Islamist terrorism. It took five years to convict Zacarias Moussaoui in the U.S. In Spain, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, accused of having helped the September 11 plotters, was acquitted on appeal. He's serving a 12-year sentence for being an al Qaeda leader.
Germany sentenced the guy to 15 years in jail, followign all normal procedures, letting him appeal, with his lawyers, etc, and that is bad ... how?
He was sentenced to the maximum!
Others were also sentenced, others were acquitted, presumably because there was reasonable doubt. How is this bad? Justice systems at work.
Which tells us what the WSJ wants: bloody revenge, not justice.
But it's the left which is "ideological", "weak" and "bent on the apocalypse".
Sometimes I could scream! In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
For the conservatives, a return to drawing and quartering would be too little, too late. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
