Guantanamo detainee charged in 1998 US African embassy attacks News
Guantanamo detainee charged in 1998 US African embassy attacks

[JURIST] The US Department of Defense Monday charged [DOD press release; charge sheet, PDF] Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani [BBC profile] with several terrorism-related counts under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [PDF text] stemming from his alleged involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania [US DOS backgrounder]. The charges include providing material support to terrorism, murder in violation of the Law of War, murder of protected persons, attacking civilians, and conspiracy to commit several of the enumerated offenses. He could face the death penalty. Pakistani authorities arrested Ghailani [JURIST report], allegedly a top al-Qaeda operative, in July 2004.

Ghailani is one of 14 "high-value" detainees [DOD backgrounder, PDF] the US Department of Defense designated as enemy combatants [press release; JURIST report] based on the recommendations of Combatant Status Review Tribunals [DOD materials]. AFP has more. The Miami Herald has additional coverage.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Guiteau tried for assassinating US President Garfield

On November 14, 1881, Charles Guiteau went on trial for the assassination of US President James A. Garfield. The trial of Guiteau pointed to problems with nineteenth-century law's treatment of insanity; Guiteau's trial is also problematic in retrospect as Garfield's death was immediately attributable not to Guiteau, but to Garfield's doctors who—before sterilization was well understood—repeated probed his wound with unwashed hands while searching for an embedded bullet.