Word: abdulmutallab
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...Critics ranging from Bush Administration officials to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin argue that President Obama should have designated Abdulmutallab an enemy combatant - a term abandoned by the Obama Administration last year - and ordered him held in military custody, to be eventually tried by a military commission. That would have stripped the Nigerian of his immediate right to an attorney and allowed interrogators extra time to question him for intelligence purposes without the hindrance of a Miranda warning...
...contrast, Richard Reid, whose December 2001 attempt to bring down a transatlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoe closely resembles the charges made in the indictment against Abdulmutallab, was tried in civilian court. Former Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan, whose office prosecuted the "shoe bomber," recalls no discussions about designating Reid an enemy combatant and doubts that the legal mechanisms to do so were even in place at the time. But had the shoe-bomb attempt occurred a few years later, Sullivan says, Reid might well have ended up facing a military tribunal...
...Steven Cash, a former CIA intelligence officer and a co-chair of the D.C. Bar Association's Committee on National Security Law, Policy and Practice, believes that the Administration made the right decision in taking Abdulmutallab's case to federal court. "The argument that trying someone in a civilian court is a show of weakness is frankly outrageous," he says. "It is what we are proudest of and where our strength comes from...
...Administration officials have repeatedly pointed out that Abdulmutallab has already provided valuable intelligence, and Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd cited the successful prosecution of Reid, among others, to argue for the effectiveness of civilian courts in tackling such cases. Had Abdulmutallab been held as an enemy combatant, Boyd argues, he would have challenged his detention and eventually gained access to an attorney. (See pictures of a jihadist's journey...
...There is no precedent for any action but charging Abdulmutallab in federal court," Boyd said in an e-mailed statement...