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...press conference announcing the trials Friday that he has seen evidence previously unavailable that made him confident the prosecution will be successful. "If the government's going to prosecute Mohammed for 9/11, it will have diligently and thoroughly scrubbed the evidence to obtain certainty" that it can make the case, says David Laufman, a former prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, who tried and won cases against al-Qaeda members charged in terrorist plots...
...even if the government can make a strong case without the tainted evidence, Mohammed's treatment could cause problems. It's possible - though not likely - that a court could rule that the government doesn't have the right to prosecute someone who has been severely abused in custody. (Previously, suspects have been released even when their abuse didn't prejudice evidence against them, but there's no clear precedent for terrorism cases.) Other issues likely to be raised by the defense, says Dratel, are finding a jury that can be considered impartial, especially blocks from the World Trade Center site...
...Bharara will not be alone on the case. Holder jointly assigned it to him and Neil McBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. The Justice Department says the two men work well together, but not everyone agrees. "That's going to be ugly," says a former prosecutor who knows both men. The former prosecutor predicts that the Southern District will "run the show" because of its knowledge of the judges in New York, the proximity to the trial and the resources the office will be able to bring to bear...
...criminal court may not be resolved until a verdict is reached, but the debate is already raging. Says Dratel: "It's a victory for our system of justice and for the rule of law." Others disagree but think Bharara will succeed. "It's a dubious decision to send the case to federal court to be criminally prosecuted," says former top Bush White House lawyer William Burck, who worked with Bharara in the Southern District. "But if there's anyone who can pull it off, it's Preet Bharara...
Ruth Wedgwood, director of the International Law and Organizations Program at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, said that she was unaware of any direct precedent of the government seizing mosques, and said the judge in the case will probably scrutinize the move closely because it involves houses of worship. While it would be impossible to have spun this up overnight in response to a thrust and parry from the Ahmadinejad regime, she said it's possible that Iran's decision to walk away from a nuclear recycling arrangement may have played a role...