Word: terrorism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...disabling condition is bad, but there's a particular terror connected to the kind that destroys the body and leaves an alert mind locked inside. Stephen Hawking has spent much of his life inside just that kind of corporeal prison. The late Jean-Dominique Bauby described his own, similar experiences in the extraordinary memoir The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a book he wrote one painstaking letter at a time by blinking his eye in alphabetic code...
...Christian Ganczarski was found guilty of complicity in the plot and sentenced to 18 years in prison. That was a shorter sentence than prosecutors had hoped for, but French justice officials say the case and its outcome is, nevertheless, a timely reminder to Washington that international cooperation to combat terrorism can succeed without recourse to phantom prisons, extra-legal trials, or morally questionable extraordinary renditions. President Barack Obama has said that he will seek to shut Guantanamo, address detainee charges of kidnapping and torture, and return terror suspects to federal court systems, where convictions and stiff sentences may be difficult...
...French justice officials produced cell phone records that showed the suicide bomber, Nizar Nawar, had called Ganczarski shortly before the attack to receive a blessing - a benediction prosecutors say was the go-ahead sign for the strike. Nawar made a similar call to Pakistan to speak with al-Qaeda terror maestro Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, currently held in Guantanamo as the self-proclaimed architect of 9/11. (Sheikh Mohammed will be tried in absentia by France as the plotter of the Tunisian attack this spring...
...French officials, who had asked for a 30-year sentence for Ganczarski, were still pleased with the outcome. The guilty verdict in a such a difficult case, they note, is a sign that France's counter-terrorism and civil justice system works. "It's gratifying to see the French legal system can both enhance security and render justice to victims by prosecuting terror cases above the board, and by the book," says Marc Trévidic, a senior investigating magistrate in France's specialized anti-terrorism division. "It's especially true in a complicated case like this...
...outcome of the French trial comes at a significant moment. On Monday, a U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco will hear a case brought by three plaintiffs charging they were tortured during extraordinary renditions the Bush administration approved as part of the war on terror. Previous legal challenges to such measures were thwarted by government refusal to provide courts with evidence or testimony requested, citing state secrecy. Many observers now hope the Obama administration will release previously withheld information as it deconstructs the extra-legal system for dealing with terror suspects and return them to courts that handled them...