Race Against Terror: Chasing an Al Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War

A criminal case against an avowed al-Qaeda operative poses knotty legal issues in this evocative dispatch from America’s war on terror. CNN anchorman Tapper (Original Sin) recaps the prosecution of Spin Ghul, a Saudi-raised man of Nigerien background who was apprehended by Italian police in 2011 and promptly confessed to being an al-Qaeda fighter. U.S. government attorneys linked him to a 2003 insurgent attack in Afghanistan that killed two American servicemen and had him extradited to New York. Tapper crafts riveting accounts of Ghul’s journey through al-Qaeda and that bloody Afghanistan firefight, and he gives a thorough recap of the prosecution’s investigation, which dug up supporting evidence that made it hard for the defense to dismiss Ghul’s confession as the ravings of a madman despite his mentally unwell behavior (including tearing his clothes off in court). The Obama administration showcased the prosecution, Tapper argues, to prove that terrorists could be tried through regular civilian courts, a policy that provoked opposition and raised hard questions: Would jury trials end up acquitting dangerous terrorists? Did defense counsel have a right to see classified intelligence? And did it make sense to implicate Ghul in murder simply because he was a soldier fighting American soldiers in open battle? Tapper’s vivid account of the legal front in the fight against terrorism shows how shaky its foundations are. (Oct.)