The U.S. District Court in New York sentenced a 25-year-old Canadian of Kuwaiti descent to life in prison for plotting in 2001 a bombing of the U.S. embassies in Manila and Singapore.  The FBI in May 2002 arrested Mohammed Mansour Jabarah at a FBI-run safe-house in Oman for alleged al-Qaida suspects fleeing Afghanistan following the U.S.-led invasion in response to the Sept. 11 attacks.  Officials deported him to Canada and later to the United States where he cooperated with federal officials until he learned of a friends’ death in the U.S.-led international counterterrorism effort. 

Prosecutors allege Jabarah met with al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in 2001 and trained at al-Qaida camps under Sept. 11-mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed.  Federal officials say Jabarah served as the al-Qaida liaison to Jemaah Islamiyah in Southeast Asia to develop bomb plots against U.S. interests in the area.  Jabarah pleaded guilty to the charges, but later revoked the claims saying he was a “naive, young and brainwashed 20-year-old.”  He later protested that he does not “believe in terrorism, violence and killing.”

The U.S. District Court sentenced Jabarah without a trial due to his initial guilty plea and secret documents.

The first question that comes to mind here is why this guy is going through the civilian court system and not the war crimes tribunal system established at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  When the United States Supreme Court compelled the U.S. Congress to rewrite the definitions of war crimes as defined by U.S. law, they included conspiracy to commit actions harming U.S. interests among crimes considered violations of the laws of war.  Furthermore, the Authorization of the use of Military Force enacted in response to the Sept. 11 attacks says the U.S. president is authorized to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” 

Certainly the Jabarah case falls both within the congressionally declared definitions of a war crime and under the AUMF.  You could look at this as saying, because the FBI caught the guy at a U.S.-run safe-house in Oman, that it was a criminal investigation from the get-go, but “they” caught Khalid Sheik Mohammed at his house, stowed him away in European black sites, most likely treated him in less-than humane ways, and now he's among the “high-profile” suspects held at Guantanamo Bay.  Precedence says the U.S. court system should be used as long as it is open and functional.  In the Jabarah case, obviously the court system was functioning (and obviously open).  This case, it seems, adds weight to the case for vetting most of the Guantanamo detainees through the civilian courts.  It also diminishes the very justification for the war crimes tribunal and the very existence of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.