The extreme interrogation tactics utilized to coerce a confession from a suspected terrorist have resulted in the judge tossing the case, allowing him to go free.
"This court finds the government's tactics in this case are so grossly shocking and so outrageous as to violate the universal sense of justice," Cardone wrote. "As a result, this court is left with no choice but to dismiss the indictment."
This was no Afghan taxi driver, either. This was a man suspected of masterminding an airliner bombing that killed 73 people, a man who admitted involvement in a series of hotel and restaurant bombings, a man who was arrested while in possession of 200 pounds of explosives. A man who presented a clear threat to public safety is now free to continue his terroristic activities.
Of course, nothing is ever simple with this administration, and this case is no exception. Everything is upside down, inside out; the rhetoric doesn't match the reality. The terrorist in question is an anti-Castro operative with (surprise) ties to various official and not-so-official US-backed groups, including the CIA. His name is Luis Posada Carriles and he originally sought asylum in the US, before being detained on immigration fraud charges stemming from his naturalization interview. Meteor Blades wrote about him before when he was released on bail; now he is outright free. Both Cuba and Venezuela wanted him extradicted, but a US judge ruled against his deportation due to the possibility he would be tortured. Because, you know, we don't like to send suspects to countries where they might be tortured.
What were these tactics that were "so grossly shocking and so outrageous" -- what brutal interrogation did Posada face that led him to crack? Here are the gory details:
Cardone threw out the interview with immigration authorities that was the basis of the charges against Posada. The interview was poorly translated for him, she found, and "No effective communication existed between defendant and the interviewers."
[...]In addition, Cardone condemned what she called government manipulation in the case, noting that Posada's naturalization interview was unusual in that it stretched eight hours over two days, as opposed to the usual maximum of 30 minutes.
I'm sure they were gonna waterboard him if that brutal 8 hours over two days of questioning hadn't done the trick. There was another case of alleged mistreatment involving a terror suspect just recently, in which the judge oddly enough reached a rather different conclusion: Rather, she said the effort to dismiss the case for "outrageous government conduct" was faulty on legal grounds.
It's too bad that this sudden and isolated concern for the rights of suspects is leading to the release of a genuine terrorist while apparently causing no rethinking whatsoever of how we treat "enemy combatants" rounded up overseas. Then again, consistency has never been a strong suit of this administration in general, or of its war on terror in particular.