First Guantanamo inmate transferred to U.S. pleads not guilty

WASHINGTON AND LOS ANGELES —  The first terrorism suspect to be brought from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States for trial appeared Tuesday in federal court in New York, where he pleaded not guilty to 286 murder and conspiracy charges in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian held at Guantanamo since 2006, had been flown to New York under U.S. Marshals Service escort and detained at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

President Obama has pledged to close the Guantanamo prison by January and relocate its 240 prisoners from the U.S. naval base in southern Cuba. The decision has sparked a U.S. political debate, with Republican leaders warning that Americans don’t want suspected terrorists at prisons near them and the Obama administration maintaining that federal facilities are secure.

Ghailani was a strategic choice for the Obama administration to demonstrate that the federal courts -- as opposed to the Guantanamo military tribunals -- can be relied on to bring to justice those suspected of heinous acts against the United States.

He is not known to have been subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” prior to his indictment. Those practices, including the simulated drowning technique of waterboarding, have been deemed torture by some judges, raising barriers to the admissibility of any confessions gained through the harsh treatment.

Ghailani confessed at a 2007 Guantanamo hearing to having helped with the 1998 Dar es Salaam embassy bombing, but claimed he wasn’t aware of the target or the full attack plan, which included the Nairobi embassy bombing.

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said Ghailani’s transfer and arraignment in federal court were moves that would finally hold him accountable for his alleged role in the bombings.

“The Justice Department has a long history of securely detaining and successfully prosecuting terror suspects through the criminal justice system, and we will bring that experience to bear in seeking justice in this case,” Holder said.

U.S. prisons now hold 216 terrorism suspects or convicts, including Omar Abdel Rahman, serving a life sentence for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted of plotting with the Sept. 11 hijackers.

If convicted, Ghailani could face life imprisonment or the death penalty, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Human rights groups that have been sharply critical of U.S. detention policy at Guantanamo praised the transfer of Ghailani.

“This is an important step in restoring the United States’ observance of the rule of law, but there is still a long way to go,” said Virginia Sloan, president of the Constitution Project, an alliance of rights advocates.

But conservative lawmakers opposed to closing Guantanamo lashed out at moving Ghailani into the U.S. justice system. “This is the first step in the Democrats’ plan to import terrorists into America,” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.

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mdsilva@latimes.com

carol.williams@latimes.com