ATLANTA — President Obama and the Justice Department are being criticized over the decision to federally charge a Nigerian national with trying to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day rather than detain him as an enemy combatant.
Last week, a federal grand jury indicted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on six counts, including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted murder within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States. Federal authorities say Abdulmutallab tried to destroy Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam as it prepared to land at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
He has pleaded not guilty.
“He was singing like a canary, then we charged him in civilian proceedings, he got a lawyer and shut up,” The Sunday Telegraph quoted Slade Gorton, a member of the 9/11 Commission, as saying.
“I find it incomprehensible that this administration is treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue,” Gorton added. “The president has finally said that we are at war with al-Qaeda. Well, if this is a war, then Abdulmutallab should be treated as a combatant not a criminal.”
Concurrently, 22 senators signed a letter calling on Obama to rethink his decision to prosecute Abdulmutallab in federal court.
“We fear this decision has resulted in a missed opportunity to collect timely intelligence, and is indicative of a troubling pre-9/11 mentality that treats terrorism as a law enforcement rather than intelligence matter,” the senators wrote.
“If we are to ensure that similar failures never occur again, it is imperative that we understand what the U.S. government knew about Abdulmutallab prior to his attempted attack and where there was a failure to take appropriate action or connect the information,” they added. “We cannot fully answer these questions, however, unless we examine the methods and means Abdulmutallab used to avoid detection by U.S. officials.
“Unfortunately, our ability to get these answers has been and will continue to be severely hampered by the decision to put (Abdulmutallab) almost immediately into a civilian judicial forum with all the rights, protections, and privileges afforded American citizens.”
