Terrorists on Trial

By Adam Zagorin

Hundreds of "enemy combatants" continue to be held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay and possibly other secret U.S. prisons overseas. Despite a raft of Supreme Court cases designed to obtain the detainees additional legal rights, as many as 100 of them are expected to be tried this spring in military commissions that limit both public disclosure and the latitude accorded lawyers in defending them.

That's one reason the Jan. 22 sentencing--in a traditional U.S. courtroom--of Brooklyn, N.Y., native Jose Padilla to more than 17 years in prison for terrorist conspiracy has attracted attention. Soon after Padilla's arrest in 2002, he was designated an enemy combatant and faced years of alleged abuse, including stress positions and extreme sleep deprivation, in the isolation of a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. Eventually, a legal challenge made the government drop Padilla's enemy-combatant status, and he was permitted to face charges--conspiracy and providing aid to foreign terrorists--in federal court.

It was a mixed result for prosecutors: they got a conviction, but the Miami judge rejected some of their most important allegations and refused to hand down a life term. As the judge put it, "There is no evidence that [he] ... personally maimed, kidnapped or killed anyone."

But the case has also shown that terrorists can be tried and convicted in civilian courts. Now critics are demanding to know why other alleged terrorists held at Guantanamo and elsewhere should not receive similar treatment, instead of languishing in a facility that even President Bush has said he wants to be able to shut down. Allowing hundreds of defendants there to enter U.S. courts--and, if convicted, U.S. prisons--may be the only way to accomplish that.