VOA News Sunday, October 10th, 2010 U.S. federal prosecutors have decided not to appeal a ruling by a New York judge that prohibits a key witness from testifying in the first civilian trial of a detainee from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said appealing the ruling would cause an unnecessary delay.
Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled last week that
Ghailani is accused of being a bomb maker, document forger and aide to Osama bin Laden.
The judge ruled Abebe could not appear in court because the government learned about him “as a direct result” of statements Ghailani made while being interrogated in a secret CIA-run jail overseas.
The trial is set to begin Wednesday.
The prosecutors say Abebe sold explosives to Ghailani before the attacks in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 12 Americans.
The ruling could set a precedent for limiting the types of evidence allowed in trials of former detainees. Such limits would be a setback for the Obama administration and its goal of trying Guantanamo prisoners using civilian courts instead of military trials.
Some information in this story was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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