Ghailani Appeals Brief Finally Unsealed
Waaaay back in January, Ben noted that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani had filed his opening brief in his appeal to the Second Circuit. Ghailani is appealing his conspiracy conviction and life sentence for his role in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa that killed 224 people.
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Waaaay back in January, Ben noted that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani had filed his opening brief in his appeal to the Second Circuit. Ghailani is appealing his conspiracy conviction and life sentence for his role in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa that killed 224 people. Ben, Bobby and Jack had a lot to say about the verdict and sentence (here, here, here, and here). Ghailani’s redacted appeals brief is now—finally--available here.
Ghailani frames the questions presented to the Second Circuit as follows:
- Whether the Court below erred in denying appellant's motion to dismiss the indictment based upon a violation of his Sixth Amendment constitutional right to a speedy trial.
- Whether the court below erred when, over defense objection, it instructed the jury on conscious avoidance; and even if there was a basis for the conscious avoidance instruction, whether the court's instruction was erroneous.
Appellant was denied his right to a Speedy Trial, guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. Although he was indicted in 1998 and apprehended in 2004, he was not presented and arraigned in an Article III court, but instead was held in isolation under CIA custody at a "Black Site" located outside of the United States. There, he was subject to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, also known as torture, and kept as a valuable national security asset. In September, 2006, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, where he languished in the custody of the Department of Defense until September 9, 2009, nearly five years after his capture. It is from this denial of his Speedy Trial right that he now appeals. At the close of his trial, appellant's attorneys vigorously objected to the court's decision to charge the jury regarding "conscious avoidance" to establish the conspiracy charges in the indictment. Appellant now appeals from the court's erroneous decision to submit this charge to the jury. Even if it was not error for the court to instruct the jury on conscious avoidance, the court's improper instruction requires a reversal of the conviction. After appellant was acquitted on 283 of the 284 charges in the indictment, and convicted of one single count that carried a mandatory minimum term of twenty years, the court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment. It is from this excessive sentence that he now appeals.The government's response brief is due on October 17th.
Raffaela Wakeman is a Senior Director at In-Q-Tel. She started her career at the Brookings Institution, where she spent five years conducting research on national security, election reform, and Congress. During this time she was also the Associate Editor of Lawfare. From there, Raffaela practiced law at the U.S. Department of Defense for four years, advising her clients on privacy and surveillance law, cybersecurity, and foreign liaison relationships. She departed DoD in 2019 to join the Majority Staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where she oversaw the Intelligence Community’s science and technology portfolios, cybersecurity, and surveillance activities. She left HPSCI in May 2021 to join IQT.
Raffaela received her BS and MS in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 2015, where she was recognized for her commitment to public service with the Joyce Chiang Memorial Award. While at the Department of Defense, she was the inaugural recipient of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s General Counsel Award for exhibiting the highest standards of leadership, professional conduct, and integrity.
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