Attorney General
Sheik Trial Left Mukasey ‘Shaken’
The trial of sheik Omar Abdel Rahman was a microcosm for the terrorism issues that Michael Mukasey will face if he is confirmed as attorney general.
After the nine-month trial, Mukasey sentenced the sheik in 1996 to life in prison for a plot to bomb New York landmarks. Mukasey said the trial persuaded him that the plan could have created devastation on “a scale unknown in this country since the Civil War.”
The trial left the judge “shaken and deeply skeptical about the ability of civilian courts to try people accused of terrorism without compromising national security,” the New York Times reports.
His writings since then indicate that Mukasey favors security over civil liberty interests and secrecy over accountability, the newspaper reports.
