Khatallah’s ‘Rights’

Ahmed Abu Khatallah is now a criminal defendant in Washington, D.C., accused of participating in a murderous attack on U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012.

Khatallah’s new status following his arrival in the United States means that he is no longer an illegal enemy combatant. Under the laws of war, such enemies can be detained and interrogated without trial until hostilities end.

Now, as former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy has observed, Khatallah enjoys the discovery rights granted American citizens in criminal proceedings. Instead of having to tell us what he knows about his jihadist co-conspirators and their plots against us, we now must tell him what we know about them.

Team Obama has thus risked compounding a terrible injustice, rather than ensuring that justice is served.