NEW YORK (AP) – Admitted al-Qaida operative Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Harun is just the type of “bad dude” that Donald Trump has said should be locked up at Guantanamo Bay.
Maybe in the future, that’s where people like him will once again end up. But under an Obama-era policy that favored trial in civilian courts for anti-American fighters captured overseas, Harun was sent instead to New York, where he was convicted on Thursday of killing two U.S. servicemen on a battlefield in Afghanistan nearly 14 years ago.
Jurors deliberated for just two hours before finding him guilty.
Harun’s conviction keeps alive a perfect track record for federal prosecutors in New York. Since 9/11, they have tried more than two dozen people accused of committing acts of terrorism overseas. Every one of those people has been convicted.
“It’s really the last gasp of the Obama administration to prove that even in a battlefield situation, the courts work well,” said Karen Greenberg, a national security expert at Fordham University.