http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0504mous-analysis0504.html

Some terror suspects put on trial, others not

David G. Savage Los Angeles Times May. 4, 2006 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person prosecuted so far in connection with the worst terrorist attack in American history, did not get the death penalty because some jurors concluded he had little to do with Sept. 11.

Yet two key planners of the al-Qaida plot, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, have not been charged, although they have been in U.S. custody for more than three years.

A central contradiction in the Bush administration's fight against terrorism is that bit players often have been put on trial, while those thought to have orchestrated the plots have been held in secret for questioning.

The difference in treatment, government officials say, stems from the fact that gathering intelligence from suspected terrorists is more important than publicly punishing them.

That's why Muslim men from Portland, Ore., Lackawanna, N.Y., and Lodi, Calif., have been prosecuted and imprisoned for having attended training camps in Afghanistan. Facing charges such as conspiracy and providing "material support" to terrorists, they had little of substance to reveal to U.S. intelligence authorities.

Similarly, the Bush administration sought life in prison for John Walker Lindh, the California-born Muslim convert who went to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban regime prior to the U.S. invasion. He pleaded guilty in exchange for a 20-year sentence.

But it was a different matter when the FBI arrested Jose Padilla in Chicago in 2002. The Brooklyn native, a convert to Islam, was suspected of leading a plot to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb" inside the United States.

Rather than file terrorism charges against him, the government branded him an "enemy combatant" and confined him to a military brig for three years. He was not allowed to speak to his family or to a lawyer while interrogators pumped him for information about the plot.

Government lawyers said they were reluctant to charge Padilla with a crime, since that would entitle him to a lawyer. And a lawyer undoubtedly would tell Padilla not to talk to government investigators.

Late last year, the administration changed course. Padilla was charged with several minor terrorism-related crimes, but not with plotting to set off a dirty bomb.

Although the Moussaoui jury seemed to indicate Wednesday that he had not been directly responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, Mohammed has told investigators about the plot in great detail.

In a 56-page statement submitted as evidence at Moussaoui's trial, Mohammed stressed that the avowed terrorist was seen by leaders of the Sept. 11 plot as unreliable. That did not prevent the administration from prosecuting Moussaoui, who had been arrested in Minnesota and jailed on a visa violation three weeks before Sept. 11.