Rsterrorists on TRIAL
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Alex P. Schmid | Alex P. Beatrice de Graaf Terrorism trials are an exceptional opportunity for better understanding and, hence, countering terrorism, since they are often the only place where most if not all of the actors of a terrorist incident meet again, and where the media report and broadcast their respective accounts. A nexus between terrorist violence, law enforcement and public opinion, terrorism trials showcase justice in progress and thus demonstrate to the world how terrorism suspects are treated under national law. editors This volume views terrorism trials as a form of theatre, where the “show” that a trial may offer can develop often unexpected dynamics, which at times might inconvenience the government. Seeing terrorism trials as a stage where legal instruments are used (and abused) to argue ON TRIAL TERRORISTS the validity of contested political constructs, this study presents a performative perspective to draw attention to the mechanisms and effects of terrorism trials in and outside the courtroom. With a special focus on how the power of these performances may in turn shape new narratives of justice and/or injustice, it offers vital insights into terrorism trials directed involving different types of terrorism suspects, from left-wing to ethno-nationalist and jihadist terrorists, in Spain, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. Beatrice de Graaf holds a chair in the History of International Relations & Global Governance at Utrecht University. She was co-founder of the Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism at Leiden University, TERRORISTS publishes on security-related themes and is currently working on secu- rity in the nineteenth century for an ERC Project SECURE. Alex P. Schmid is an historian by training. He was Officer-in-Charge of the Terrorism Prevention Branch of UNODC and held a chair in Interna- tional Relations at the University of St. Andrews. Currently he is Editor- ON TRIAL in-Chief of Perspectives on Terrorism and Research Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague. A PERFORMATIVE PERSPECTIVE Edited by leiden university press 9 789087 282400 Beatrice de Graaf & Alex P. Schmid www.lup.nl lup Terrorists on Trial TERRORISTS ON TRIAL A Performative Perspective Edited by Beatrice de Graaf and Alex P. Schmid Leiden University Press The publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (nias) where the editors and several of the chapter authors conducted their research for this volume. Cover design: Studio Jan de Boer Cover illustration: italy—april 01: Trial of 63 Red Brigade Suspects on April 1982 (Photo by Keystone- France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images) Lay-out: TAT Zetwerk, Utrecht isbn 978 90 8728 240 0 e-isbn 978 94 0060 235 9 (e-pdf) e-isbn 978 94 0060 236 6 (e-pub) nur 824 © Beatrice de Graaf and Alex P. Schmid / Leiden University Press, 2016 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. This book is distributed in North America by the University of Chicago Press (www.press.uchicago.edu). Contents Tables and Figures · 7 1. Introduction: A Performative Perspective on Terrorism Trials · 9 Beatrice de Graaf, in cooperation with Liesbeth van der Heide 2. Terrorism, Political Crime and Political Justice · 23 Alex P. Schmid 3. The Trial of Vera Zasulich in 1878 · 51 Alex P. Schmid 4. Stalin’s 1936 Show Trial against the ‘Trotzkyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre’ · 93 Alex P. Schmid 5. ‘Is There any Justice Left in this Country?’ The ira on Trial in the 1970s · 173 Joost Augusteijn 6. Germany Confronts the Baader-Meinhof Group. The Stammheim Trial (1975– 1977) and Its Legacies · 231 Jacco Pekelder and Klaus Weinhauer 7. National Security on Trial: The Case of Zacarias Moussaoui, 2001–2006 · 311 Geert-Jan Knoops 8. Guantánamo as Theatre: Military Commissions as a Performance in the Court of Public Opinion, 2003–2004 · 345 Fred L. Borch 9. The Hofstad Group on Trial: Sentencing the Terrorist Risk, 2005–2014 · 371 Beatrice de Graaf 6 | contents 10. Supporting Prisoners or Supporting Terrorists: The 2008 Trial of Gestoras Pro Amnistía in Spain · 419 Carolijn Terwindt 11. Performing Justice, Coping with Trauma: The Trial of Anders Breivik, 2012 · 457 Tore Bjørgo, Beatrice de Graaf, Liesbeth van der Heide, Cato Hemmingby and Daan Weggemans 12. Conclusion · 503 Beatrice de Graaf 13. Literature on Terrorism Trials—A Selective Bibliography · 529 14. Notes on Contributors · 577 15. Index · 583 Tables and Figures Tables 2.1. Typology of crime (adapted from Lee Ellis and Anthony Walsh) · 25 2.2. Severity of sentences for terrorism and other charges (usa) 2001–2009 · 42 6.1. Actors at the Stammheim trial · 288 11.1. Opinion on Breivik’s sanity/accountability · 482 11.2. Opinion on the media attention to Breivik’s perspective · 484 11.3. Judicial goals: important and attained · 486 Figures 8.1. Diagram showing prosecution theory of terrorist conspiracy · 356 12.1. A communicatively oriented typology of terrorism trials · 513 1. Introduction: A Performative Perspective on Terrorism Trials Beatrice de Graaf, in cooperation with Liesbeth van der Heide1 1.1. Introduction2 On 6 May 2011, Washington Post journalist Jeff Greenfield painted a vivid picture of what would have happened had operation Geronimo (which resulted in the killing of Osama Bin Laden) resulted in capturing the leader of Al Qaeda alive. After the initial congratulations, the consequences might soon have created problems. Putting Bin Laden on trial for mass murder in a New York federal court—aside from the fact that it is very unlikely that Congress would allow this in the first place—would have caused major headaches: … what if information about his location had been obtained through ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ and was ruled inadmissible? What if Bin Laden acted as his own lawyer, turning the trial into a months-long denunciation of America? What if one holdout resulted in a hung jury? […] A military commission at Guantánamo Bay, then? The process was agonizingly slow (only five cases concluded in nine years), and a death sentence for Bin Laden would mean years of appeals.3 Moreover, legal questions would, according to Greenfield, have been ‘nothing next to the security consequences of taking Bin Laden alive’. What if any terrorist organisation worldwide seized an elementary school, threatening to kill all of the children unless Bin Laden were released? Utilising criminal law and ultimately making use of civilian courts to try, sentence and imprison terrorists has often been criticised as a viable option in countering terrorism. Former Vice President Dick Cheney vehemently opposed organising terrorism trials in civilian courts in the United States (us). In a reaction to Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (ksm) before a civilian court in 2009, he lamented: ‘I can’t for the life of me figure out what Holder’s intent here is in having Khalid Sheikh Mohammed tried in civilian court other than to have some kind of show trial.’4 Cheney objected to this decision, arguing that giving 10 | beatrice de graaf ksm and other suspected terrorists a civilian trial in New York would be strategic disaster: ‘they’ll simply use it as a platform to argue their cases—they don’t have a defence to speak of—it’ll be a place for them to stand up and spread the terrible ideology that they adhere to’.5 Indeed, even when the rule of law is strictly observed, terrorism trials can easily turn into a show, a spectacle, run by the terrorist suspects in order to further their cause by communicative means. Or trials may lead to a (partial) acquittal, legally flawless but from a security perspective potentially disasterous. This concern, as voiced by many executive professionals, has been corroborated by the outcome of the first trial against a Guantánamo ‘ghost prisoner’, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, which sparked off a heated political debate. The defendant was convicted in a federal court in Manhattan for his role in the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, which earned him a 20-year sentence. Republican critics objected to the fact that the jury acquitted Ghailani of all other charges, more than 280 in total, including every single count of murder. This outcome was used as proof that terrorism detainees should be prosecuted solely by a military commission.6 It was not so much the final verdict that was contested but the use of civilian courts—with all the unpredictability and risks involved for combating terrorism. Notwithstandingsuchcriticism,terrorismtrialscanbeanexceptionalopportunity better to understand and, hence, counter terrorism, since they are the only place where most, if not all, of the actors in a terrorist incident meet again: terrorists, state representatives, the judiciary, the audience, surviving victims, terrorist sympathisers, etc. The media will report and broadcast their respective performances. Forming a nexus between terrorist violence, law enforcement and public opinion, terrorism trials thus offer the prospect of showcasing justice in progress, and in so doing of demonstrating to the world how terrorist suspects are dealt with under the laws of the land. Ideally, criminal investigation and prosecution result in bringing terrorist suspects to court, where by solely legal and constitutional means, their purported crimes are adjudicated and justice is restored. However, governments and security officials are more often than not reluctant to put terrorist suspects in front of civilian courts. This reluctance can be explained if we view terrorism trials as a form of theatre, where the ‘show’ can develop its own, often unexpected, dynamics, which at times might inconvenience the government, most notably when terrorist suspects appropriate the trial to continue their struggle by communicative means.