Justice for terrorists: Assistant dean recounts his defense of 1993 World Trade Center suspects

September 3, 2003
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ANN ARBOR—Can a terrorist get a fair trial? Should we care about fairness, knowing that the accused person or group may have injured or killed many people?

As the nation debates how best to deal with accused terrorists through civilian trials or military tribunals, Robert Precht, an assistant dean of public service in the University of Michigan?s Law School, says it can be difficult to achieve fair trials in terrorism cases—but the principles of justice demand that the effort is worth it.

“Impartiality is important not to the achievement of justice in particular cases, but also to the attainment of legality throughout the world,? he said.

Precht raises questions about terrorists on trial in his new book, ?Defending Mohammad: Justice on Trial, A Defense Lawyer?s Account of the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing Trial.? Cornell University Press publishes the book this month, 10 years after the trial began.

Foreshadowing the ongoing legal and political repercussions of the post-Sept. 11 era, this watershed case resulted in the first major ?Muslim scare? in New York City history, Precht said. Four Muslim defendants were convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in 1993, and each one received a sentence of 240 years in prison. Precht, who then served as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society?s Federal Defender Division in Manhattan, N.Y., defended one of the convicted terrorists.

For more information about Precht, visit http://cgi2.www.law.umich.edu/_FacultyBioPage/facultybiopagenew.asp?ID=162 and http://ipumich.temppublish.com/public/experts/ExpDisplay.php?ExpID=618

For information about U-M Law School, visit http://www.law.umich.edu/

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