Appeals Panel Upholds Conviction of Ghailani, Ex-Detainee

Mr. Ghailani had argued that his long detention before trial — about two years in a so-called black site run by the Central Intelligence Agency, and almost three years at Guantánamo — violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial.

The panel acknowledged that the delay in bringing him to trial was substantial, but it found that the “Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government may purposely delay trials for significant periods of time, so long as, on balance, the public and private interests render the delay reasonable.”

Although the decision by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit takes no position on whether terrorist detainees should be tried in federal court, the ruling should make it easier for the government to do so, if it chooses, after a detainee is held for intelligence purposes.

The panel dismissed Mr. Ghailani’s claim, for example, that holding him for national security reasons was an automatic violation of his speedy-trial rights, and should have precluded the government from later trying him in civilian court.

“We observe no basis for, and reject in full, Ghailani’s argument that, once having detained a defendant as a national security intelligence asset, the government can no longer bring the defendant to trial,” Judge José A. Cabranes, writing for the panel, said.

“Ghailani’s suggestion that the government must detain defendants who pose a threat to national security indefinitely rather than bring them to trial for their crimes in the manner consistent with our traditional notions of justice would hardly advance the interests of defendants or the values underpinning the Speedy Trial Clause,” the judge wrote.

Mr. Ghailani had been charged with conspiring in Al Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which killed 224 people and wounded thousands. He was captured in Pakistan in 2004.

During his years as a fugitive, a prosecutor, Michael Farbiarz, told the panel in May, Mr. Ghailani served “at literally the highest level of Al Qaeda on operational matters.” He became a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden and a document forger for Al Qaeda, Mr. Farbiarz said.

While he was in C.I.A. custody, he was interrogated as a potential intelligence asset. “He knows things that, for the sake of saving lives, the United States needs to know,” Mr. Farbiarz told the court.

At trial, Mr. Ghailani was acquitted of all but one of the more than 280 charges against him. On the count for which he was convicted, conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property, Mr. Ghailani received a life sentence from the trial judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court.

The panel, which also included Judges Pierre N. Leval and Barrington D. Parker Jr., upheld Mr. Ghailani’s sentence in its 40-page ruling. He is serving the sentence at the so-called Supermax prison in Florence, Colo.

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