The White House confirmed on Wednesday that the Trump administration considers terror suspect Sayfullo Saipov an ‘enemy combatant,’ a designation that would make the alleged New York killer ineligible for legal rights afforded to criminal suspects in U.S. courts.
Among those rights, familiar to watchers of TV cop dramas, are the right to remain silent and the right to have an attorney present during questioning.
‘We would consider him to be an enemy combatant,’ White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters during a briefing, while cautioning that she wasn’t sure how the federal government would ‘process’ him.
Asked why the ‘enemy combatant’ label is appropriate, she replied: ‘I think the actions that he took certainly justify that.’
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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that the Uzbekistan immigrant accused of mowing down eight people a day earlier in New York City should be considered an ‘enemy combatant’
Sayfullo Saipov was admitted to the U.S. in 2010 under the State Department’s Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, and questions have arisen about whether he should have the same legal rights enjoyed by more ordinary criminal defendants
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain said Wednesday that international terror attacks are ‘acts of war’ and perpetrators should be considered ‘enemy combatants’
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham advocated for holding suspected terrorists without giving them Miranda rights, including the right to have an attorney
Saipov is the Uzbek national who was arrested Tuesday for plowing a rented truck through a bike lane full of cyclists and pedestrians, killing eight people and injuring another dozen.
He was seen on video after crashing into a school bus, running through a lower Manhattan street as he yelled ‘Allahu akbar’ and brandished what turned out to be a paintball gun and a pellet gun..
The White House’s declaration came on the heels of similar statements from Arizona Sen. John McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republicans who have disagreed publicly with President Donald Trump on a host of legislative issues.
McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a survivor of prolonged torture during the Vietnam War, said in a statement Americans should recognize international terror attacks as ‘acts of war.’
‘As such, the New York terror suspect should be held and interrogated – thoroughly, responsibly, and humanely– as an enemy combatant consistent with the Law of Armed Conflict,’ McCain added.
‘He should not be read Miranda Rights, as enemy combatants are not entitled to them. As soon as possible, the administration should notify Congress how it plans to proceed with the interrogation and trial of this suspect.’
Asked why the ‘enemy combatant’ label is appropriate for Saipov, Sanders replied: ‘I think the actions that he took certainly justify that’
President Donald Trump said as he began a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that he would consider sending suspected terrorist Sayfullo Saipov to the Guantanamo Bay military prison
America’s heavily fortified Guantanamo Bay prison camp, situated on leased land in Cuba, has been the home of suspected jihadi terrorists for decades
Graham suggested grilling terror attackers without giving them rights expected by criminal defendants.
He recommended on the Fox News Channel that federal government authorities should ‘hold them for a long period of time, get to know them, interrogate them about what they know, where they got trained – if any training.’
‘And we’ll find out pretty soon more about this guy if you don’t read him his Miranda rights,’ Graham continued, ‘because that stops the interrogation.’
Earlier, Trump had told reporters that he would consider sending Saipov to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
‘I would certainly consider that, yes. I would certainly consider that. Send him to Gitmo,’ Trump said.
Sanders told reporters hours later during a briefing that ‘the point he was making is that he supports – or would support that, but he wasn’t necessarily advocating for it.’
Trump ‘certainly would support it if he felt like that was the best move,’ she added cryptically.
Sanders also said the president had been ‘simply expressing his frustration’ with how long it takes a federal criminal case to wind its way through the courts.
Trump suggested on Wednesday that Americans were ‘suckers’ for supporting a system that allowed lax oversight of people allowed to fast-track their visa applications on the basis of a randomly drawn number
The U.S. Justice Department reports that as of the end of 2015 there had been 620 successful civilian prosecutions of terrorism-related cases since the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
That total includes people convicted on both international and domestic terror charges.
Military tribunals, however, have only put eight people behind bars for terror-related offenses, and four of those cases have seen convictions overturned.
The five people accused of carrying out the 9/11 attacks are still languishing at Guantanamo, waiting to go on trial.
Trump has vowed to reverse the previous administration’s course on closing the military prison, which was one of former president Barack Obama’s earliest campaign promises – and one he never fulfilled.
Obama largely emptied out ‘Gitmo,’ as the terror-detention hellhole is known, reducing its population from 242 to just 41.
The prison camp has been the site of infamous torture techniques including waterboarding – which the president supported during his White House campaign.
‘Terrorists are constantly seeking to strike our nation and it will require the unflinching devotion to our law enforcement, homeland security and intelligence professionals to keep America safe,’ Trump said Wednesday
‘We have to get much tougher and we have to get much smarter,’ he added. ‘And we have to get much less politically correct. We’re so politically correct that we’re afraid to do anything.’