John C. Coughenour

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John C. Coughenour is a U.S. District Court Judge.[1] Coughenour was the Judge who sentenced Ahmed Ressam, the "millennium bomber".

Ressam wrote a letter to Coughenour, in November 2006, to "clarify" allegations he leveled against "Ahcene Zemiri", another Algerian expatriate he knew from when they both lived in Montreal.

Coughenour wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, entitled "How to Try a Terrorist", commenting on Michael B. Mukasey's nomination for Attorney General of the United States.[2] Coughenour compared his experience trying Ahmed Ressam with Michael B. Mukasey's trial of Omar Abdel Rahman for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

He noted that Mukasey had complained about “the inadequacy of the current approach to terrorism prosecutions.” He noted that Mukasey had complained about the limited number of terrorism convictions.[2] Coughenour paraphrased Mukasey: “Open prosecutions… potentially disclose to our enemies methods and sources of intelligence-gathering. Our Constitution does not adequately protect society from 'people who have cosmic goals that they are intent on achieving by cataclysmic means.'”

Coughenour wrote that his experience[2]: “…only strengthened my conviction that American courts, guided by the principles of our Constitution, are fully capable of trying suspected terrorists.”

[edit] References

  1. ^ "'Millennium' terror plotter recants claims against Guantanamo detainee", International Herald Tribune, January 5, 2007. Retrieved on January 6. 
  2. ^ a b c John C. Coughenour. "How to Try a Terrorist", New York Times, November 1, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-11-21. 
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