Senator calls on Trump to declare terror suspect an 'enemy combatant'
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Experts say the Internet is helping radicalize ‘lone wolf’ terrorists and encouraging them to act faster than before.
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The suspect in the terror attack that killed eight in New York City should be considered an “unlawful enemy combatant†and interrogated without having a lawyer present, Sen. Lindsey Graham said Wednesday.
FBI and other officials need to question Sayfullo Saipov for intelligence about other attacks and his motivation, Graham said. The Republican senator from South Carolina called on the Trump administration to reverse the Obama-era policy of treating terror suspects as regular criminals.
“The last thing I think you want to do is lawyer them up and put them in federal court,†he said.
President Trump said at the start of a Wednesday Cabinet meeting that he was thinking of sending Saipov, who is hospitalized from a gunshot wound to the abdomen, to Guantanamo.
Saipov, 29, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, allegedly drove his rented truck onto a bike path. He was “radicalized domestically,†Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio labeled the melee “an act of terror.”
Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have vowed to direct enemy combatants to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Saipov would be the first sent there.
Saipov could not be tried in a military tribunal there, Graham said, because he holds a green card. After being interrogated, he could be tried in civilian court, he said.
Still, Saipov could be sent to Guantanamo first to be questioned and held there for some time, Graham said.
“You could if you wanted to,” Graham said.
The Obama administration, however, refused to send captured militants there. The most prominent example is Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the chief suspect in the deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.
Khatallah has been held at a detention center in Alexandria, Va., and now faces trial in civilian court. He faces 18 charges.
Terrorists radicalized by the Islamic State, Graham said, see an attack on U.S. soil as their top prize — “the Gold medal in the terrorist Olympics.”
“The idea that America is not part of the battlefield is insane,” Graham said.
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