RACE AGAINST TERROR

The unusual prosecution of an avowed terrorist.

The busy CNN host’s second nonfiction title this year unravels the complexities behind a “unique” criminal case against a jihadist who killed American service members. Tapper’s narrative moves at pace, skillfully blending combat scenes, investigative breakthroughs, and courtroom conflict. In June 2011, Ibrahim S. Harun, a passenger on a ship transporting migrants in the Mediterranean Sea, approached an Italian Green Beret and confessed that he was in al-Qaida and had killed American troops in Afghanistan. Italian authorities took Harun, also known as Spin Ghul, into custody but refused to extradite him if the U.S. planned to try Harun by military commission. To Italian leaders, such proceedings upheld illegal interrogation practices employed by the U.S. Fearful that Harun would be released and participate in another attack, federal prosecutors and FBI agents prepared for a criminal trial in civilian court. Investigators used a military database of items recovered from battle sites to place Harun at the scene of a 2003 ambush of U.S. soldiers, two of whom—Jerod Dennis and Raymond Losano—were killed. A Quran found there bore Harun’s fingerprints. Though Tapper occasionally bogs down in the backgrounds of relatively minor figures, he’s sharp on the political considerations that informed the Justice Department and President Obama’s decision to try Harun in federal court in Brooklyn. Harun was convicted of multiple charges in 2017 and later sentenced to life in prison. Tapper carefully unpacks legal precedents, explaining how “the distinction between terrorism and warfare” became “blurred” after 9/11. This helped enable a prosecution that some believe should have remained in the military’s purview. Remarkably, the judge who sentenced Harun, while not doubting his guilt, tells Tapper that the proceeding “felt like a show trial.”

A smart page-turner about the atypical trial of an al-Qaida member.