Gitmo Torture and Louis Pepe

 

Watched a fascinating piece with Judge Andrew Napolitano today on FoxNews. He described a visit to Gitmo and the subsequent viewing of info gained from prisoners under “duress”. The judge seemed to have two impressions… These were/are very bad people, and the information gained would never stand in a court of law because of the way the intel was obtained.

Sometimes it’s too easy to lose sight of the barbarism of the individual Islamic terrorist through the smoke of the Islamofacist organization. So, just as a reminder, here is the story of Louis Pepe (a Manhattan jail guard) who tragically crossed paths with one of these fanatics.

Prosecutors have said Mr. Salim was a founding member of Al Qaeda. He pleaded guilty in April 2002 to stabbing Mr. Pepe in the eye. The sharpened comb penetrated Mr. Pepe’s brain and left him with severe speech impairments and significantly limited mobility.

The stabbing, on Nov. 1, 2000, was part of what prosecutors said was a larger plot to brutalize even more people, including Mr. Salim’s lawyers, whom he wanted replaced with new counselors.

Mr. Salim sharpened a comb using the underside of his concrete desk in his cell at the correctional center. He used the comb to attack Mr. Pepe in order to seize his keys to 10-South, a wing of the correctional center. Prosecutors have said he intended to free his co-defendants and take hostages.

”He’s cunning, he’s devious, he’s brutal,” a prosecutor, Robert Buehler, told Judge Batts in seeking a life sentence for Mr. Salim. Later, he added, ”Officer Pepe was truly a nice man and a good person, and Salim picked him for that very reason.”

More information on Mr. Pepe and his terrorist attacker can be found here.

As for Gitmo… If waterboarding, sleep deprivation, loud music, and even a good old fashioned butt kickin’ were used on this ilk, I’m not going to lose sleep… not if what the judge reported was legit. After all, they got it easy compared to Mr. Pepe.

Alan Speakman

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