Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

Are Military Tribunals Really Tougher On Terrorists Than Criminal Courts?

Justin Elliott | February 3, 2010, 1:27PM

Flight 253 bomb attack suspect Umar Abdulmutallab

With the debate over how to handle captured terrorists heating up, it's a good time to look back at the record of how military tribunals have worked in practice, and examine the uninterrogated assumption underlying the debate: that tribunals are tougher on terrorists than the criminal justice system.

A recent study by the liberal Center for American Progress found that in the very few cases of captured terrorists being tried in tribunals, the defendants were given lighter sentences than comparable cases in the criminal justice system.

Read more »