Harold Hongju Koh (professor of international law at Yale and former assistant

secretary of state for human rights in the Clinton administration): We Have the Right Courts for Bin Laden — ‘I hope never to see Osama bin Laden alive in the dock. As Mohammed

Atef’s recent death shows, international law entitles us to redress the killing

of thousands by direct armed attack upon Osama bin Laden and other Al

Qaeda perpetrators responsible for the attacks of Sept. 11. But if they

surrender, we should not lynch them, but rather try them, to promote

values that must stand higher than vengeance: to hold them accountable

for their crimes against humanity, to tell the world the true facts of those

crimes and to demonstrate that civilized societies can provide justice for

even the most heinous outlaws. Israel tried Adolf Eichmann. We can try

Osama bin Laden, and without revealing secret information, making him a

martyr or violating our own principles. President Bush’s order for secret

military trials undermines these values.’ NY Times