Lawyers made opening statements Tuesday as the trial began in earnest for the first former Guantanamo detainee transferred to U.S. soil. While the government portrayed the slight, baby-faced 36-year-old as a vicious al Qaeda murderer who helped plan two US embassy bombings that killed 224 people, the defense told a very different story. Although not contesting much of the evidence the government plans to present — about the bombings themselves, its destructiveness and their innocent victims — defense lawyers argue that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was a hapless young Tanzanian duped into helping his powerful childhood friends who, unbeknownst to him, were al Qaeda killers.

When Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was first transferred to New York from Guantanamo Bay last year, House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio called it “the first step in the Democrats’ plan to import terrorists into America.”

Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

Cross posted from Border Jumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

We are going to try to write the article we wish we had been able to read before attempting to bus our way across Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda (December 2009). Cross posted from Border Jumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.

Read about Bernard and Danielle as they travel through sub-Saharan Africa. Follow them at www.BorderJumpers.org.

Follow Danielle and Bernard as they travel around sub-Saharan Africa. Crossposted from www.BorderJumpers.org.

Eating vegetarian in Africa is easier than Danielle and Bernard originally thought! Crossposted from www.BorderJumpers.org.

A short video from Danielle and Bernard’s trip to Tanzania. Cross posted from www.BorderJumpers.org.

Pictures from our travels in Tanzania. Visit www.BorderJumpers.org to follow Danielle and Bernard on their trip through Africa.