Federal Judge: "Street Pirates" Worse Than Most Guantanamo Bay Detainees Heading To Illinois

Judge: Gangs worse than most Gitmo detainees

The chief judge of the federal court in Washington told lawyers Thursday that domestic street gangs are more deadly than some Guantanamo Bay detainees who could face trial in U.S. courts, the Associated Press reports.

Judge Royce Lamberth was speaking at an American Bar Association breakfast about Attorney General Eric Holder's recent decision to put the reputed Sept. 11 mastermind and four accused henchmen on trial in New York federal court. He rejected the suggestion made by some critics of Holder's decision that U.S. courts cannot secure defendants like terror suspects held at Guantanamo.

"The gangs are more murderous, I think, than some of these people at Guantanamo," Lamberth said. "They've certainly killed their share of witnesses here."

Lamberth presided over a 2004 trial in which six members of a gang called Murder Inc. were accused of killing at least 31 people, including witnesses to the gang's crimes. It was one of the city's longest and most tightly guarded trials. The judge and jury were protected by bulletproof glass.