Finally Guilty...

The Spanish court handling the mammoth terrorist case there has rendered a verdict : Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, alias Abu Dahdah, has been convicted of supporting terrorism and put into jail for 27 years instead of the 74,000 years that the prosecutor was asking for.

What is more critical is that Tayssir Alluni has also been convicted. He's an Aljazeera journalist.

This is important. This isn't just any journalist, but rather one that's been in the enemy camp from day one: even Aljazeera describes what he's done and where's he been. He's even been awarded a peace prize by a Spanish peace group: now imagine that, a Spanish peace group awarding a prize to a convicted terrorist. He's been sentenced to 7 years for aiding and abetting a terrorist organization (guess which one), but he was acquitted of actually being a member.

He's basically a fellow-traveller: the "peace group" that he ostentiously works for tried to engineer cease-fires on their own in Afghanistan between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban when the Taliban were losing.

It's indicative that this man is even called a journalist. Instead of being neutral and just being a reporter, covering the facts and writing the story, he got involved. Some may call that courageous and admirable: I call it being being fundamentally dishonest about who you are and what you do.

You can't have it both ways: either you work as a journalist and maintain objectivity, or you become partisan. I guess that when he got this interview he made that decision for himself and now must live with the consequences.

This man decided to go the partisan route: he's been convicted of materially helping a terrorist group. Of course, he just says that he was doing his job as a journalist .

And did I mention that he's actually a Syrian?

Seven years is just fine by me. Damn good start.

Kudos to the Spanish justice system.