Military Prosecutors Set To Open Major 9/11 Case

[Gold9472]

Military Prosecutors Set to Open Major 9/11 Case

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/us/09gitmo.html?hp

(Gold9472: Interesting decision by the Times to report on Ms. Lemack's call for justice, and to ignore Mrs. O'Connor's, Ms. Little's, Ms. Kminek's, Mrs. Van Auken's, Mrs. Kleinberg's, Mrs. Casazza's, Mrs. Gabrielle's, Mr. McIlvaine's and many others call for the very same thing.)

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: February 9, 2008

Military prosecutors are in the final phases of preparing the first sweeping case against suspected conspirators in the plot that led to the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, and drew the United States into war, people who have been briefed on the case said.

The charges, to be filed in the military commission system at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would involve as many as six detainees held at the detention camp, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the former senior aide to Osama bin Laden, who has said he was the principal planner of the plot.

The case could begin to fulfill a longtime goal of the Bush administration: establishing culpability for the terrorist attacks of 2001. It could also help the administration make its case that some detainees at Guantánamo, where 275 men remain, would pose a threat if they are not held at Guantánamo or elsewhere. Officials have long said that a half-dozen men held at Guantánamo played essential roles in the plot directed by Mr. Mohammed, from would-be hijackers to financiers.

But the case would also bring new scrutiny to the military commission system, which has a troubled history and has been criticized as a system designed to win convictions but that does not provide the legal protections of American civilian courts.

War-crimes charges against the men would almost certainly place the prosecutors in a battle over the treatment of inmates because at least two detainees tied to the 2001 terror attacks were subject to aggressive interrogation techniques that critics say amounted to torture.

One official who has been briefed on the case said the military prosecutors were considering seeking the death penalty for Mr. Mohammed, although no final decision appears to have been made. The official added that the military prosecutors had decided to focus on the Sept. 11 attacks in part as an effort to try to establish credibility for the military commission system before a new administration takes the White House next January.

“The thinking was 9/11 is the heart and soul of the whole thing. The thinking was: go for that,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because no one in the government was authorized to speak about the case. Even if the charges are released soon, it would be many months before a trial could be held, lawyers said.

A Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, declined to comment specifically. But he added that the government was preparing a case against “individuals who have been involved in some of the most grievous acts of violence and terror against the United States and our allies.”

“The prosecution team is close to moving forward on referring charges on a number of individuals,” Mr. Whitman said.

Ever since President Bush announced in 2006 that he had transferred 14 “high value” detainees to Guantánamo from a secret C.I.A. detention program, it has been expected that the Pentagon would eventually lodge charges involving several of the numerous terror plots to which officials say several of those men were tied.

Officials have said detainees now held at Guantánamo are responsible for attacks that killed thousands of people, including the United States Embassy bombings in East Africa in 1998, the attack on the destroyer Cole in 2000, and the Bali nightclub bombing in 2002.

But it has always been clear that a case involving the Sept. 11 plot would be the centerpiece of the military commissions system and its most stringent test. After the Supreme Court struck down the Bush administration’s first system for military commission trials in 2006, Congress enacted a new law.

Among other things, the Military Commissions Act provides that detainees charged with war crimes are entitled to military lawyers to defend them, a presumption of innocence and a right of appeal. But detainees’ lawyers and other critics have said that many flaws remain, including the fact that the system is under Pentagon control and even the judges are military officers.

Told of the possible charges, Carie Lemack, whose mother was killed on American Airlines Flight 11, said such a trial would be a grueling process for the families. But, Ms. Lemack said, “It is important that justice be brought to those who killed my mother and nearly 3,000 others.”

It was not clear Friday whether final decisions had been made about precise charges and which detainees are to be included.

But it is known that the prosecutors have considered charges of murder, conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism because of the Sept. 11 deaths. It is also known that a joint team of military and Department of Justice lawyers working on the case have considered charging six of the best-known Guantánamo detainees.

Lawyers have said that two of those are men whose treatment in American hands would inevitably be a focus of defense lawyers in their cases.

One of them, Mr. Mohammed, known as KSM, was subject to the simulated-drowning technique known as waterboarding while in secret C.I.A. custody, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, confirmed this week.

The American-educated Mr. Mohammed was described by the Sept. 11 commission as the “self-cast star, the superterrorist,” with plans for destruction on a vast scale. At a Pentagon hearing last year, he claimed responsibility for more than 30 terrorist attacks and plots.

He was explicit about his role in the 2001 attacks. “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z,” he said.

The other detainee whose treatment could become a focus of any trial is Mohammed al-Qahtani, who has been held at Guantánamo since 2002. Pentagon officials have said he may have been the so-called “20th hijacker.” A month before the attacks, he flew from Dubai to Orlando, Fla., but was denied entry into the United States by an immigration official.

Pentagon investigators concluded in 2005 that he had been subject to abusive treatment at Guantánamo, including sleep deprivation, being forced to wear a bra and being led around on a leash.

Gitanjali Gutierrez, one of Mr. al-Qahtani’s lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said she had no information about whether he would be charged. “But if he is,” Ms. Gutierrez said, “I can assure you that his well-documented torture and the controversy over secret trials will be the focus.”

Zacarias Moussaoui, who at one point was identified by prosecutors as a potential “20th hijacker” pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2005, and is serving a life term. He is the only person who has been tried in a United States court for involvement in the Sept. 11 plot.

Defense lawyers are also expected to use any commission cases to challenge the prosecutors over the C.I.A.’s destruction of tapes of interrogations of two detainees, which has been acknowledged by the agency.

Among the other four potential defendants are Guantánamo detainees who intelligence officials have said played critical support roles for the hijackers.

Officials say Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who had been a roommate of the lead hijacker Mohamed Atta in Hamburg, Germany, was the main intermediary between the hijackers and Al Qaeda leaders in the months before Sept. 11.

The Pentagon has described another detainee, Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Mr. Mohammed, as “a key lieutenant for KSM during the operation on 11 September” who wired $114,500 to the hijackers.

Mr. al-Baluchi’s assistant was Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, according to various accounts. The September 11 commission said that Mr. al-Hawsawi had been assigned by Mr. Mohammed to help coordinate hijackers’ travel and was so centrally involved that he was their contact for unused money to be returned in the days before the attacks.

Finally, the detainee known as Khallad, who is missing part of his right leg as a result of what officials say is a long jihadist history, is believed to have had long ties to Mr. bin Laden. Officials have said Khallad helped select and train some of the hijackers and was originally slated to have been one of them himself.

[simuvac]

Just in time for the election.

And it's a fraudulent "military commission" instead of a real trial.

[Gold9472]

They changed the title of the story to "6 Guantánamo Detainees Are Said to Face Trial Over 9/11". I wonder if it was to take the word "Military" out of the title?

http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/militaryprosecutor.jpg

[simuvac]

They changed the title of the story to "6 Guantánamo Detainees Are Said to Face Trial Over 9/11". I wonder if it was to take the word "Military" out of the title?

http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/militaryprosecutor.jpg

The new title includes the word "trial," which this is not. It is a military tribunal.

[Gold9472]

US lawyers offer compromise to question 9/11 mastermind

http://www.gulfnews.com/world/U.S.A/10188471.html

AP
Published: February 10, 2008, 00:45

Guantanamo Bay: US Naval base, Cuba (Reuters) Military lawyers defending Osama Bin Laden's former driver on terrorism charges in the US war court at Guantanamo Bay have offered a compromise in their quest to interview September 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad.

They promised not to ask Mohammad about his treatment in US custody or about the CIA's admission that it subjected him to a simulated drowning technique (waterboarding) during interrogations.

Bin Laden's former driver, Salim Ahmad Hamdan, was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 and faces life in prison if convicted in the Guantanamo court of conspiring with Al Qaida and providing material support for terrorism. The Yemeni man said he never joined Al Qaida, had no advance knowledge of its attacks and became Bin Laden's driver in Afghanistan because he needed the salary of $200 per month. Hamdan's lawyers said Mohammad - the highest-ranking Al Qaida leader held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - can help their defence by telling them what role, if any, Hamdan had in the organisation.

Two captives charged
US military prosecutors have filed war crimes charges against two more Guantanamo prisoners, saying Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman Al Bahlul was an Al Qaida videographer and Ebrahim Mahmoud Al Qosi was a driver and bodyguard for Osama Bin Laden. That brings to seven the number of captives charged in the revised system of military tribunals created to try non-US citizens held at the US Navy base in Cuba.

Guantanamo initiative: Classes and movies
Seeking to ease conditions for angry and frustrated detainees, the commander of Guantanamo's prison camps has instituted language classes and a literacy programme, plans humanities courses and wants to open communal areas for men now held in isolation 22 hours a day.

Army Colonel Bruce Vargo said he hopes the changes will lead to fewer attacks on guards by the 275 prisoners suspected of links to Al Qaida and the Taliban.

Some of the best-behaved detainees now get TV night, with DVDs of movies and TV shows shown on a high-definition Sony TV.

[Gold9472]

Let us talk to Sept 11 planner, U.S. lawyers ask

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080208/ts_nm/guantanamo_dc_1

By Jane Sutton Fri Feb 8, 4:43 PM ET

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Military lawyers defending Osama bin Laden's former driver on terrorism charges in the U.S. war court at Guantanamo Bay have offered a compromise in their quest to interview September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

They promised not to ask Mohammed about his treatment in U.S. custody or about the CIA's admission that it subjected him to a simulated drowning technique known as "waterboarding" during interrogations.

Bin Laden's former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 and faces life in prison if convicted in the Guantanamo court of conspiring with al Qaeda and providing material support for terrorism.

The Yemeni man said he never joined al Qaeda, had no advance knowledge of its attacks and became bin Laden's driver in Afghanistan because he needed the salary of $200 per month.

Hamdan's lawyers said Mohammed -- the highest-ranking al Qaeda leader held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- can help their defense by telling them what role, if any, Hamdan had in the organization.

They likened it to somebody "on trial for organized crime and you've got the opportunity to bring in the godfather."

The request was still pending when a pretrial hearing ended on Thursday but the military judge suggested he might at least let the lawyers question Mohammed via written notes.

The judge is expected to rule in the next couple of weeks and Hamdan is scheduled to go to trial in May. So far, only one captive -- an Australian man -- has been convicted by the widely criticized court and that was in a plea bargain.

TOO DANGEROUS
Prosecutors said Mohammed, accused of masterminding the attacks on the United States by al Qaeda militants on September 11, 2001, was too dangerous an enemy in an ongoing war to allow defense lawyers to go on "a fishing expedition."

"The defense is asking for access to some of the most notorious terrorists the world has ever seen," said one of the prosecutors, Air Force Lt. Col. William Britt.

There was a risk of endangering U.S. agents if Mohammed revealed to the defense lawyers the sources and methods the government used to get information from him, prosecutors said.

The CIA has acknowledged using waterboarding, which critics say is a form of illegal torture, on Mohammed and two other senior al Qaeda leaders who were later sent to Guantanamo.

The defense lawyers, one of whom has top clearance to view government secrets, said they disapproved of waterboarding but would not ask Mohammed about it or about anything that occurred after the September 11 attacks.

Mohammed is one of 15 "high-value" al Qaeda prisoners held separately from the other 260 non-U.S. captives at Guantanamo in a facility whose location is kept secret even from the officers who run the other detention camps.

Prosecutors also objected to defense requests to question six other high-value prisoners.

"Equally wrapped up in secret tape, eh?" asked the judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred.

He said the defense had shown adequate need to question Mohammed and suggested they conduct the interview via written questions and answers, which the prosecutors also opposed.

The United States set up the Guantanamo tribunals to try suspected terrorists after the September 11 attacks but so far, none of the handful of prisoners facing charges has been accused of direct involvement in the attacks.

No defense lawyer has been allowed access to the high-value group, which was brought to Guantanamo in 2006 after about three years in secret CIA custody.

One of Hamdan's lawyers, retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, said that raised a crucial question about U.S. plans to try those important figures.

"Who is going to represent Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and when will his trial be?" Swift said. (Editing by John O'Callaghan)

[simuvac]

I'm guessing the answer is going to be, "No."

[simuvac]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/us/11gitmo.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1202742327-vt7vlHLoaX6u6X8lES66qA&pagewanted=print

February 11, 2008
U.S. Said to Seek Execution for 6 in Sept. 11 Case

By WILLIAM GLABERSON (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/william_glaberson/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Military prosecutors have decided to seek the death penalty for six Guantánamo (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/national/usstatesterritoriesandpossessions/guantanamobaynavalbasecuba/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) detainees who are to be charged with central roles in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, government officials who have been briefed on the charges said Sunday.

The officials said the charges would be announced at the Pentagon as soon as Monday and were likely to include numerous war-crimes charges against the six men, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/khalid_shaikh_mohammed/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the former Qaeda operations chief who has described himself as the mastermind of the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

A Defense Department official said prosecutors were seeking the death penalty because “if any case warrants it, it would be for individuals who were parties to a crime of that scale.” The officials spoke anonymously because no one in the government was authorized to speak about the case.

A decision to seek the death penalty would increase the international focus on the case and present new challenges to the troubled military commission system that has yet to begin a single trial.

“The system hasn’t been able to handle the less-complicated cases it has been presented with to date,” said David Glazier, a former Navy officer who is a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

In addition to Mr. Mohammed, the other five to be charged include detainees officials say were coordinators and intermediaries in the plot, among them a man labeled the “20th hijacker,” who was denied entry to the United States in the month before the attacks.

Under the rules of the Guantánamo war-crimes system, the military prosecutors can designate charges as capital when they present them, and it is that first phase of the process that is expected this week. The military official who then reviews them, Susan J. Crawford, a former military appeals court judge, has the authority to accept or reject a death-penalty request.

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on Sunday.

Some officials briefed on the case have said the prosecutors view their task in seeking convictions for the Sept. 11 attacks as a historic challenge. A special group of military and Justice Department lawyers has been working on the case for several years.

Even if the detainees are convicted on capital charges, any execution would be many months or, perhaps years, from being carried out, lawyers said, in part because a death sentence would have to be scrutinized by civilian appeals courts.

Federal officials have said in recent months that there is no death chamber at the detention camp at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that they knew of no specific plans for how a death sentence would be carried out.

The military justice system, which does not govern the Guantánamo cases, provides for execution by lethal injection in death sentence convictions. But the United States military has rarely executed a prisoner in recent times.

The last military execution was in 1961, when an Army private, John A. Bennett, was hanged after being convicted of rape and attempted murder. Currently, there are six service members appealing military death sentences, according to a recently published article by a lawyer who specializes in military capital cases, Dwight H. Sullivan, a former chief military defense lawyer at Guántanamo.

One official who had been briefed on the war-crimes case said the charges were expected to be lodged against six detainees held at Guantánamo, including Mr. Mohammed, who is said to have presented the idea of an airliner attack on the United States to Osama bin Laden (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/osama_bin_laden/index.html?inline=nyt-per) in 1999 and then coordinated its planning.

The official identified the others to be charged as Mohammed al-Qahtani, the man officials have labeled the 20th hijacker; Ramzi bin al-Shibh (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/ramzi_bin_alshibh/index.html?inline=nyt-per), said to have been the main intermediary between the hijackers and leaders of Al Qaeda (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org); Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Mr. Mohammed, who has been identified as Mr. Mohammed’s lieutenant for the 2001 operation; Mr. al-Baluchi’s assistant, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi; and Walid bin Attash, a detainee known as Khallad, who investigators say selected and trained some of the hijackers.

Relatives of the Sept. 11 victims have expressed differing views of potential death sentences, with some arguing that it would accomplish little other than martyring men for whom martyrdom may be viewed as a reward.

But on Sunday, Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles F. Burlingame III was the pilot of the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 that was crashed into the Pentagon, said she would approve of an effort by prosecutors to seek the execution of men she blames for killing her brother. Ms. Burlingame said such a case could help refocus the public’s attention on what she called the calculated brutality of the attacks, which she said has been largely forgotten.

“My opinion is,” she said, “if the death of 3,000 people isn’t sufficient for a death penalty in this country, then why do we even have the death penalty?”

Lawyers said a prosecution move to seek the death penalty in six cases that will draw worldwide attention was risky. They said it would increase the stakes at Guantánamo partly by amplifying the attention internationally to cases that would draw intense attention in any event.

The military commission system has been troubled almost from the start, when it was set up in an order by President Bush in November 2001. It has been beset by legal challenges and practical difficulties, including a 2006 decision by the Supreme Court (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/supreme_court/index.html?inline=nyt-org) striking down the administration’s first system at Guantánamo. Although officials have spoken of charging 80 or more detainees with war crimes, so far only one case has been completed, and that was through a plea bargain.

Eric M. Freedman, a Hofstra University (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/hofstra_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org) law professor who has been a consultant to detainees’ lawyers, said a decision to seek the death penalty would magnify the attention on each of the many steps in a capital case. Intense scrutiny, he said, “would be drawn to the proceedings both legally and politically from around the world.”

Some countries have been critical of the United States’ use of the death penalty in civilian cases, and a request for execution in the military commission system would import much of that criticism to the already heated debates about the legitimacy of Guantánamo and the Bush administration’s legal approach there, some lawyers said.

Tom Fleener, an Army Reserve major who was until recently a military defense lawyer at Guantánamo, said that bringing death penalty cases in the military commission system would bog down the untested system. He noted that many legal questions remain unanswered at Guantánamo, including how much of the trials will be conducted in closed, secret proceedings; how the military judges will handle evidence obtained by interrogators’ coercive tactics; and whether the judges will require experienced death-penalty lawyers to take part in such cases.

“Neither the system is ready, nor are the defense attorneys ready to do a death penalty case in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,” Major Fleener said.

Professor Glazier of Loyola said the military commission system was devised to avoid many of the hurdles that have slowed civilian capital cases. Still, he said, he expected intense scrutiny and criticism of such cases that could slow proceedings.

In any event, vigorous trial battles and appeals would probably mean that no execution would be imminent. “It certainly seems impossible to get this done by the end of the Bush administration,” Professor Glazier said.

[simuvac]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/washington/11cnd-gitmo.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

February 11, 2008
U.S. Presents Charges Against 6 in Sept. 11 Case

By WILLIAM GLABERSON (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/william_glaberson/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
WASHINGTON — Six Guantánamo detainees who are accused of central roles in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, will be shown all the evidence against them and will be afforded the same rights as American soldiers accused of crimes, the Pentagon said Monday as it announced the charges against them.

Military prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the six Guantánamo detainees on charges including conspiracy and murder “in violation of the law of war,” attacking civilians and civilian targets, terrorism and support of terrorism, Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann of the Air Force, legal adviser to the Defense Department’s Office of Military Commissions, said at a Pentagon news briefing.

General Hartmann said it would be up to the trial judge how to handle evidence obtained through controversial interrogation techniques like “waterboarding (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/torture/waterboarding/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier),” or simulated drowning. Critics have said the harsh techniques, which are believed to have been used on several of the defendants, amount to torture.

As expected, the six include Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/khalid_shaikh_mohammed/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the former Qaeda operations chief who has described himself as the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

“The accused are, and will remain, innocent unless proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” General Hartmann said.

Altogether, the defendants and others not yet charged are believed to have committed 169 “overt acts” in furtherance of the attacks, General Hartmann said. The charges are being translated into the native language of each of the accused and will soon be served on them, he said.

A Defense Department official said in advance of the announcement that prosecutors were seeking the death penalty because, “if any case warrants it, it would be for individuals who were parties to a crime of that scale.” The terror attacks, in which civilian airliners were hijacked and deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, were the deadliest in American history.

The decision to seek the death penalty will no doubt increase the international focus on the case and present new challenges to the troubled military commission system that has yet to begin a single trial. The death penalty is an issue that has caused friction for decades between the United States and many of its allies who consider capital punishment barbaric.

“The system hasn’t been able to handle the less-complicated cases it has been presented with to date,” said David Glazier, a former Navy officer who is a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

In addition to Mr. Mohammed, the other five being charged include detainees who officials say were coordinators and intermediaries in the plot, among them a man labeled the “20th hijacker,” who was denied entry to the United States in the month before the attacks.

Under the rules of the Guantánamo war-crimes system, the military prosecutors can designate charges as capital when they present them, and it is that first phase of the process that is expected this week. The military official who then reviews them, Susan J. Crawford, a former military appeals court judge, has the authority to accept or reject a death-penalty request.

General Hartmann said he could not predict when actual trials would begin, but that pretrial procedures would take several months at least. He said the accused will enjoy the same rights that members of the American military enjoy, and that the proceedings will be “as completely open as possible,” notwithstanding the occasional need to protect classified information.

In no sense will the proceedings be secret, the general said. “Every piece of evidence, every stitch of evidence, every whiff of evidence” will be available to the defendants, General Hartmann said.

Some officials briefed on the case have said the prosecutors view their task in seeking convictions for the Sept. 11 attacks as a historic challenge. A special group of military and Justice Department lawyers has been working on the case for several years.

Even if the detainees are convicted on capital charges, any execution would be many months or, perhaps years, from being carried out, lawyers have said, in part because a death sentence would have to be scrutinized by civilian appeals courts.

Federal officials have said in recent months that there is no death chamber at the detention camp at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that they knew of no specific plans for how a death sentence would be carried out.

The military justice system, which does not govern the Guantánamo cases, provides for execution by lethal injection in death sentence convictions. But the United States military has rarely executed a prisoner in recent times.

The last military execution was in 1961, when an Army private, John A. Bennett, was hanged after being convicted of rape and attempted murder. Currently, there are six service members appealing military death sentences, according to a recently published article by a lawyer who specializes in military capital cases, Dwight H. Sullivan, a former chief military defense lawyer at Guantánamo.

General Hartmann said Mr. Mohammed is believed to have presented the idea of an airliner attack on the United States to Osama bin Laden (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/osama_bin_laden/index.html?inline=nyt-per) in 1999 and then coordinated its planning.

The others being charged are Mohammed al-Qahtani, the man officials have labeled the 20th hijacker; Ramzi bin al-Shibh (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/ramzi_bin_alshibh/index.html?inline=nyt-per), said to have been the main intermediary between the hijackers and leaders of Al Qaeda (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org); Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Mr. Mohammed, who has been identified as Mr. Mohammed’s lieutenant for the 2001 operation; Mr. al-Baluchi’s assistant, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi; and Walid bin Attash, a detainee known as Khallad, who investigators say selected and trained some of the hijackers.

Ramzi bin al-Shibh was supposed to have been a 20th hijacker, and made a videotape portraying himself as a martyr, General Hartmann said. But he was unable to obtain a United States visa, and so had to content himself with helping the eventual hijackers find flight schools and with carrying out financial transactions to further the plot, the general said.

Relatives of the Sept. 11 victims have expressed differing views of potential death sentences, with some arguing that it would accomplish little other than martyring men for whom martyrdom may be viewed as a reward.

But on Sunday, Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles F. Burlingame III was the pilot of the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 that was crashed into the Pentagon, said she would approve of an effort by prosecutors to seek the execution of men she blames for killing her brother. Ms. Burlingame said such a case could help refocus the public’s attention on what she called the calculated brutality of the attacks, which she said has been largely forgotten.

“My opinion is,” she said, “if the death of 3,000 people isn’t sufficient for a death penalty in this country, then why do we even have the death penalty?”

Lawyers said a prosecution move to seek the death penalty in six cases that will draw worldwide attention was risky. They said it would increase the stakes at Guantánamo partly by amplifying the attention internationally to cases that would draw intense attention in any event.

The military commission system has been troubled almost from the start, when it was set up in an order by President Bush in November 2001. It has been beset by legal challenges and practical difficulties, including a 2006 decision by the Supreme Court (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/supreme_court/index.html?inline=nyt-org) striking down the administration’s first system at Guantánamo. Although officials have spoken of charging 80 or more detainees with war crimes, so far only one case has been completed, and that was through a plea bargain.

Eric M. Freedman, a Hofstra University (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/hofstra_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org) law professor who has been a consultant to detainees’ lawyers, said a decision to seek the death penalty would magnify the attention on each of the many steps in a capital case. Intense scrutiny, he said, “would be drawn to the proceedings both legally and politically from around the world.”

Some countries have been critical of the United States’ use of the death penalty in civilian cases, and a request for execution in the military commission system would import much of that criticism to the already heated debates about the legitimacy of Guantánamo and the Bush administration’s legal approach there, some lawyers said.

Tom Fleener, an Army Reserve major who was until recently a military defense lawyer at Guantánamo, said that bringing death penalty cases in the military commission system would bog down the untested system. He noted that many legal questions remain unanswered at Guantánamo, including how much of the trials will be conducted in closed, secret proceedings; how the military judges will handle evidence obtained by interrogators’ coercive tactics; and whether the judges will require experienced death-penalty lawyers to take part in such cases.

“Neither the system is ready, nor are the defense attorneys ready to do a death penalty case in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,” Major Fleener said.

Professor Glazier of Loyola said the military commission system was devised to avoid many of the hurdles that have slowed civilian capital cases. Still, he said, he expected intense scrutiny and criticism of such cases that could slow proceedings.

In any event, vigorous trial battles and appeals would probably mean that no execution would be imminent. “It certainly seems impossible to get this done by the end of the Bush administration,” Professor Glazier said.

General Hartmann said nothing to counter that impression. Asked whether executions would take place at Guantánamo or elsewhere, he noted that a defendant who is convicted will have the right to several levels of appeal. “So we are a long way from determining the details of the death penalty, and when that time comes, if it should ever come at all, we will follow the law at that time and the procedures that are in place at that time,” the general said.

David Stout contributed reporting from Washington.

[simuvac]

With these guys dead.... much of the truth dies with them.

[Gold9472]

Attorney: 9/11 death penalty trial could create 'nightmare scenario'

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/11/911.trial.criticism/

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The trials planned for six suspects in the 9/11 attacks -- in which the government proposes to seek the death penalty -- could be unfair and could leave Khalid Shaikh Mohammed looking like a martyr to his supporters, a former U.S. Navy attorney said Monday.

An attorney who represented bin Laden's driver worries Khalid Shaikh Mohammed may look like martyr at trial.

"The losers will be the American public unless some fundamental changes are made very quickly," said Charles Swift, who represented Osama bin Laden's driver in a case that ultimately led the Supreme Court to reject the Bush administration's military tribunals for detainees in 2006.

A military commission to try the six detainees will take place at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Pentagon said Monday. A judge must first approve the charges against the suspects and the request the death penalty be considered, the military said Monday.

In an interview with CNN, Swift said the Office of Military Commissions has no attorneys who are "death-penalty-qualified currently assigned."

When he worked at the office, there were two lawyers assigned to a single death penalty defendant; now, he said, one lawyer has as many as three or four clients.

"There is no one to represent these detainees -- these high-value detainees," he said.

Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Defense Department spokesman for detainee issues, said the defendants will be "well represented" when their cases come before the judge.

"We're not looking at today," Gordon said. "We're looking at when charges are referred, which will be a couple of months from now."

"Once charges are referred by the convening authority, detailed defense counsel will be assigned," he said.

Gordon said he didn't know how many attorneys would be assigned to the six defendants, but all of those assigned "will be fully qualified."

About 500 lawyers currently represent the 275 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, he said.

"There will be many lawyers, and they will be well qualified," he said.

The military said Monday the detainees will have fair and adequate representation. In fact, "we are going to give them rights that are virtually identical to our military members," Air Force Brig Gen. Thomas Hartmann said at a Pentagon news conference.

But Swift said the procedures, as planned, could bring about a "nightmare scenario" in which alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed -- the most prominent of the six detainees -- would be able to claim he had no fair trial in the United States, which could leave him looking like a martyr to his supporters.

Swift urged the military to change the plan, insisting the U.S. justice system can deliver a just verdict against an accused terrorist mastermind.

"Of course it can," he said.

There are also questions about whether testimony gathered through waterboarding would be considered as testimony, Swift said. The last legal precedent he could find for such a move, he said, was the Spanish Inquisition -- more than 500 years ago.

Hartmann said Monday a military judge will determine whether information obtained during interrogations is admissible.

[Gold9472]

Profile: Key 9/11 suspects
Six prisoners being held by the US in Guantanamo Bay are to face charges over their alleged involvement in the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7239580.stm

The following profiles and what is known of the allegations against the suspects are compiled from BBC and news agency reports and information released by the Pentagon and US intelligence officials.

KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - described by US intelligence as "one of history's most infamous terrorists" - has admitted being responsible "from A to Z" for the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States, according to the Pentagon.

He also confessed to a role in 30 plots other than 9/11 including planned attacks on Big Ben and Heathrow airport in London and the beheading of US reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002, according to a transcript of his hearing at Guantanamo Bay.

He was believed to be the number three al-Qaeda leader before his capture in a safe house in Pakistan in March 2003. He was held in US custody at an undisclosed location from then until his transfer to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.

Born in Kuwait of Pakistani extraction, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claims to have joined the Muslim Brotherhood at the age of 16.

After graduating from college in the US, he went to Afghanistan to participate in the anti-Soviet jihad. It was there that he is believed first to have met Osama Bin Laden.

He went to the Philippines and was implicated in the plot to blow up US airliners over the Pacific in 1995, known as Operation Bojinka.

CHARGES
Conspiracy. Murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism
Hijacking or hazarding a vessel

He features prominently in the US 9/11 Commission Report on how the 11 September 2001 attacks were carried out. His testimony was also used by defence lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui, jailed for life in 2006 for his role in the plot.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed helped build close operational ties between al-Qaeda and the shadowy militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) in south-east Asia, according to US intelligence.

By late 2001 he had become external operations chief for al-Qaeda and was involved in plots targeting Britain and the US, the Pentagon says.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has alleged that he also helped lay the groundwork for the 7 July 2005 bombings in London.

RAMZI BINALSHIBH
In his combatant status review at Guantanamo Bay, the US cited evidence describing Ramzi Binalshibh as the co-ordinator of the 9/11 attacks.

He is said to have become a key member of the al-Qaeda cell in Hamburg, Germany, after seeking asylum there in the late 1990s and becoming a student.

According to US officials, he met Mohammed Atta, the leader of the Hamburg cell, and two other hijackers, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, in 1997. Two years later, the four travelled to Afghanistan where they met Bin Laden.

Mr Binalshibh was intended to be one of the hijackers but was unable to get a US visa, intelligence officials say.

CHARGES
Conspiracy. Murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism
Hijacking or hazarding a vessel

Instead, he reportedly assisted the 11 September attacks by relaying orders from al-Qaeda's leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan to operatives in the US and Germany, as well as organising travel and money transfers.

US intelligence says he left Germany a week before the attacks and made his way to Afghanistan and then to Pakistan, where he worked with Sheikh Mohammed on plots against Western targets, including plans to crash aircraft into Heathrow airport in the UK.

He was interviewed by an al-Jazeera reporter in 2002, during which he showed souvenirs of the 9/11 planning, including a flight instruction book signed by lead hijacker Mohammed Atta.

He was captured in Pakistan in September 2002.

The US described him at his combatant status review as "uncooperative and unresponsive", vowing to have nothing to do with the process.

MUSTAFA AHMAD AL-HAWSAWI
A Saudi said by US intelligence officials to be one of two key financial people used by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to arrange the funding for the 11 September hijackings.

CHARGES
Conspiracy. Murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism

He is suspected of meeting many senior al-Qaeda figures, including Bin Laden, soon after the attacks. Financial links have been found between Mr Hawsawi, other terror suspects and some of the hijackers, US intelligence says, and he helped arrange travel for some of them.

Testimony from Mr Hawsawi was used in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, saying he had seen him in an al-Qaeda guesthouse in early 2001 but was never involved with him.

He was captured in Pakistan in 2003.

ALI ABD AL-AZIZ ALI
Also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, he is accused of serving as a key lieutenant to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - his uncle - during the 11 September operation.

CHARGES
Conspiracy. Murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism
Hijacking or hazarding a vessel

Born in Balochistan and raised in Kuwait, his chief mentor was his cousin, Ramzi Yousef, jailed in the US for masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

US intelligence officials say he delivered funds to the 11 September hijackers and later helped Sheikh Mohammed communicate with "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and other plotters, including Majid Khan.

Following his uncle's arrest, he is said to have assumed responsibility for planning hijacking attacks from Heathrow airport and bombings against Western targets in Karachi in 2003.

He was within days of completing preparations for the Karachi plot when captured, the US says.

WALID BIN ATTASH
Yemeni national Walid Bin Attash has admitted masterminding the bombing of the American destroyer, USS Cole, in Yemen in 2000, which killed 17 sailors, according to the Pentagon.

CHARGES
Conspiracy. Murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism
Hijacking or hazarding a vessel

Mr Bin Attash also said he helped plan the 1998 bomb attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 213 people, according to a transcript of his hearing at Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Bin Attash, also known as Tawfiq Bin Attash and Khallad, was a key al-Qaeda operative from 1998 until his capture in 2003, according to the US.

He is also accused of involvement in the 11 September 2001 attacks and met two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Midhar, to help them check out US flights in Asia.

He was allegedly picked as one of the hijackers himself but was prevented from taking part when he was briefly arrested in Yemen earlier that year. He is said to have served as Bin Laden's bodyguard.

US intelligence officials say he was planning an attack on the US consulate in Karachi with fellow suspect Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali when he was captured in a raid in the city. They believe he was also involved in a plot against Heathrow airport.

MOHAMMED AL-QAHTANI
Mohammad al-Qahtani tried to enter the US in August 2001, allegedly to become the 20th hijacker for the 11 September attacks in New York and Washington.

CHARGES
Conspiracy. Murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism

He was refused entry at Orlando in Florida and returned to Dubai, and was later detained in Afghanistan and transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

In 2006, he recanted accusations he had made against fellow detainees of having al-Qaeda links. His lawyer told Time magazine the statements had been extracted under brutal torture.

[Gold9472]

9/11 Trial: Don't Expect Another Nuremberg
CBS' Andrew Cohen Says Military Trials Likely Won't Shed New Light On 9/11 Attacks

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/12/opinion/courtwatch/main3820882.shtml

Feb. 12, 2008

The Pentagon announced Monday - 2,345 days after September 11, 2001 -that it would finally seek to bring to military trial six men accused of aiding the terror attacks that day. Considering that one of the six men is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, long acknowledged as the 9/11 operational chief, the announcement surely is big news and perhaps even a watershed in the long and frustrating struggle to fit the new rules of warfare into the old paradigms of military justice.

It’s a big deal, however, only if we have just witnessed a shift in Pentagon priorities when it comes to the rules by which the men will be tried. Military officials said all the right things Monday - that there would be very little classified evidence introduced against the men and that they would be afforded most of the same rights as accused U.S. soldiers - but it is unclear as I write this whether in fact the procedures ballyhooed now are materially different from the procedures that have been challenged before and that remain legally dubious even today.

If the Pentagon finally is serious about prosecuting the men more fairly - if the ticking clock on the Bush Administration’s days in office has generated the sort of reasonable breakthrough that dozens of judges and hundreds of lawyers could not - 2008 really could be the year we finally see progress in the form of legal process. If we’ve just heard more empty rhetoric from the government and the rules really haven’t changed then we are doomed to endure another year or two of legal limbo before we see our first military trial.

It won’t be a grand spectacle like the world saw in Nuremberg. The war that preceded that trial was finished. Our current war on terror rumbles on, perhaps endlessly, requiring military officials to be mindful of security and operational details that would emerge during the presentation of evidence. The government will now allow the world’s tribunes to converge upon Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to chronicle the proceedings.

Moreover, it’s hard to fathom how either our government or the rest of us will learn something about the 9/11 plot that we can believe, and don’t already know.

The odds of Mohammed suddenly snapping his fingers during the trial and then sharing with us some relevant detail is about as likely as the trial is to be televised with Nancy Grace as the courtroom announcer. This is about steak, not sizzle; about putting these guys away, in this world or the next, once and for all.

Let’s get real and stop talking about legal theory. The Mohammed Six are dead men walking and have been so ever since they were captured. They will be judged by military officers. The trials, if they ever take place, are likely to be far less controversial than advertised. And the episode will end up the way all capital cases end up in this country: with a final pronouncement of some sort by the United States Supreme Court.

Given the amount of poor reporting and faulty analysis on these topics Monday you would have thought that Hammurabi himself came back from the dead to deliver the news in Akkadian.

All everyone wanted to talk about Monday was “waterboarding” and how torture allegations would play into the trial. Apparently, “terror trials” and “waterboarding” go hand-in-hand now like “O.J. Simpson” and “preliminary hearing” - you hear the first and you start asking about the second. But it ain’t necessarily so. I don’t think this trial is going to be the Torture Referenda that detainee attorneys want it to be. For example, prosecutors could go a long way toward avoiding the topic altogether if they simply present their case against the men without relying upon anything the men said following their capture.

Let’s play that out with Mohammed. Obviously, the government knew about his role in the 9/11 plot before he was rousted out of his bed, photographed and sent off to be “interrogated” lord knows where. The evidence and information that led federal authorities to tag him with the 9/11 Leader label and then hunt him down in a safe house in Pakistan can be used against him without triggering a defense motion that it came from torturing the man. You can’t use torture as a defense to a confession if the government doesn’t use the confession.

The Mohammed Six are dead men walking and have been so ever since they were captured. They will be judged by military officers. The trials, if they ever take place, are likely to be far less controversial than advertised.
But that’s not going to stop the folks from the Center for Constitutional Rights - an organization that has done amazingly important work on behalf of the detainees since 9/11 - from arguing that the government’s allegations against their client, Mohammed al-Qahtani, are “inherently tainted by the stench of torture.” I just don’t see a jury of Donald Rumsfeld’s peers buying that argument. And I don’t buy the Supreme Court Justices doing so, either.

The defense will have a closer call if the government tries to use information gleaned from the men during newly-revealed “soft” interrogation tactics. And if someone hasn’t copyrighted it yet I’ll be the first to lay claim: the phrase “The Starbucks Defense” is going to be applied in this case if the government tries to sell the idea that its new anti-waterboarding tactics - would you like a latte, Mohammed? - don’t constitute coercion. The more prosecutors can stay away from using anything the men have said the better and strongly the government’s case will be.

Now let’s look at the capital punishment component to Monday’s news. Who in the world is surprised that our government would choose to push ahead for the death penalty in these cases? If not now, when? Yes, I understand that many countries of the world do not agree with America’s willingness to continue to employ the death penalty. But if and when Mohammed is convicted of this crime, which leader of which country is going to stand up in this case and say that he deserves mercy?

Sometimes, the enormity of the crime overwhelms the life history of its alleged perpetrators. It happened with Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing trial. And it’s going to happen again if - not when - Mohammed and Company finally get their day in court.

[simuvac]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/washington/12assess.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

February 12, 2008
News Analysis
Focus of Detainee Trial Is Likely to Suit Bush

By STEVEN LEE MYERS (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/steven_lee_myers/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
WASHINGTON — Harsh interrogations and Guantánamo Bay (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/national/usstatesterritoriesandpossessions/guantanamobaynavalbasecuba/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), secret prisons and warrantless eavesdropping, the war against Al Qaeda (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org) and the one in Iraq. On issue after issue, President Bush has showed little indication that he will shrink from the most controversial decisions of his tenure.

With the decision to charge six Guantánamo detainees with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and to seek the death penalty for the crimes, many of those issues will now be back in the spotlight. In an election year, that appears to be exactly where Mr. Bush wants the focus to be.

The White House said on Monday that Mr. Bush had no role in the decision to file charges now against the six detainees, leaving the strategy for prosecuting them to the military.

Still, the cases soon to be put before military tribunals — including that against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/khalid_shaikh_mohammed/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who has described himself as the mastermind of the attacks — represent a major part of “the unfinished business” that Mr. Bush and his aides talk about when they vow “to sprint to the finish,” as one aide did again on Monday.

Mr. Bush never sounds surer of himself than when the subject is Sept. 11, even when his critics argue that he has squandered the country’s moral authority, violated American and international law, and led the United States into the foolhardy distraction of Iraq.

“Six and a half years ago, our country faced the worst attack in our history,” Mr. Bush said late last week, speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference. “I understood immediately that we would have to act boldly to protect the American people. So we’ve gone on the offense against these extremists. We’re staying on the offense, and we will not relent until we bring them to justice.”

The 9/11 candidate, Rudolph W. Giuliani (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/rudolph_w_giuliani/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of New York, may have dropped his bid for the White House. But the 9/11 presidency is far from over.

On the question of warrantless wiretapping, widely expanded after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Bush is pushing to make permanent legislation that last year made a once-secret program legal, despite a storm of protest that has reverberated since 2005, when the program was disclosed.

Only a year ago, Iraq appeared to have deflated the president’s popularity and eroded his standing even among Republicans and the Pentagon’s generals. But Mr. Bush now appears to have laid a foundation to keep more than 130,000 American troops on the ground in a mission he has justified as part of a broader fight against terrorism, despite an overwhelming groundswell against an unpopular conflict. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/robert_m_gates/index.html?inline=nyt-per) on Monday essentially endorsed a “pause” in further troop withdrawals once those troops sent in last year as part of a temporary buildup go home.

In each of these cases — the military tribunals, the wiretapping legislation, Iraq — the White House seems eager to lock in as many of the president’s policies as possible before he leaves office in 11 months. And as it looks ahead to the November elections, the White House seems to have concluded that each is politically sustainable and even favorable for a Republican candidate and Mr. Bush’s own legacy.

Whether the White House will succeed — and November will certainly be the measure — remains to be seen.

Democrats have battled before, with mixed success, against Republican efforts to portray them as weak on defense. This time, the Democrats sound determined to fight back more forcefully.

“I wish they had as coherent a strategy for fighting the war on terror as they do for politicizing the war on terror,” Representative Rahm Emanuel (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/e/rahm_emanuel/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said on Monday.

The legality of military tribunals has been in dispute since the days immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. It is possible that the trials could backfire by underscoring the administration’s failures as well as any successes in bringing some of America’s most-wanted to justice.

“The American public doesn’t need to put them on trial at this point to prove we got the bad guys,” said Jennifer Daskal, a lawyer at Human Rights Watch (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/human_rights_watch/index.html?inline=nyt-org) in Washington. “I think the focus is going to be on the unfairness of the trials and the use of highly abusive interrogations.”

Just last week, Gen. Michael V. Hayden (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/michael_v_hayden/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org), became the first government official to acknowledge publicly that those interrogations, in three cases, included the technique known as waterboarding (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/torture/waterboarding/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), which simulates drowning and is regarded by many as torture.

Mr. Bush’s administration, however, appears to have calculated that many Americans, if not most, do not necessarily object to harsh interrogations or eavesdropping if they were used to prevent further attacks.

At a fund-raiser on Friday in Pennsylvania, hardly the most conservative state, Vice President Dick Cheney (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/dick_cheney/index.html?inline=nyt-per) vigorously defended the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques, referring to them as “a tougher program for a very few tougher customers.”

“He and others were questioned at a time when another attack on this country was believed to be imminent,” Mr. Cheney said of Mr. Mohammed and other Qaeda members. “It’s a good thing we had them in custody, and it is a good thing that we found out what they knew.”

Of the six men charged on Monday, Mr. Mohammed and four others were held for as long as three years in the secret C.I.A. prisons that were part of what the agency calls its “high-value terrorist interrogation program.” The prisons were established in 2002, but the administration did not publicly reveal their existence until 2006, when Mr. Mohammed and other detainees were moved from the C.I.A. facilities to the military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

In a statement to C.I.A. employees on Monday, General Hayden called the filing of charges “a crucial milestone on the road to justice for the victims of 9/11.”

Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

[Gold9472]

CNN: 9/11 Families Want A Fair Trial For 9/11 Suspects

Click Here

Congratulations to Lorie and Mr. DeCell for getting on CNN.

[simuvac]

CNN: 9/11 Families Want A Fair Trial For 9/11 Suspects

[/url][url="http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/02/11/chernoff.9.11.families.cnn?iref=videosearch%3C/a%3E"]Click Here (http://%3Cfont%20face=%22Arial%22%3E%3Cfont%20size=%222%22%3E%3Cfont%20color=%22navy%22%3E%3Cfont%20color=%22navy%22%3E%3Cfont%20face=%22Arial%22%3E%3C/font%3E%3C/font%3E%3C/font%3E%3C/font%3E%3C/font%3E%3Cfont%20face=%22Arial%22%3E%3Cfont%20size=%222%22%3E%3Cfont%20color=%22navy%22%3E%3Ca%20href=)

Congratulations to Lorie and Mr. DeCell for getting on CNN.

Awesome!

[simuvac]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/02/12/BL2008021201228_pf.html

Return of the 9/11 President
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, February 12, 2008; 12:52 PM


President Bush continues to dispute all the predictions that his presidency will go down in history as a miserable failure.

Or, as he put it in an interview (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330234,00.html) with Chris Wallace of Fox News over the weekend: "It's very hard to write the future history of America before the current history hasn't been fully written."

But with the economy tanking, the war in Iraq dragging on, our nation's moral standing in ashes and voters hungering for a new direction, how exactly does Bush intend to go out a winner?

One possible answer: Try to change the subject back to 9/11.

Steven Lee Myers (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/washington/12assess.html?ref=todayspaper) writes in the New York Times that the administration's announcement yesterday of capital murder charges against half a dozen men allegedly linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks will bring the election-year focus back on Bush's favorite issues.

"The White House said on Monday that Mr. Bush had no role in the decision to file charges now against the six detainees, leaving the strategy for prosecuting them to the military," Myers writes.

"Still, the cases soon to be put before military tribunals -- including that against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has described himself as the mastermind of the attacks -- represent a major part of 'the unfinished business' that Mr. Bush and his aides talk about when they vow 'to sprint to the finish,' as one aide did again on Monday.

"Mr. Bush never sounds surer of himself than when the subject is Sept. 11, even when his critics argue that he has squandered the country's moral authority, violated American and international law, and led the United States into the foolhardy distraction of Iraq. . . .

"The 9/11 candidate, Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, may have dropped his bid for the White House. But the 9/11 presidency is far from over."

Myers writes that on the question of military tribunals, warrantless wiretapping and the war in Iraq, "the White House seems eager to lock in as many of the president's policies as possible before he leaves office in 11 months. And as it looks ahead to the November elections, the White House seems to have concluded that each is politically sustainable and even favorable for a Republican candidate and Mr. Bush's own legacy."

Of course, this latest move could backfire.

Andrew O. Selsky (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080212/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/guantanamo_sept11_trial_1) writes for the Associated Press that "questions of due process could overshadow the [Guantanamo] proceedings, according to Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch.

"'By trying these men before flawed military commissions in Guantanamo Bay, the United States makes the system the center of attention rather the defendants and their alleged crimes.'"

And then there's the controversy about using evidence elicited through torture.

Josh White, Dan Eggen and Joby Warrick (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/11/AR2008021100572.html) write in The Washington Post that the charges are "based partly on information the men disclosed to FBI and military questioners without the use of coercive interrogation tactics.

"The admissions made by the men -- who were given food whenever they were hungry as well as Starbucks coffee at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- played a key role in the government's decision to proceed with the prosecutions, military and law enforcement officials said.

"FBI and military interrogators who began work with the suspects in late 2006 called themselves the 'Clean Team' and set as their goal the collection of virtually the same information the CIA had obtained from five of the six through duress at secret prisons."

Nevertheless, "Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents one of the detainees charged and many more at Guantanamo Bay, said the cases are 'essentially show trials, as President Bush is leaving his tarnished legacy to the next president.'"

The White House made it clear that it wanted a 9/11 trial before the end of President Bush's term. But Carol Rosenberg and Nancy A. Youssef (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/27409.html) write for McClatchy Newspapers: "Knowledgeable legal experts, however, said it's unlikely that they can be tried speedily, meaning the cases probably won't be heard before the Bush administration leaves office next January."

And yet, that actually may be part of the plan, writes Will Bunch (http://www.attytood.com/2008/02/bush_lays_a_guantanamo_trap_fo_1.html) in his Philadelphia Daily News blog: "[I]t is unlikely, with appeals and the like, that any conviction and death penalty could be carried out as quickly as January. That lays the problem on the lap of the next president -- regardless of whether it's McCain, Clinton or Obama -- who would have to either affirm the military tribunals, or else declare on the first day of their presidency that one of their first officials acts will be to overturn a death sentence for a 9/11 mastermind.

"That's a classic Rovian political trap if I ever saw one. And it's more proof that undoing the nightmare eight years of Bush and Cheney is going to be a lot more work than simply placing a right hand on the Bible."

[b]Torture, Continued[/b]
Bush spoke at some length about torture in his Fox News interview (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330234,00.html). All in all, it sounded like he was walking back spokesman Tony Fratto's assertion last week (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/02/06/BL2008020602244.html) that the president might approve more waterboarding. Bush sided in the interview with CIA director Michael Hayden's view that waterboarding was legal when it was conducted in 2002 and 2003, but may no longer be legal.

Said Bush: "First of all, whatever we have done was legal, and whatever decision I will make will be reviewed by the Justice Department to determine whether or not the legality is there. And the reason why there is a difference between what happened in the past and today, there is a new law."

Then, however, Bush made an unsupported claim, and issued a challenge that the media and his critics should pick up with vigor: "The American people have got to know that what we did in the past gained information that prevented an attack. And for those who criticize what we did in the past, I ask them, which attack would they rather have not permitted -- stopped? Which attack on America did they -- would they have said, well, you know, maybe it wasn't all that important that we stop those attacks."

But if the American people have "got to know" that torture gained information that prevented an attack, Bush needs to start making a better case. As I've written (http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ask_this.view&askthisid=298) repeatedly (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/12/11/BL2007121101053.html), he has yet to offer any evidence that intelligence produced by torture thwarted a single plot or saved a single life.

The media should demand that he back it up or take it back.

[b]And Yet[/b]
And yet, Fox News's Chris Wallace responded not with a challenge but with what may go down as one of the most inappropriate and insufficient follow-ups in presidential history.

Said Wallace: "I want to follow up on that. Whether it is interrogation of terror prisoners or the intercepting of surveillance among al Qaeda members, are you ever puzzled by all of the concern in this country about protecting of rights of people who want to kill us?"

Even Bush had to come to the defense of his critics.

Said Bush: "That is an interesting way to put it. I wouldn't necessarily define some of the critics of my policy that way. I would say that they want to be very careful that we don't overstep our bounds from protecting the civil liberties of Americans."

Blogger John Amato (http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/02/10/george-bush-on-waterboarding-there%E2%80%99s-a-difference-between-what-happened-in-the-past-and-today-is-there%E2%80%99s-new-law/) shows video of Bush's bizarre expression while listening to Wallace's questions about waterboarding: He can't stop smiling.

Meanwhile, Richard E. Mezo (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/08/AR2008020803156.html) writes in a Washington Post op-ed: "As someone who has experienced waterboarding, albeit in a controlled setting, I know that the act is indeed torture. I was waterboarded during my training to become a Navy flight crew member. As has been noted in The Post and other media outlets, waterboarding is 'real drowning that simulates death.' It's an experience our country should not subject people to. . . .

"Back then, we didn't call it waterboarding -- we called it 'water torture.' We recognized it as something the United States would never do, whatever the provocation. As a nation, we must ask our leaders, elected and appointed, to be aware of such horrors; we must ask them to stop the narrow and superficial thinking that hinges upon 'legal' definitions and to use common sense. Waterboarding is torture, and torture is clearly a crime against humanity."

[b]FISA Watch[/b]
Glenn Greenwald (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/12/amnesty_day/index.html) blogs for Salon: "The Senate today -- led by Jay Rockefeller, enabled by Harry Reid, and with the active support of at least 12 (and probably more) Democrats, in conjunction with an as-always lockstep GOP caucus -- will vote to legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide full retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration's years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans. . . .

"What were the consequences for the President for having broken the law so deliberately and transparently? Absolutely nothing. To the contrary, the Senate is about to enact a bill which has two simple purposes: (1) to render retroactively legal the President's illegal spying program by legalizing its crux: warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, and (2) to stifle forever the sole remaining avenue for finding out what the Government did and obtaining a judicial ruling as to its legality: namely, the lawsuits brought against the co-conspiring telecoms. . . .

"[I]t isn't merely that the Democratic Senate failed to investigate or bring about accountability for the clearest and more brazen acts of lawbreaking in the Bush administration, although that is true. Far beyond that, once in power, they are eagerly and aggressively taking affirmative steps -- extraordinary steps -- to protect Bush officials. While still knowing virtually nothing about what they did, they are acting to legalize Bush's illegal spying programs and put an end to all pending investigations and efforts to uncover what happened.

"How far we've come -- really: disgracefully tumbled -- from the days of the Church Committee, which aggressively uncovered surveillance abuses and then drafted legislation to outlaw them and prevent them from ever occurring again. It is, of course, precisely those post-Watergate laws which the Bush administration and their telecom conspirators purposely violated, and for which they are about to receive permanent, lawless protection."

Here's a White House " Fact Sheet (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080122-2.html)" on telecom immunity: "Companies should not be held responsible for verifying the government's determination that requested assistance was necessary and lawful -- and such an impossible requirement would hurt our ability to keep the Nation safe."

But isn't that the very definition of a police state: that companies should do whatever the government asks, even if they know it's illegal?

Indeed, Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold (http://feingold.senate.gov/%7Btilde%7Dfeingold/statements/08/02/20080211.htm) took to the Senate floor with a little history lesson yesterday: "With the willing cooperation of the telephone companies, the FBI conducted surveillance of peaceful anti-war protesters, journalists, steel company executives . . . and even Martin Luther King Jr., an American hero whose life we recently celebrated.

"Congress decided to take action. Based on the history of, and potential for, government abuses, Congress decided that it was not appropriate for telephone companies to simply assume that any government request for assistance to conduct electronic surveillance was legal. Let me repeat that: a primary purpose of FISA was to make clear, once and for all, that the telephone companies should not blindly cooperate with government requests for assistance.

"At the same time, however, Congress did not want to saddle telephone companies with the responsibility of determining whether the government's request for assistance was a lawful one. That approach would leave the companies in a permanent state of legal uncertainty about their obligations.

"So Congress devised a system that would take the guesswork out of it completely. Under that system, which is still in place today, the companies' legal obligations and liability depend entirely on whether the government has presented the company with a court order or a certification stating that certain basic requirements have been met. If the proper documentation is submitted, the company must cooperate with the request and will be immune from liability. If the proper documentation has not been submitted, the company must refuse the government's request, or be subject to possible liability in the courts."

Bush weighed in on FISA in his Fox News interview: "I think we're going to get a good bipartisan bill and so I applaud those Democrats. I'm not going after those Democrats. But there is a big part of the Democrat (sic) Party that is against giving our intelligence officers the tools necessary to protect America."

[b]E-Mail Watch[/b]
The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/10/AR2008021001918.html) editorial board writes: "With each passing week, the fate of e-mails generated by President Bush's staff grows more curious and troubling. While evidence has not emerged of a deliberate effort by the White House to destroy sensitive electronic messages, there's reason to be concerned about the potential loss of historical records. . . .

"Each missing e-mail is one less piece of the puzzle of how policies are made and decisions are reached. In an ideal world, the National Archives would have more than an advisory role in how records are handled during a president's term. An attempt to give it some authority could set up a fight between the legislative and executive branches. When it comes to preserving the nation's history, that's a battle worth waging."

Pete Yost (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080212/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_e_mail) writes for the Associated Press: "A federal judge agreed Monday to allow a private group to delve into the operations of an office at the White House as part of a controversy over whether large amounts of e-mail have disappeared.

"Permitting any private organization to inquire into White House functions is an unusual step, a point U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly underscored in her six-page order (http://www.citizensforethics.org/files/Feb%2011%202008%20Court%20Order.pdf).

"The judge said she will allow Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington to gather a 'very limited' amount of information from the White House Office of Administration, which is in charge of preserving e-mail.

"The issue for Kollar-Kotelly is whether the Office of Administration operates with substantial independent authority. If the judge finds that it does, the private group can pursue data about what went wrong with the White House e-mail system.

"If the judge decides that the office's functions are limited to serving the president, she likely will dismiss the suit. . . .

"The Office of Administration, along with the Office of Management and Budget and other White House units with substantial independent authority, regularly provided records under the Freedom of Information Act in the past."

[b]Budget Watch[/b]
Richard Wolf (http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080212/a_bushcutsinside12.art.htm) writes in USA Today: "First lady Laura Bush read Goodnight Moon by video hookup at last year's awards gala for Reading Is Fundamental, a $25 million federal program that distributes books to low-income children. Five months later, President Bush wants to say good night to the program.

"The Bush administration lays out its case today against 151 federal programs it proposes to eliminate or reduce, including Reading Is Fundamental, even though Bush's success rate in Congress has declined steadily since the 2006 fiscal year."

Michael Abramowitz and Robin Wright (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/08/AR2008020804136.html?hpid=topnews) write in The Washington Post: "President Bush drew great applause during his State of the Union address last month when he called on Congress to allow U.S. troops to transfer their unused education benefits to family members. 'Our military families serve our nation, they inspire our nation, and tonight our nation honors them,' he said.

"A week later, however, when Bush submitted his $3.1 trillion federal budget to Congress, he included no funding for such an initiative, which government analysts calculate could cost $1 billion to $2 billion annually."

Robert Pear (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/washington/10earmark.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin) writes in the New York Times: "President Bush often denounces the propensity of Congress to earmark money for pet projects. But in his new budget, Mr. Bush has requested money for thousands of similar projects. . . .

"Thus, for example, the president requested $330 million to deal with plant pests like the emerald ash borer, the light brown apple moth and the sirex woodwasp. . . .

"At the same time, Mr. Bush requested $894,000 for an air traffic control tower in Kalamazoo, Mich.; $12 million for a parachute repair shop at the American air base in Aviano, Italy; and $6.5 million for research in Wyoming on the 'fundamental properties of asphalt.' . . .

"The White House contends that when the president requests money for a project, it has gone through a rigorous review -- by the agency, the White House or both -- using objective criteria."

[b]Recession Watch[/b]
Neil Irwin (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/11/AR2008021102528.html) writes in The Washington Post: "The economy may grow slowly the first half of this year, the Bush administration said yesterday, but it is not in recession.

"The economic stimulus bill that President Bush plans to sign this week, combined with interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, will result in stronger growth in the second half of the year, according to the annual Economic Report of the President.

"'I don't think that we are in a recession right now, and we are not forecasting a recession,' said Edward P. Lazear, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, in a briefing (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/02/20080211-8.html) with reporters. 'We are forecasting slower growth.'"

But Edmund L. Andrews (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/business/12econ.html?ref=washington) writes in the New York Times that "a growing number of analysts contend that the United States has already slipped into a recession and will get only a temporary lift from the stimulus package this summer."

Jeannine Aversa (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080208/ap_on_re_us/stimulus_ap_poll_7) writes for the Associated Press: "The heck with Congress' big stimulus bill. The way to get the country out of recession -- and most people think we're in one -- is to get the country out of Iraq, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll (http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/client/act_dsp_pdf.cfm?name=mr080208-3topline.pdf&id=3808).

"Pulling out of the war ranked first among proposed remedies in the survey, followed by spending more on domestic programs, cutting taxes and, at the bottom end, giving rebates to poor people in hopes they'll spend the economy into recovery."

[b]More From the Fox Interview[/b]
Peter Baker (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/10/AR2008021002144.html) writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush waded directly into the presidential campaign in an interview broadcast yesterday, defending Sen. John McCain as a 'true conservative' but warning that his onetime rival needs to shore up relations with the Republican Party's base to take the fight into the general election this fall."

As for W's relationship with George Herbert Walker Bush?

Wallace: "I wonder what you make of all the talk and you've read it, you've heard it, that you're either trying to pass your father or you're trying to copy him, that you went into Iraq to finish the job because he didn't or that you organized your first term to try to win the reelection, he didn't.

"What do you -- set the record straight on that."

Bush: "It's shallow. Shallow psychobabble. You asked me what I think. It's -- "

Wallace: "Well -- "

Bush: "A bunch of people obviously got too much time on their hands."

[b]Karl Rove Watch[/b]
Arielle Levin Becker (http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-rove0212.artfeb12,0,812860.story) writes in the Hartford Courant: "'I appreciate that I'm a myth,' Karl Rove told the 850 or so Choate Rosemary Hall students, administrators and faculty members who packed an auditorium on the prep school's Wallingford campus Monday. . . .

"Rove had been a prominent figure in campus debate since plans for him to speak at Choate's June graduation became public. Some students, who deemed him too controversial or unethical to grace their commencement, plotted protests. Late last month, Rove opted to speak to students in a special program Monday rather than at graduation. . . .

"The event was closed to the public and most media outlets, but the school granted The Courant's request to attend."

Becker describes Rove's predictably contentious responses to the students who dared challenge him.

"The final question came from Alessio Manti, a senior who had been outspoken in his opposition to Rove's planned graduation visit. Manti asked if Rove considered himself a role model.

"'Frankly, with all due respect, I don't care to be a role model for anybody except my family,' he said."

[b]Fourth Branch Strikes Again[/b]
Robert Barnes (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/08/AR2008020803802.html?hpid=topnews) writes in The Washington Post: "Vice President Cheney signed on to a brief filed by a majority of Congress yesterday that urged the Supreme Court to uphold a ruling that the District of Columbia's handgun ban is unconstitutional, breaking with his own administration's official position.

"Cheney joined 55 senators and 250 House members in asking the court to find that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess firearms and to uphold a lower court's ruling that the D.C. ban violates that right. That position is at odds with the one put forward by the administration, which angered gun rights advocates when it suggested that the justices return the case to lower courts for further review.

"In order to make his dramatic break with the administration, Cheney invoked his rarely used status as part of Congress, joining the brief as 'President of the United States Senate, Richard B. Cheney.' It is a position he has used at times to make the point that he is sometimes part of the legislative branch and sometimes part of the executive. . . .

"Lawyers said it may be unprecedented for a vice president to take a position in a case before the high court that is at odds with one the Justice Department puts forward as the administration's official position."

[b]A Musician's Dilemma[/b]
Pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/08/AR2008020802979.html?hpid=opinionsbox1) writes in a Washington Post op-ed about the downside of being a Kennedy Center Honoree (http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/specialevents/honors/history/home.html): "What made me unhappy and continues to trouble me was that I was required to attend a White House reception on the afternoon of the gala. I cannot speak for the other honorees, but while I profoundly respect the presidency, I am horrified by many of President Bush's policies.

"In the past seven years, Bush administration policies have amounted to a systematic shredding of our nation's Constitution -- the illegal war it initiated and perpetuates; the torturing of prisoners; the espousing of 'values' that include a careful defense of the 'rights' of embryos but show a profligate disregard for the lives of flesh-and-blood human beings; and the flagrant dismantling of environmental protections. These, among many other depressing policies, have left us weak and shamed at home and in the world.

"For several weeks before the honors, I wrestled with this dilemma, deciding in the end that I would not attend the reception at the White House. That decision was met with deep, if understandable, disapproval by the powers that be. . . . I was asked to attend all of the scheduled events and to follow the well-established protocol of silence. . . .

"In the end, I decided to attend wearing a peace symbol around my neck and a purple ribbon on my lapel, at once showing support for our young men and women in the armed services and calling for their earliest return home."

[b]Live Online[/b]
I'll be Live Online (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/02/10/DI2008021002647.html) tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET. Come join the conversation.

[b]Cartoon Watch[/b]
Tom Toles (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/cartoonsandvideos/toles_main.html?name=Toles&date=02112008&type=c) and Paul Conrad (http://cartoonbox.slate.com/paulconrad/2008/02/08/) on the Bush legacy; Dan Wasserman (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/dan_wasserman_cartoonist/) on the fruits of torture; Clay Bennett (http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/48551/) on Bush's leadership; Jeff Danziger (http://cartoons.nytimages.com/wieck_preview_page_127228) and Bruce Beattie (http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/48656/) on McCain's Bush problem; Ann Telnaes (http://www.uclick.com/client/zzz/tmate/2008/02/09/)'s patriotic performance measurements.

[Gold9472]

9/11 families fear tribunal secrets
Seek answers, death penalty

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1073139&srvc=rss

By Joe Dwinell
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - Updated 7h ago

Families of 9/11 victims fear a military tribunal of six accused al-Qaeda killers will end with too many secrets being carried to the grave.

Family members tell the Herald they want justice - including executions as the ultimate penalty - but also a public airing of security failures and names of Arab moneymen who bankrolled the terrorists.

“I hope we can follow the terrorists’ routes and learn about the frontmen,” said Mike Low, whose 28-year-old daughter, Sara Low of Boston, was a flight attendant on American Airlines [AMR] Flight 11 that hijackers slammed into the World Trade Center north tower.

Bill Doyle, who lost his son, Joey, in the attacks said he’s suing the government for $1 trillion to expose who financed the terrorists. A tribunal, he said, may help or doom his complex litigation.

“There are so many clouds around 9/11,” he told the Herald yesterday. “Yet it’s ludicrous we don’t know who financed the terrorists. It could be a wealthy sheik or some charity.

“Khalid Sheikh Mohammed didn’t just reach into his checkbook,” added Doyle, a New Yorker who heads the nation’s largest group of 9/11 families. “It can’t just be a slam dunk - ‘You’re guilty!’ - and just electrocute or hang them.”

The trial for the six Guantanamo Bay detainees isn’t expected to kick off for months and may not end, experts predict, until President Bush leaves office in January.

The accused include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11; Mohammed al-Qahtani, who officials have labeled the 20th hijacker; and Waleed bin Attash, who investigators say selected and trained some of the 19 hijackers.

In an effort to sell the tribunal to the world, the Bush administration yesterday instructed U.S. diplomats to recall the executions of a dozen Nazi war criminals after World War II.

A four-page cable sent to U.S. embassies and obtained by The Associated Press states that execution as punishment for extreme violations of the laws of war is internationally accepted.

If found guilty, the six terrorists can possibly be executed by lethal injection at the Guantanamo Bay base under U.S. Army regulations.

Rhode Island attorney Don Migliori, who represents 9/11 families still suing the airlines and security companies, said no matter what transpires at Guantanamo, an open 9/11 archive must be part of the final verdict.

“We will not stop litigating this case until the information we uncovered is released to the public,” he told the Herald, adding his clients are only after “the truth.”

[Gold9472]

Can there be fair trials in 9/11 cases?

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080213/OPINION01/802130334/1069

February 13, 2008

The proposed death penalty is not the problem with the latest charges filed against six Guantanamo terrorist suspects. If anyone merits the ultimate penalty, it is those legitimately convicted of plotting the 9/11 terror attacks.

The real question is whether these men can receive a fair public trial that satisfies U.S. legal standards and global scrutiny. The established commission process seems to make that unlikely. That at least two of the suspects may have been tortured ... makes matters worse.

The military commission system ... allows evidence obtained by coercion, hearsay testimony and secret proceedings. One former chief prosecutor resigned, saying that "full, fair and open trials were not possible" in the system.

The commissions do guarantee each defendant a military lawyer. That's good in theory. On Monday, however, seven of the military's eight defense attorneys already were in trials. The eighth was in his first day on the job.

The best known among the suspects is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind. Last week, the CIA confirmed that he was subjected to waterboarding, a form of controlled drowning that can cause death if not stopped and a technique long condemned as torture.

Also charged was Mohammed al-Qahtani. Held at Guantanamo almost six years, he was subjected to a variety of "aggressive interrogation methods" that included sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, threats to his mother and intimidation by dogs.

Mohammed and al-Qahtani may well be murderous terrorists. But how can truth be sorted from their admissions when people will confess to anything under torture?

To try high-profile suspects under questionable rules with suspect evidence invites more legal challenges and international scorn. Unless their trial is scrupulously fair, convictions and the death penalty would increase the international outrage. The last thing this country needs is to help terrorists become martyrs.

[Gold9472]

Pentagon to challenge interview of 9/11 suspect

http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/423850.html

Posted on Tue, Feb. 19, 2008
BY CAROL ROSENBERG

Pentagon prosecutors are challenging a military court's decision to let Osama bin Laden's driver send written questions to alleged senior al Qaeda members held incommunicado at Guantánamo.

Defense lawyers for Salim Hamdan, 36, want to ask reputed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, known in CIA circles as ''KSM,'' and six other ''high-value detainees'' what they know about Hamdan's role in al Qaeda's organization.

Based on their answers, they will decide whether to call as defense witnesses any of the seven men, who are fellow detainees now but were held and interrogated for years by the CIA.

Last week, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, Hamdan's military commission judge, ruled that defense lawyers could submit questions to an independent security officer to give to Mohammed and the others held in a restricted prison camp on the base called Camp 7.

The judge ordered that the questions and answers be strictly limited to the time before Hamdan's capture in November 2001 in Afghanistan. Censors will black out any responses that don't cover that time period.

Navy Lt. Catheryne Pully, a military commissions spokeswoman, said on Monday that the prosecution would seek ''reconsideration'' of the judge's decision, which the prosecutors believed raised ``a lot of complicated issues.''

Intelligence officials have described as national security secrets the CIA sites where Mohammed and 14 other detainees were held before their September 2006 transfer to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Now they are held in Camp 7, segregated from other detainees at an undisclosed site on the remote U.S. Navy base. The prison camps' spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Rick Haupt, has not been able to say whether the location of the camp itself is a national security secret.

Allred gave the prosecution until Tuesday to find an independent security officer -- who does not work for the prosecution -- to handle the defense lawyers' questions and detainees' answers, if they choose to reply.

Hamdan attorney Andrea Prasow, a civilian on the Defense Department team, said the Pentagon prosecutors agreed to identify the security officer but notified the team on Saturday that they would ask for reconsideration of the question.

Hamdan's lawyers wanted to meet the men in person to assess their credibility as potential witnesses at Hamdan's summertime trial.

The lead defense lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brad Mizer, said the attorneys also sought face-to-face meetings with the detainees because, after years in CIA custody, the captives might suspect written questions as an interrogation trick.

Allred's remedy to the defense lawyers mirrors a 2003 formula proposed by a federal judge at the civilian trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, who eventually pleaded guilty to providing material support for al Qaeda and is now serving a life sentence.

In that case, the Justice Department refused to let the defense send questions to Mohammed, the reputed 9/11 mastermind. At the time, he was under CIA interrogation, and the government argued his testimony would harm the war effort.

In this instance, the men Hamdan's lawyers seek to question are now among 15 former CIA detainees in military custody at Guantánamo.

Mohammed, who according to Pentagon transcripts confessed to plotting the 9/11 attacks along with a long string of other al Qaeda suicide bombings, as well as beheading Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.
Ramzi bin al Shib, a Yemeni and Mohammed's alleged go-between with some of the 9/11 attackers.
Walid bin Attash, another Yemeni who supposedly trained some of the hijackers.
Mustafa al Hawsawi, who supposedly helped get funds to the Sept. 11 suicide squads.


Those four men were identified as candidates for execution at Guantánamo as part of a complex, six-detainee prosecution the Pentagon unveiled last week. Their charge sheets await approval from a Bush administration appointee. None of them yet have lawyers.

In addition, Hamdan's lawyers asked to interview Abu Faraj al Libi, Abdul Rahim al Nashiri and Abdul Hadi al Iraqi because of their knowledge of other al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan not tied to the Sept. 11 strikes.

[Gold9472]

Defense stymied in 9/11 death-penalty case

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/431636.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
Posted on Sun, Feb. 24, 2008

Two weeks after the Pentagon announced plans to stage death-penalty trials for six Guantánamo captives as alleged Sept. 11 co-conspirators, none of the men has seen a military defense lawyer.

Only one of the six has an assigned lawyer, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles. But Broyles failed to see his client during a Feb. 13-16 visit to the isolated Navy base.

Lawyer visits will be a key precursor in the Pentagon's bid to put Khalid Sheik Mohammed and five other alleged 9/11 co-conspirators on trial. On Feb. 11, the Pentagon announced plans to simultaneously try the men by military commission -- and to seek to execute them if they are convicted.

But Army Reserves Col. Steve David said so far he had only assigned Broyles to the complex six-defendant case -- to defend Mohammed al Qahtani, a Saudi considered the least valuable captive among the six men.

Broyles blamed the prison camps lawyer, Navy Capt. Patrick McCarthy, for placing obstacles in the path of his bid to meet Qahtani in the company of a civilian lawyer, Wells Dixon, of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The Army colonel told The Miami Herald he went to the base specifically to meet Qahtani and another Saudi war-court candidate, Ahmed al Darbi, with Dixon -- and was thwarted by the military, not the detainees, on both counts.

In a statement, the prison camps spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Rick Haupt, blamed the conflict on defense lawyers -- describing their failure to comply with prison camp bureaucracy and on scheduling conflicts. But, in the end, Haupt said, the bureaucracy issues were ''moot'' because Darbi and Qahtani refused to meet the military defense lawyer at their assigned time.

A core issue is Broyles' bid to have Dixon join the meetings with the men -- who claim brutal treatment in U.S. custody.

Absent an introduction by the civilian lawyer, Broyles said, the detainee might not believe he is there to help in his defense and instead suspect an interrogation trick.

Qahtani was once known as The 20th Hijacker, suspected of failing to join the 19 other suicide bombers in the 9/11 attacks because he was turned away from entry into the United States at an Orlando airport.

His case focused attention on the prison in June when Time magazine published excerpts from his interrogation log showing how they ratcheted up techniques on their captive during 50 days starting in November 2002 to extract a confession -- by using sleep deprivation, leaving him strapped to an intravenous drip without bathroom breaks and having him strip naked. Troops also told him to bark like a dog and left him to urinate on himself.

Darbi is accused of an unrealized plot to attack a boat in the Middle East. He is also the brother-in-law of a Sept. 11 hijacker who was aboard the 757 that struck the Pentagon, killing 187 people, including the wife of then U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson.

Haupt said the prison camps legal staff ``does not try to persuade or dissuade a detainee with respect to meeting a lawyer. . . . Counsel is able to send letters to the detainee in an attempt to convince the detainee of the benefits of cooperating and working with counsel.''

By law, a Guantánamo captive may serve as his own defense attorney at the special war court set up by Congress and the Bush administration. But because they are prison-camp captives they can't interview prospective witnesses or travel to far-flung sites -- as the Pentagon lawyers have done.

Only one trial has actually been completed, with Australian David Hicks pleading guilty to being an al Qaeda foot soldier. His Pentagon lawyer, a Marine major, helped negotiate the plea by which Hicks was set free after a nine-month sentence, most of it served in Australia.

At earlier war-court efforts, an Army brigadier general who ran the prison camps actively encouraged another captive, Ghassan Sharbi, to meet with his attorney.

Sharbi said that Brig. Gen. Jay Hood visited him at his cell repeatedly, discouraged him from boycotting the process -- and arranged a rare telephone call home for the captive to consult his father in Saudi Arabia.

David -- the Pentagon's chief defense counsel and, in civilian life, an Indiana judge -- said he was trying to help resolve the stalemate between the prison camp and the defense lawyers.

''Why can't habeas counsel who jumps through the hoops and military counsel who jumps through the hoops -- and happen to be there at the same time -- meet with their client at the same time?'' asked David, who said he was unaware of any restrictions when he dispatched Broyles to meet with two war-court candidates after the big 9/11 case announcement.

Meantime, David said he still was seeking suitable, separate defense counsel for Qahtani's five co-defendants, an even more difficult task.

They are among 15 ''high-value detainees'' held in segregation at a long undisclosed site called Camp 7, away from Qahtani and the other 260 war-on-terrorism detainees.

The CIA held and interrogated the 15 for years in secret custody before they were sent to Guantánamo in September 2006. Since then, FBI investigators have been allowed to see them frequently, but none have seen defense lawyers.

[Gold9472]

Pentagon General Counsel Resigns

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080310/tuttle2

Ross Tuttle
2/27/2008

William J. Haynes, the Pentagon's chief legal officer and overseer of Guantanamo's Military Commissions, is stepping down, amid mounting controversy over the tribunal process, so he can "return to private life," the Department of Defense announced late on Monday. Haynes' resignation comes exactly two weeks after landmark charges were brought against six "high-value" Guantanamo detainees.

Haynes "has served the Department of Defense and the nation with distinction," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a statement. But Haynes will leave behind a commissions process that is embattled and discredited--and he bears much of the blame.

Haynes, who is legal counsel for the Pentagon--having served both Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates--has long been criticized for his role in crafting the Bush Administration's policies regarding the interrogation and detention of prisoners captured in the "war on terror."

His infamous memos and public statements advocated torture and the denial of habeas corpus for detainees. In a 2002 memo, he recommended techniques such as "twenty-hour interrogations, isolation for up to thirty days, deprivation of light and auditory stimuli...and stress positions such as the proposed standing for four hours." In response to this last technique, Haynes's boss at the time, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, wrote in the memo's margins, "I stand 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours." Haynes also wanted to keep death threats, waterboarding and exposure to extreme temperatures on the table as interrogation methods. He stated, "Fact: The detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are not protected by the Geneva Conventions."

These positions and actions have led to international condemnation and a stalemate in the prosecution of Guantánamo detainees. Only one case--that of Australian David Hicks--has been adjudicated in six years.

Criticism of Haynes has sharpened in the wake of the October resignation of the Chief Prosecutor of Guantánamo's military commissions, Col. Morris Davis, who charged that Haynes and other political appointees were interfering unlawfully in the process. Davis resigned when Haynes was inserted above him in the chain of command, saying, "Everyone has opinions, but when he was put above me, his opinions become orders." In a Washington Post op-ed last year, Davis wrote that he had felt pressure to prosecute cases deemed "sexy" in the run-up to the 2008 elections.

And just last week, Col. Davis made the startling claim, in an exclusive interview with The Nation, that Haynes, who oversees both the prosecution and defense, said to him, "We can't have acquittals, we have to have convictions." According to Davis, Haynes said, "if we've been holding these people for so long, how can we explain letting them get off?"

Reached for comment about Haynes resignation, Col. Davis, who believes that given proper supervision the commissions can be successful, says he's not celebrating yet. "It's a positive step, but there are still several people who share his [Haynes's] views that are still standing in the way of the process," he said, referring to convening authority Susan Crawford and her legal adviser Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann.

Davis has been troubled by the extent of Hartmann's interference in the prosecution, believing that the prosecutor's office needs to be independent in order to perform its duties and that the convening authority should be neutral. However, Hartmann, who reports to Haynes, interpreted his duties more broadly, and according to an internal report he "sees the Legal Adviser's role as being the supervisor of the Chief Prosecutor."

Lt. Brian Mizer, defense counsel for Salim Hamdan, alleged driver of Osama bin Laden, had a similar reaction to Haynes's resignation. "It's an important step in the process in bringing credibility to the military commissions, but it's going to be insufficient to remove the unlawful influence that Col. Davis has talked about," said Mizer from his Virginia-based office.

But Mizer is less optimistic about the prospects for a just process in general: "It will never make this system of justice acceptable. We've removed fundamental rights that our country was based upon--the right to confront accusers, the right to remain silent, and no amount of resignations are going to cure those aspects of the Military Commissions Act," he said--referring to the controversial 2006 act of Congress that created the framework for the current commissions system.

The Pentagon's brief statement left open room for speculation about the reasons for Haynes's departure.

Col. Davis, who was surprised that such an announcement would come so late in the Administration's second term, suggested that "there may have been some opportunity that was just too good to pass up." After the circulation of the press release, it was reported that Haynes will be going to an in-house position at a major corporation.)

As far as Haynes's future is concerned, there is a possibility that he could be pursued as a perpetrator of war crimes in a foreign country. Indeed, Haynes, along with Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and other Bush Administration appointees, were charged in Germany in 2006 with war crimes, but the charges were withdrawn due to insufficient evidence.

As the tribunals march on, Col. Davis has recently agreed to testify at a pretrial hearing in April for Lt. Commander Mizer's client Salim Hamdan. Mizer will raise a motion to dismiss charges based on unlawful interference by political appointees, and Davis will be one of his witnesses. He will reiterate claims he made publicly about Crawford's and Hartmann's roles in the prosecution.

As Davis puts it, "the house isn't clean yet."

[Gold9472]

Don't execute 9/11 accused: Mukasey

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSL1435858520080314

By Chloe Fussell
Fri Mar 14, 2008 1:23pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Friday he hoped the six Guantanamo prisoners charged with the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington would not receive the death penalty.

Speaking at the London School of Economics, Mukasey said the death penalty would allow the six, including the self-confessed commander of al Qaeda's foreign military operations, to portray themselves as victims.

"I hope they don't get the death penalty -- they would see themselves as martyrs," Mukasey said in response to questions at a talk on Anglo-American law enforcement.

If convicted, military prosecutors would seek to execute the men, who are being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.

Charges are now pending against 13 of the centre's 275 prisoners, as the Pentagon is trying to move the Guantanamo trials along before the end of the Bush administration.

Human rights groups call the proceedings a farce, as detainees do not have legal rights normally accorded to U.S. citizens and prisoners of war.

Pakistani Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five others are charged with crimes including murder, conspiracy and terrorism for the attacks which killed around 3,000 people in 2001.

But the head of the Department of Justice said if the men were to receive the death penalty, it would at least be a fitting punishment.

"If those are not poster children for the death penalty, I don't know what is," Mukasey said.

[Gold9472]

Lawyer: Gitmo trials pegged to '08 campaign

http://www.miamiherald.com/guantanamo/story/474196.html

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
Posted on Fri, Mar. 28, 2008

The Navy lawyer for Osama bin Laden's driver argues in a Guantánamo military commissions motion that senior Pentagon officials are orchestrating war crimes prosecutions for the 2008 campaign.

The Pentagon declined late Friday to address the defense lawyer's allegations, noting that the matter is under litigation.

The brief filed Thursday by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer directly challenged the integrity of President Bush's war court.

Notably, it describes a Sept. 29, 2006, meeting at the Pentagon in which Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, a veteran White House appointee, asked lawyers to consider Sept. 11, 2001, prosecutions in light of the campaign.

''We need to think about charging some of the high-value detainees because there could be strategic political value to charging some of these detainees before the election,'' England is quoted as saying.

A senior Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, declined to address the specifics, saying ``the trial process will surface the facts in this case.''

''It has always been everybody's desire to move as swiftly and deliberately as possible to conduct military commissions,'' he added. ``But I can tell you emphatically that leadership has always been extraordinarily careful to guard against any unlawful command influence.''

The brief quotes England as a stipulation of fact and cites other examples of alleged political interference, which Mizer argues makes it impossible for Salim Hamdan, 37, to have a fair trial.

It asks the judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, to dismiss the case against Hamdan as an alleged 9/11 co-conspirator on the grounds that Bush administration leadership exercises ``unlawful command influence.''

Allred has set hearings at Guantánamo for April 30.

Hamdan is the former Afghanistan driver of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden whose lawyers challenged an earlier war court format to the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down the war court as unconstitutional.

Pentagon prosecutors call him a war criminal for driving bin Laden in Afghanistan before and during the 9/11 attacks and allegedly working as his sometimes bodyguard. Even if he didn't help plot the suicide attacks, they argue, he is an al Qaeda co-conspirator.

As described the Hamdan brief, the England meeting came three weeks after President Bush disclosed in a live address that he had ordered the CIA to transfer ''high-value detainees'' from years of secret custody to Guantánamo for trial.

Bush also disclosed that the CIA used ''an alternative set of procedures'' to interrogate the men into confessing -- since revealed by the CIA director, Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, to include waterboarding.

They included reputed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other men against whom the Pentagon prosecutor swore out death-penalty charges in a complex Sept. 11, 2001, conspiracy case on Feb. 11.

The proposed 90-page charge sheets list the names of 2,973 victims of the 9/11 attacks. The men have not been formally charged. Instead they are in the control of a White House appointee, Susan J. Crawford, whose title is the war court's convening authority, and her legal advisor, Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann.

Under the law governing the commissions, the alleged 9/11 conspirators would formally be charged 30 days after Crawford approves them.

That currently leaves a seven-month window during the 2008 election campaign.

An expert on military justice, attorney Eugene Fidell, said the Hamdan motion brings into sharp relief the problem of Pentagon appointees' supervisory relationship to the war court.

''It scrambles relationships that ought to be kept clear,'' said Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

The quote attributed to England is ``enough that you'd want to hold an evidentiary hearing about it, with live witnesses. It does strike me as disturbing for there to be even a whiff of political considerations in what should be a quasi-judicial determination.''

England is a two-term White House appointee. He joined the Bush administration in 2001 as Navy secretary, briefly served as deputy Homeland Security secretary and then returned to the Pentagon, where he supervised the prison camps' administrative processes.

Crawford was a Republican attorney appointee in the Pentagon when Vice President Dick Cheney was defense secretary.

Hamdan's military lawyer argues that standard military justice has barriers that separate various functions, which he contends Pentagon appointees have crossed in the war court.

In April the defense team plans to call the former chief prosecutor, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who recounted the England remark since submitting his resignation, claiming political interference.

Davis, who had approved charges against Hamdan, served as former chief Pentagon prosecutor until he resigned over what he called political interference by general counsel William J. Haynes.

Haynes has since quit.

They also want to call as a witness the deputy chief defense counsel, a retired Army lawyer named Michael Berrigan, who, according to the filing, was mistakingly sent a draft copy of 9/11 conspiracy charges being prepared by the prosecution.

In the filing, Hartmann, the legal advisor, orders Berrigan to return it, which the defense team claims illustrates the muddied role of the legal advisor.

He supervised the prosecution, announced the 9/11 conspiracy charges on Feb. 11, then said he would evaluate them independently and recommend to Crawford how to proceed.

The Mizer motion is also the latest attack on the legitimacy of war-court prosecutions by a variety of feisty uniformed defense attorneys, who have doggedly used civilian courts and courted public opinion against the process since the earliest days.

Mizer sent the brief directly to reporters for major news organizations, rather than leave it to the Office of Military Commissions to post it on a Pentagon website.

The Pentagon has been releasing motions for the public to read after they have been argued -- and ruled on by the judge.

With delays in other cases, the Hamdan case is now on track to be the first full-blown U.S. war-crimes tribunal since World War II.

The current time frame would put the trial before the Supreme Court rules on an overarching detainee rights case in June.

[Gold9472]

U.S. Navy lawyer to defend alleged 9/11 mastermind

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080409/ts_nm/guantanamo_lawyer_dc

By Jane Sutton Tue Apr 8, 11:02 PM ET

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - The self-described mastermind of the September 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon has been assigned a U.S. military lawyer to defend him in the Guantanamo war court, where he could face execution if convicted, The Miami Herald reported.

Navy Capt. Prescott Prince was given orders on Tuesday to defend Pakistani prisoner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the newspaper said on its Web site.

Military officials at Guantanamo and at the Pentagon could not immediately confirm the report. However, they previously had said Prince had joined the team of military lawyers who defend foreign captives facing war crimes charges in the U.S. military tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

Prince, 53, is an attorney and naval reservist from Richmond, Virginia. He recently served in Iraq, where he was a lawyer in the unit that oversaw detainee operations.

Mohammed, better known by his initials KSM, has said he planned every aspect of the September 11 attacks using hijacked airliners in 2001.

In February, U.S. military prosecutors charged him and five other Guantanamo captives with counts that include murder, conspiring with al Qaeda and terrorism. The charges list the names of 2,973 people killed when four hijacked passenger planes slammed into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

Before Mohammed and the others can be tried, the charges and the potential death penalty still must be approved by a Pentagon official overseeing the Guantanamo war court, the first U.S. military tribunals since World War Two.

Under the rules for the Guantanamo court, military lawyers are ordered to put on a "zealous" defense for the accused. But defendants can reject the lawyers and act as their own attorneys.

"This man is alleged to have done some very bad things. Personally I have faith in the American people to allow him to have a fair trial," Prince told the Herald.

But he said he did not feel a fair trial was possible in the Guantanamo court system designed to try foreign captives outside the regular U.S. civilian and military courts.

Mohammed's confession could be troublesome for the U.S. government if used as evidence because the CIA has admitted it subjected him to "waterboarding" -- an interrogation technique of simulated drowning that has been widely criticized as torture.

The rules of the court prohibit the use of evidence gained through torture, as does an international treaty the United States has signed. But it is left up to the trial judge to determine what evidence can be introduced.

"You start with the fact that you've broken the rules -- a secret prison, torturing. Waterboarding. Harsh extreme techniques. Using cruel, coercive techniques to extract information," said Prince. "I just don't see how you can give him a fair trial."

[Gold9472]

Guantanamo prisoner denounces war-crime trial
The brother-in-law of a 9/11 hijacker tells a military judge that the terror conspiracy case against him is a sham and has himself removed from the courtroom.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-gitmo10apr10,1,182003.story

By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
11:41 AM PDT, April 9, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA -- A Saudi prisoner today denounced the war-crimes case against him as a politically motivated "sham" and had himself removed from the courtroom in symbolic protest.

Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza Al-Darbi, whose brother-in-law was among the Sept. 11 hijackers, informed the military judge hearing his terror conspiracy case that he wanted neither legal representation nor to be present at his trial.

Al-Darbi, 33, has been charged with conspiracy and material support for terrorism for allegedly training with Al Qaeda and plotting to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Al-Darbi, whose war-crimes case is one of seven inching their way toward trial by the military commissions, has yet to enter a plea and made clear he wouldn't be returning for future sessions.

He arrived in court in the white tunic and blue canvas shoes denoting a compliant detainee and politely told the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, that he neither wanted to be represented by the military lawyer assigned to his case nor by any civilian attorney.

"History will record these trials as a scandal," Al-Darbi said. "I advise you, the judge, and everyone else who is present to not continue with this play, this sham."

Another detainee charged with attempted murder in a grenade attack that wounded two U.S. National Guardsmen in Afghanistan also refused to cooperate last month. Mohammed Jawad, a 23-year-old Afghan who had to be dragged from his cell for a March 12 arraignment, said he would boycott proceedings he considers illegitimate.

Pretrial hearings have begun for two other defendants and three await arraignment, including one this week.

Prosecutors have announced their intentions to try seven other Guantanamo prisoners but have yet to serve them with the war-crimes charges announced as long as two months ago. Among those cases awaiting activation are capital charges against Sept. 11 alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five others accused of roles in those attacks.

The Army lawyer assigned to defend Al-Darbi, Lt. Col. Brian Broyles, is required by military commissions rules to represent the absent defendant anyway. But Broyles said he would seek guidance from his bar association in Kentucky, as well as from the Army judge advocate general corps, on whether ethical standards would prohibit his representation of a client who doesn't want him.

Broyles faces a dilemma if he is ordered by the judge to defend Al-Darbi and advised by legal ethicists against an active role. "There's every possibility that I'll end up being a potted plant," Broyles said.

In his brief address to Pohl, Al-Darbi repeated claims that he had been abused while in U.S. custody in Afghanistan.

Broyles had told journalists last month that he'd been told by Al-Darbi that an Army counterintelligence specialist had beaten him and left him hanging from handcuffs during interrogations at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul. The soldier, Pfc. Damien Corsetti, was court-martialed in 2006 for abuse involving another detainee.

Broyles indicated any trial of his client would probably be bogged down in procedural wrangling for months. Al-Darbi has never been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant, a necessary step before the tribunal can claim jurisdiction in the case.

None of the allegations against Al-Darbi tie him to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. His brother-in-law, Khalid al-Mihdhar, was one of the five Al Qaeda hijackers who commandeered American Airlines Flight 77 on Sept. 11, 2001, and plowed it into the Pentagon.

[Gold9472]

ACLU to Back Up Defense of 9/11 Detainees

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120726400995288065.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

By JESS BRAVIN
April 4, 2008; Page A3

WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union is spearheading a high-profile effort to defend Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other alleged 9/11 conspirators from conviction and execution by the Bush administration's military commissions at Guantanamo Bay.

Backed by a slate of prominent legal figures, including former Attorney General Janet Reno and former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director William Webster, the ACLU has assembled a team of top civilian attorneys to supplement the military defense counsel assigned to represent Guantanamo's "high-value detainees."

The ACLU has the support of Guantanamo's chief military defense lawyer, Col. Steven David, who says the government hasn't provided him sufficient resources to adequately contest a death-penalty trial.

The effort significantly adds to the legal forces that over the past seven years have challenged the administration's plan to run an offshore court that provides defendants fewer rights than civilian trials or courts-martial. The addition of the ACLU in particular, with its large financial resources, is a major shot in the arm for those who oppose the tribunal system.

The administration has announced plans to seek the execution of seven Guantanamo prisoners, who will be tried before an offshore military commission using a new rulebook drafted by the Defense Department.

The creation of a high-powered legal defense team is a step toward answering the many questions about how the tribunals will operate. Much remains unclear, including rules of evidence and what access the press and public will have to the proceedings.

While civilian courts provide additional help for capital defendants, the military commission procedures don't specify any particular requirements, Col. David said.

He said he intended to follow the guidelines adopted by the American Bar Association, which call for each defendant to have at least two qualified attorneys, an investigator and a "mitigation specialist," to research arguments against execution should a conviction result.

His current office is too small to provide that level of staffing and military attorneys have little experience with death-penalty litigation, he said.

"An office where everyone is death-penalty qualified and has tried at least one death penalty case? Don't have it. Won't have it," said Col. David, a reservist who in civilian life is a county judge in Indiana.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is working with the ACLU to provide death-penalty lawyers, while other groups, including the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York and Reprieve, a British nonprofit, have helped represent other Guantanamo prisoners.
[Janet Reno]

The groups have approached private foundations to seek funding help for the defense effort, people familiar with the project say. A spokeswoman for one of those foundations, George Soros's Open Society Institute, said it had "received requests related to the Guantanamo detainees" but has not yet decided whether to get involved.

Maj. Bobby Don Gifford, legal spokesperson for the military commissions, said "the Military Commissions have gone to great lengths to provide a system that is full, fair, and just" and suggested the commissions already had adequate resources. He added that ABA guidelines aren't binding on any court.

The high-value detainees have been held under extraordinary security at Guantanamo Bay and most have never seen a lawyer. They need not accept either military counsel or the ACLU lawyers. But Col. David said that in light of their harsh treatment by U.S. authorities -- Mr. Mohammed, for instance, has been subjected to waterboarding -- the prisoners might distrust military counsel.

Anthony Romero, the ACLU's executive director, said he had recruited a "dream team" of more than 30 lawyers to work on the project, including Edward McMahon, who helped represent convicted 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in federal district court.

"The defendants in these proceedings have been charged with horrendous crimes," Mr. Romero said in a written statement. But "it is a central tenet of our system of justice that guilt must only be decided after a fair trial, not beforehand," he said.

Mr. Romero acknowledged that standing up for the alleged 9/11 conspirators might be unpopular. He recalled past instances when the organization has represented widely detested clients, such as when neo-Nazis sought to march through a largely Jewish neighborhood of Skokie, Ill., in 1977.

The organization sought to mitigate a public outcry -- and perhaps the alienation of some donors -- by lining up support from such figures as Ms. Reno and Mr. Webster.

Ms. Reno, who spent 15 years as the local prosecutor in Miami before President Clinton named her attorney general, said in a statement provided by the ACLU that "this is the time to demonstrate to the world that the United States need not abandon its principles, even as it seeks to ensure the safety of its citizens."

Eric M. Freedman, a Hofstra University law professor who helped draft the ABA's death penalty guidelines, said the ACLU initiative didn't relieve the government's responsibility to pay for an adequate defense.

[Gold9472]

Gitmo tribunal rules limit evidence disclosures
As the Guantánamo war court edges toward full-blown trials, closures, censorship and document delays cloud transparency.

http://www.miamiherald.com/519/story/480840.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
Posted on Thu, Apr. 03, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- A defense lawyer lets slip at the war court convening here that a battlefield commander changed an Afghanistan firefight report in a way that seemed to help a U.S. government murder case. Reporters hear the field commander's name but are forbidden to report it.

In another case, a judge approves the release of a captive's interrogation video showing the blurred face of an American agent. But a federal prosecutor on loan to the Pentagon withholds it "out of an abundance of caution.''

Even as the U.S. government edges toward full-blown, war-crimes trials by military commission here, with more hearings next week, all sides are grappling with what information can be made public and what must be kept secret.

Consider: A new courtroom here sequesters Pentagon-approved spectators behind a soundproofed window. If a terror suspect tries to shout about his treatment in U.S. custody, a military censor can mute the audio feed that observers hear.

Under rules that protect interrogation techniques, the Pentagon's war court won't let the reputed 9/11 architect, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, say he was waterboarded -- something the CIA director, Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, confirmed on Feb. 5.

Pentagon officials defend the Military Commissions as engaged in a delicate balancing act -- working to mete out justice to war-on-terrorism captives without exposing U.S. intelligence tactics and personnel to public scrutiny.

As long as there is an al Qaeda, they argue, such information could be used to hurt Americans or their allies.

At the same time, the commissions architects have long pledged that they will be open to international scrutiny.

''We can't disclose classified information. We can't disclose privacy information,'' the war-court legal advisor, Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, said in an interview.

Unlike in federal courts, jurors at commissions are U.S. officers. In some circumstances, they can see or hear evidence that is shielded from the public.

Hartmann argues that a commissions defendant gets the same rights as a soldier at a court-martial -- among them an American military lawyer to defend him, and a presumption of innocence.

Attorneys for the Guantánamo captives disagree. They argue that, unlike civilian or military justice systems, the rules favor the government and permit evidence gleaned from abusive interrogations.

The Pentagon prosecutor has accused six of the 280 or so captives here of being 9/11 conspirators. If Hartmann's boss approves the death-penalty charges, conviction could end in their execution.

ACLU SUES
Meantime, the American Civil Liberties Union is suing the Bush administration in federal court to unseal portions of transcripts from military hearings, in which Mohammed and others now held at Guantánamo lay out allegations of torture.

'There is no remotely legitimate basis for the government to withhold these prisoners' account of their mistreatment,'' says Ben Wizner, an ACLU staff attorney and sometime war-court observer.

''I would simply note that governments don't censor information to conceal lies,'' Wizner said. "They censor information to conceal the truth.''

The military says these trials -- the first war-crimes tribunals since World War II -- are unprecedented because they risk talking about tactics while the nation is at war. Hence, the need for secrecy.

'VAMPIRES'
Critics say such secrecy could strip the military commissions of legitimacy.

When he was chief prosecutor, Air Force Col. Moe Davis once likened Guantánamo detainees to ''vampires'' fearful of the bright light of American justice.

But then in October he resigned his post, protesting what he called political pressure to speed up the cases -- and sacrifice transparency. Rushing them, he said, risks using secret evidence or confessions gained through tough interrogation tactics.

With time, he said in a recent interview, the prosecution can build public cases using evidence from before Mohammed's capture -- and before he was waterboarded by the CIA.

''If they want to take KSM out and shoot him, I would have no problem with that. Fine,'' he said, using Mohammed's initials. "If they want to call it military justice, you've gotta give him a fair trial.''

'PROTECTED'
Meantime, the Pentagon has created a labyrinth of bureaucracy that shields from public disclosure some of the inner workings of the commissions.

Reporters and other observers must agree to a series of regulations that have no counterpart in the civilian court system. Journalists are forbidden, for example, to report anything uttered in court that a Pentagon security officer declares "protected information.''

Earlier this month, a Navy defense lawyer mistakenly spoke the last name of the battlefield commander at the capture of a 15-year-old Canadian in Afghanistan. Reporters were instructed to identify him only as ''Lt. Col. W.,'' or risk being banned from covering the court.

In the case of the interrogation video, Judge Keith Allred, a Navy captain, approved its release in December. It shows Osama bin Laden's driver, a Yemeni in the garb of a bushy-bearded South Asian, being questioned soon after his capture by U.S. allies in November 2001 in Afghanistan.

The driver's attorney, Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, believes it is the first recorded battlefield interrogation of an alleged al Qaeda associate during the U.S. invasion meant to topple the Taliban, dismantle al Qaeda and capture bin Laden and other 9/11 plotters.

'CAUTION'
But Army Reserves Maj. Bobby Don Gifford, a federal prosecutor on loan to the Pentagon as a public-affairs specialist, said he chose to withhold it from public view ''out of an abundance of caution,'' and offered a cascade of explanations in a March 17 e-mail:

Gordon England, deputy secretary of defense, issued a memo banning the release of Guantánamo detainee photos. The Pentagon is bound by the Geneva Conventions not to humiliate detainees, it said, and "We respect the dignity of all persons.''

Then this, 'Geneva Conventions prohibit the use of images that could be deemed 'propaganda,' and because I don't know or can control what others may do with it -- I don't want to be in the position of violating the law -- thus I'm exercising caution.''

Under the system, the Pentagon says the Office of Military Commissions -- not the judge -- has the last word on what the public can see.

In a November response to a written protest by attorneys for The New York Times and other news organizations, the commission deputy legal advisor, Michael Chapman, explained it this way: Military judges are charged with "the delicate balance of providing for the public interest in the commission proceedings, protecting the rights of the accused, maintaining witness privacy, securing classified or sensitive information and ensuring the interests of justice are appropriately respected and protected.''

LEAKED VIDEO
Despite the controls, some of the trial evidence is popping up elsewhere.

A video clip of Canadian captive Omar Khadr allegedly learning to plant mines as a teen in Afghanistan turned up on 60Minutes last year. Yet the Pentagon has so far declined to provide reporters covering the commissions with copies of it, saying they don't know who leaked it -- or how.

Khadr's Pentagon-appointed defense attorneys have consistently complained about a lack of transparency in the process. Khadr is accused of throwing a grenade in a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan that fatally wounded a sergeant with the U.S. Special Forces.

[Gold9472]

3rd Guantanamo detainee to boycott trial
The prisoner says that his only crime is being Sudanese and that the 9/11 attacks exposed U.S. 'hypocrisy.'

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gitmo11apr11,1,2726342.story

By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 11, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA -- A Sudanese prisoner with long ties to Osama bin Laden told the war-crimes tribunal here Thursday that the Sept. 11 attacks dealt heavy blows to U.S. security and exposed the "hypocrisy" behind American claims that it stands for equality and justice.

Appearing at his arraignment, Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud Qosi refused to accept legal representation for his trial before the Pentagon's military commissions.

After a rambling statement, he announced that he would boycott further proceedings.

The bearded 47-year-old was the third Guantanamo defendant in the last month to call the military tribunal illegitimate and refuse to cooperate in his own defense.

"I leave in your hands the camel and its load for you to do whatever you wish," he told Air Force Lt. Col. Nancy Paul, the judge preparing for his trial on charges of conspiracy and material support for terrorism.

Qosi also accused the U.S. military of discrimination against citizens of the Third World, noting that two British detainees and an Australian charged along with him four years ago have since been released under pressure from those governments.

"The only war crime I committed and for which I'm being tried today before you and which I admit having committed is, in truth, my nationality," said the tall, slender Qosi. "My crime is that I'm a Sudanese citizen."

A day earlier, Saudi prisoner Ahmed Muhammed Ahmed Haza Darbi deemed the tribunal a "sham" and announced that he would boycott subsequent sessions. On March 12, Afghan defendant Mohammed Jawad also rejected the forum.

The succession of defendants refusing to cooperate with the tribunal puts the onus on the U.S. government to "show that this is not a complete sham," said Jamil Dakwar, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union observing the arraignment.

He said Qosi's claim of nationality bias called into question "the guarantee of equality before the law that is a hallmark of American justice."

The chief prosecutor for the commissions, Army Col. Lawrence Morris, said that he was concerned about the boycotts but that the government remained committed to a just process.

Paul accepted Qosi's rejection of legal representation by Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier or any other lawyer willing to submit to the government's rules and practices.

Unlike U.S. federal courts, the Guantanamo tribunal permits hearsay evidence as well as information gleaned from coercion and makes no guarantee that the accused will be able to confront his accusers or know all the evidence against him.

Qosi said he would act as his own attorney and insisted on reading a statement.

Quoting an Al Jazeera analyst shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Qosi said they dealt harsh blows to the United States "militarily, economically, in security and spirit-wise."

He added that in his own view the attacks also hurt the United States legally because, he said, they led the country to violate its standards of human rights and justice.

"After the collapse of the towers, after the collapse of the Pentagon, all these false masks fell away and your wrongs were exposed," Qosi told the court. "The whole world has a headache from your hypocrisy."

Lachelier interrupted the defendant shortly after he began, urging the judge to order a psychological evaluation. Paul cut Qosi off after a few minutes, saying she feared he might be incriminating himself.

The defendant, who had been charged with a single count of conspiracy under the previous military commissions system four years ago, was cooperative with his defense team at that time but has twice refused to meet with Lachelier, according to the guard force of the Joint Task Force that runs the prisons.

Lachelier attempted to gain entrance to the facility where Qosi was being held to hear him tell her directly that he didn't want to go over his case.

"It is interfering with his right to counsel that we have to go through his jailers" to communicate with him, Lachelier said, adding that she was concerned Qosi had been threatened by guards not to accept legal assistance.

When she got her first glimpse of Qosi a few minutes before Thursday's arraignment, she said he appeared "very nervous, very distressed, frantic almost," a state she attributed in part to the security precautions during transport from the prison to the courthouse, among them hooding, shackling and ear protection to block out sound.

Paul ordered Lachelier to represent Qosi at any tribunal procedures he boycotts.

Lachelier said she was uncomfortable with that order, given that he had clearly rejected her.

She said she would have to consult with her bar association in California for ethical guidance on what role she should play.

The trial process recognizes a defendant's right to represent himself but insists that a lawyer take the lead in his defense if he is absent.

The issue of representing a defendant against his wishes surfaced in several of the 10 cases of Guantanamo detainees charged with war crimes under the previous process enacted by President Bush in November 2001 but struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in June 2006.

An act of Congress created the current system three months later, and 14 of the 280 terrorism suspects held here have since been charged with war crimes or identified as likely to be charged soon.

carol.williams@latimes.com

[Gold9472]

U.S. to televise Guantanamo trials to 9-11 families

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080418/ts_nm/guantanamo_television_dc

By Jane Sutton
Fri Apr 18, 8:40 AM ET

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - The U.S. military will televise the Guantanamo trial of accused September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five other suspects so relatives of those killed in the attacks can watch on the U.S. mainland.

"We're going to broadcast in real time to several locations that will be available just to victim families," Army Col. Lawrence Morris, chief prosecutor for the controversial war crimes court, said at the naval base recently.

In February, military prosecutors charged Mohammed and five other captives with murder and conspiracy and asked that they be executed if convicted of plotting to crash hijacked planes into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

No trial date has been set but they are the first Guantanamo prisoners charged with direct involvement in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Morris said several of the victims' relatives asked to watch the trials at the detention center set up in Guantanamo Bay naval base to try foreign terrorism suspects.

The base sits on a dusty patch of the island of Cuba and does not have many flights, beds or courtroom seats to accommodate spectators.

The trials will be beamed to closed-circuit television viewing sites on military bases at Fort Hamilton in New York, Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, Fort Meade in Maryland and Fort Devens in Massachusetts, Morris said.

The military is borrowing a page from the civilian court sentencing hearing of Zacarias Moussaoui, a flight school student who is the only person convicted in the United States in connection with the September 11 plot. He pleaded guilty to conspiring with al Qaeda and was sentenced to life in prison.

U.S. federal courts normally ban cameras. But through an act of Congress, Moussaoui's 2006 court hearing in Virginia was shown by closed-circuit television to victims' families at courthouses in Boston, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

"We got much more information from those hearings than we ever got from the 9-11 Commission," said Lorie Van Auken, whose husband Kenneth died in the World Trade Center, referring to the investigation the U.S. Congress launched into the attacks.

FAIR TRIALS OR SHOW TRIALS?
Some of the victims' relatives praised the U.S. military for ensuring they had access to the Guantanamo proceedings.

Hamilton Peterson, whose father and stepmother, Donald and Jean Peterson, died on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, called the prosecutors "true patriots," and said he was grateful for "the ability to see justice being fulfilled in one of the most significant attacks on America's heartland."

Others urged the trials be televised nationwide without restriction because of the sweeping impact of the attacks.

The broadcasts will mark the first time a Guantanamo detainee's face has been shown publicly. The U.S. military prohibits journalists and other visitors from taking photographs or video that shows faces, citing a provision of the Geneva Conventions that aims to protect war captives from "insults and public curiosity."

The U.S. military lawyer assigned to defend Mohammed, Navy Capt. Prescott Prince, said if the trials are truly fair, then broadcasting them widely would prove that to the world. But he worried about setting a precedent by televising what he suspects will be show trials.

"I can just imagine American soldiers and sailors and airmen being subjected to similar show trials worldwide," he said.

He said he doubts the defendants can get a fair trial in the Guantanamo court because it accepts hearsay evidence that may have been obtained through cruel and dehumanizing means. The Geneva provision cited in shielding prisoners' faces also bans "acts of violence or intimidation," he noted.

The CIA held Mohammed in a secret prison for years and acknowledged interrogating him with methods that included the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding.

Some of the victims' relatives also said they thought the trials should be held in a regular court, open to the public and using only "evidence that's above reproach."

"This is not about revenge, it's about justice," said Valerie Lucznikowska, a New Yorker whose nephew Adam Arias died in the World Trade Center.

"I don't want it to be a lynching. I'm concerned that people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, we won't be able to find them guilty because of what we've done with them. It's a horrible conundrum."

[Gold9472]

Suspicions grow that drugs were used in detainee interrogations

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Suspicions_grow_that_drugs_used_in_0422.html

Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday April 22, 2008

The Washington Post charged on Tuesday that detainees at Guantanamo Bay may have been injected with drugs in the course of their interrogation. "At least two dozen other former and current detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere say they were given drugs against their will or witnessed other inmates being drugged, based on interviews and court documents," the Post reports.

The CIA and the Defense Department have denied using drugs in interrogations and suggest that the detainees' stories "are either fabrications or mistaken interpretations of routine medical treatment."

However, a newly-released memo written by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo in 2003, which argued that nothing in U.S. law limits what the president can order done to prisoners in time of war, also suggested that drugs could be used on prisoners as long as they did not cause permanent psychological damage. Even with that restriction, such a practice would likely be in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

The Post points out that "the interrogation memo was considered a binding opinion for nine months until December 2003, when OLC chief Jack Goldsmith told the Defense Department to ignore the document's analysis."

According to Congressional Quarterly, the use of drugs on detainees was anticipated by the administration as early as January 2002 and was first rationalized by Yoo in a 2002 memo for top administration officials. The justification was further elaborated by Yoo in his 2003 memo due to "the rising resistance to harsh interrogation techniques by military lawyers and the FBI."

The detainee claims cited by the Post have been widely circulated for several years, although they have been less publicized within the United States.

When four British subjects were released from Guantanamo in 2005, one of them claimed that "he was repeatedly injected with an unknown substance that triggered psychosis."

Another British detainee told a television interviewer after his release in 2004 that "many detainees were given regular injections, after which 'they would just sit there like in a daze and sometimes you would see them shaking'" and that "he was beaten and put in isolation because he refused injections and was sometimes forcibly given unidentified drugs."

A Moroccan detainee released in 2004 also claimed he was given forcible injections, and Jose Padilla's lawyer has asserted that his client was given drugs against his will, possibly LSD or PCP. However, no charges of this nature have ever been proven.

[Gold9472]

Lawyer fears 9/11 mastermind trial will be 'insanity' Story Highlights
Lawyer defending suspected 9/11 mastermind calls waterboarding 'mock execution'

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/23/ksm.attorney/index.html

By Kelli Arena and Carol Cratty
4/23/2008

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Prescott Prince is a small-town lawyer who has never taken a death penalty case to trial. Yet he finds himself involved in one of the biggest capital punishment cases this century: He's defending the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Prescott Prince says the suspected 9/11 mastermind deserves a fair trial.

1 of 2 He readily acknowledges how his client is perceived as "one of the most reviled people" in the world. But he says it's imperative America give Mohammed a fair trial, just like anyone else accused of a crime.

No civilian court, he says, would accept confessions obtained after a defendant was mistreated. But the CIA admits Mohammed was waterboarded, a controversial interrogation technique that involves simulated drowning.

"I take the position that this is mock execution. ... Colloquially speaking, at least it's torture," Prince says.

The fact whatever Mohammed said during such duress could be used at trial is alarming to Prince.

"That's not the rule of law. That's just insanity." Watch waterboarding is "mock execution" »

A Navy reservist who has been called to active duty, Prince, 53, rejects the suggestion that he is less than patriotic for representing an accused terrorist. "I had friends who were at the Pentagon the day it was attacked so I don't accept the concept of 'gee I don't know what it's like.'"

Prince is currently visiting the detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to meet his client. He was denied a meeting with Mohammed on Wednesday due to procedural problems; he will try again today.

Before Prince headed to Guantanamo, he told CNN he had no idea whether Mohammed will accept him as his lawyer. He says he's gone over what he's going to say "about a hundred times a day."

He's been reading the Koran and has met with psychologists and other lawyers who have represented accused terrorists. "This would not be the first time I've met with a client who initially did not want, if you will, court-appointed counsel," he said. "I've had clients call me almost any name in the book. I've had them refuse to come see me." Meet the attorney defending suspected 9/11 mastermind »

Still Prince realizes this is different. Very different.

Mohammed has been in custody since he was caught in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in 2003. He was transferred from a secret location to Gitmo in 2006. The government says he confessed to his involvement in the September 11, 2001, attacks and many other terrorist plots.

The government in February said six terror suspects, including Mohammed, would go before military commissions and could face the death penalty if it is judged they were involved in the September 11 attacks. The proceedings are governed by the Military Commissions Act, which Congress passed to handle arrestees in the war on terror. See the terror suspects who could face the death penalty »

The act requires detainees have access to lawyers as well as to any evidence presented against them. They also will have the right to appeal a guilty verdict, potentially through a civilian appeals court and perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court, according to the act. Watch general describe charges against al Qaeda suspects »

In the case of Mohammed, the government acknowledged he was subjected to waterboarding, a harsh interrogation technique that many experts believe violates the Geneva Conventions' ban on torture. Waterboarding involves strapping a person to a surface, covering the face with cloth and pouring water over the cloth to imitate the sensation of drowning.

Prince finds that extremely troubling because he says a civilian court would never admit evidence gained through a coerced statement. The government says Mohammed has confessed to 9/11 and other terror plots.

"Even the greenest deputy sheriff or rookie police officer in Skunk Hollow County knows that if you rough up a defendant, anything he says after that is not going to be admitted into court," Prince says. "The officer might not like those rules, but he understands them and will abide by them."

But a judge in a military commission could have it entered into evidence. "We have created a system under the military commissions that says in essence, 'if he was roughed up, but what he says still seems reliable, we'll accept it any way.' And that's just wrong."

Prince says there are other complications. He may not have the chance to cross-examine Mohammed's accusers and may not see all the evidence to be put forward in court. Watch families of 9/11 victims push for fair trials »

Prince doesn't believe Mohammed can get a fair trial and says the country risks trashing "our constitutional values when it becomes convenient to do so."

"I don't want to impugn anyone's character, but this is where Ronald Reagan's term 'trust but verify' will come into play," he says.

The military has assigned him a three-person team consisting of another lawyer, an intelligence analyst and a paralegal. The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers have also teamed up to find volunteers to help Prince and the other lawyers defending accused terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.

Norman Reimer, the executive director of the NACDL, explained the daunting task this way:"It's going to require all of the ingenuity and resources -- not just to defend the accused -- but to defend the American system of justice and what we stand for in the world. That's what this is about."

Two lawyers from Boise, Idaho, have agreed to help Prince. No strangers to terrorism cases, David Nevin and Scott McKay won an acquittal for a Saudi man who faced terror charges.

Prince for years ran a small practice in Richmond, Virginia. But last year, the reservist was called to active duty and spent six months in Iraq. He never thought this would be his next assignment.

"I could have said, 'No,'" he says, before adding, "I don't think I would have been doing honor to myself or honor to my calling."

[Gold9472]

Alleged 9/11 plotters see Navy lawyers

http://www.miamiherald.com/509/story/512412.html

Posted on Mon, Apr. 28, 2008
By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Ten weeks after the Pentagon prosecutor swore out preliminary death penalty charges, Navy defense lawyers have had first talks with the top three alleged 9/11 conspirators.

For each of the men, it was his first private meeting with an attorney offering help after years of secret CIA custody and interrogation, including the waterboarding of one of them.

And only one of the three has so far agreed to accept the free-of-charge services of a military lawyer.

He is Ali Abdal Aziz Ali, a Pakistani man and the nephew of reputed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed -- who allegedly sent about $120,000 to the hijackers to fund, among other things, flight training at U.S. flight schools.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer said Sunday that Ali, who speaks ''fluent'' English, agreed to let him defend him, along with two volunteer civilian lawyers from Seattle -- after two days of talks last week.

''He appears to be fine,'' Mizer said of this 30-something client.

Getting lawyers for the men has been a key hurdle in the Pentagon efforts to move forward on a complex conspiracy case of six men held here for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed 2,973 people in New York, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.

Several alleged al Qaeda foot soldiers are boycotting their trials and have fired their lawyers, both military and civilian volunteers. Those men, however, face a maximum of life in prison if convicted, not death.

Charge sheets issued Feb. 11 propose the military execution of Ali and the five others, should they be convicted by a military commission.

No trial date has been set while a civilian Bush administration appointee named Susan Crawford decides whether and when to go forward with the 9/11 case.

While she looks at the charges, prison camp officials have been granting military defense lawyers restricted access to the accused -- imposing national security limits on them and taking custody of their notes while the Pentagon establishes Top Secret sites and clearances for defense teams.

Last week, Navy Reserves Capt. Prescott Prince, a defense counsel, introduced himself to Ali's uncle, who is known in the United States by his initials, KSM, and who allegedly ran the Sept. 11 plot for al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.

Mohammed has yet to agree to the military defense counsel.

Prince is assembling a four-attorney defense team to fend off the capital charges against Mohammed, whom the CIA has admitted to waterboarding in secret detention.

Prince calls waterboarding ''torture'' -- and says his client should be tried in a civilian or military court, not by commissions, where each military judge gets to decide whether to let the jury of U.S. military officers hear evidence gleaned through torture.

Prince and Mohammed met on Thursday under strict security arrangements that mostly muzzle the Navy Reserves captain who has practiced private law in Virginia for decades.

In parallel, Navy Reserves Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier and Navy Lt. Ricardo Federico met with the 9/11 plot's alleged control officer, a Yemeni named Ramzi Bin al Shibh, and offered to defend him.

''He seems smart,'' Lachelier said of Bin al Shibh. ``I think he's checking us out. He's naturally very distrustful -- but very respectful.''

The three met for about five ''productive'' hours across two days, said Lachelier, who declared the talks ''favorable,'' although he did not yet agree to let them defend him.

They meet again in about two weeks.

Lachelier, a former San Diego federal public defender, said he did not seem averse to the idea of a woman lawyer leading his defense team. ''I didn't get any bad vibes in that regard,'' she said.

Bin al Shibh has been described as a KSM deputy who allegedly served as a key intermediary with some of the 9/11 suicide squads.

The American Civil Liberties Union has assigned Chicago lawyer Thomas A. Durkin to work with Lachelier. Durkin, a veteran civilian defense attorney, has defended alleged terrorists in federal courts where the government has invoked national secrets protections.

In announcing the arrival of the ''high-value detainees'' at Guantánamo in September 2006, President Bush defended rough interrogations as a war-on-terror necessity.

He said agents used an ''alternative set of procedures'' -- later identified by the CIA director, Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, to include waterboarding -- on terror suspect Abu Zubaydah, to hunt down Bin al Shibh.

Also Sunday, Mizer said he met with Aziz Ali across two days, during which the 30-something detainee agreed to accept Seattle attorneys Jeff Robinson and Amanda Lee on the defense team. The two were signed up through an American Civil Liberties Union project, which is helping fund the work of civilian lawyers defending death penalty candidates at the war court.

Mizer, who is defending bin Laden driver Salim Hamdan of Yemen in a non-capital case, said he is forbidden from discussing his latest client's case under military intelligence rules that sealed his notes of their meeting in the prison camp lawyer's safe.

He described representing both men -- in separate proceedings -- as ``a delicate juggling act.''

In the Hamdan case, for example, Mizer has sought the testimony of KSM and other former CIA detainees to clear the driver of terror charges -- by adopting a government theory that the former CIA detainees are senior al Qaeda members.

Hamdan, 36, has an extensive civilian legal team working with Mizer, including the former Navy lawyer who helped overturn President Bush's first format for military commissions by challenging the driver's first war crimes case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In contrast, Mizer is the only attorney so far to ever meet with Aziz Ali.

According to a Pentagon transcript, Aziz Ali told U.S. military officers a year ago that he neither knew of the 9/11 plot nor was a member of al Qaeda.

Asked about the cash transfers, he told the military panel that some wealthy Arab men living in the United States routinely sought funds for lavish lifestyles while studying abroad. He described one friend as an English language student who needed $100,000 cash in the United States -- to buy a Ferrari.

Two of the former CIA captives have yet to meet with their military defense counsel.

The sixth man accused in the conspiracy is Mohammed al Qahtani, a Saudi man in his 30s who has been held for years at Guantánamo and was subjected to a rough military interrogation regime approved by Donald Rumsfeld, unlike his alleged co-conspirators, who were held secretly by the CIA.

In the Qahtani case, according to a leaked log of his 50-day interrogation at Camp X-Ray here, U.S. interrogators in November and December of 2002 used sleep deprivation, left him strapped to an intravenous drip without bathroom breaks and had him strip naked to break his will.

They also told him to bark like a dog in a bid to get him to confess to being the so-called 20th Hijacker, the man who didn't get to the United States in time to join the 19 other terrorists in the 9/11 attack.

Qahtani has not yet met his military attorney, Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles. But his long-serving civilian attorney, Gitanjali Gutierrez of the New York Center for Constitutional Rights, said late Sunday that she has gotten Defense Department approval to defend him along with Broyles at the war court.

[Gold9472]

Getting Away With Torture
Legal maneuvering has shielded those responsible for conditions at Guantánamo Bay.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/134308

May 5, 2008 Issue

Our "terror trials" aren't working. The prosecutions of a fistful of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay—just getting underway after more than six years—are barely moving forward. Evidence is flimsy and stale. Prisoners claiming to have been abused and subjected to involuntary use of drugs are refusing to participate in their trials. There may yet be verdicts at Guantánamo. But following years of abuse, neglect and secrecy, there won't be justice. The other place we won't see legal accountability is at the upper levels of the Bush administratiom, where evidence of lawbreaking is largely dismissed or ignored. I want to be clear that there is no moral equivalence between the actions of members of the Bush administration and those of alleged "enemy combatants" at Guantánamo. But both the tribunals at Guantánamo and the wrongdoing in the Bush administration reflect how legal processes can fail under extreme political pressure.

Outside the Bush administration, there is bipartisan agreement that Guantánamo should be shut down and the military commissions scrapped. A compelling case could have been made for Nuremburg-style trials for some of the prisoners there—including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. But the CIA admits Mohammed was waterboarded, rendering his confession unreliable and any conviction a sham. And even if we do convict this handful of terrorists at Guantánamo, there still remain almost 300 detainees at the base, held there for years without charges. Some were turned in by Afghan captors for bounties. Some are held as a result of coerced testimony from others.

Full and fair trials might have happened for enemy combatants, but missteps have led to a legal process that now exists solely to prove the detentions were justified; that the captives are—as former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld once called them—"the worst of the worst." That's a political conclusion, not a legal one, and it's why Col. Morris Davis—former chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantánamo—resigned last fall, claiming political interference had created the impression of a "rigged process stacked against the accused." Davis later told The Nation that in a conversation with Pentagon general counsel William Haynes in 2005, Haynes told him flatly, "[w]e can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We've got to have convictions."

Bad evidence, tortured testimony, delay, error, guilty prisoners jumbled up with merely unlucky ones and the necessity of politically motivated convictions. But politics won't keep just the Gitmo prisoners from seeing justice. Politics will also keep those responsible for alleged crimes at Guantánamo from ever having to defend their actions in a court of law.

If prisoners were illegally tortured at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, who was responsible? A memo written by John Yoo, a deputy at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel from 2002 to 2003, was declassified this month. He argued that military interrogators could subject suspected terrorists to harsh treatment as long as it didn't cause "death, organ failure or permanent damage." (It was later rescinded.) While it's possible Yoo was merely producing a theoretical, lawyerly opinion—he calls it "d = S"—it may well have opened the floodgates to prisoner torture and even death. Yet virtually nobody suggests Yoo should be subject to prosecution.

Yoo's possible contributions to torture at Guantánamo almost pale in comparison with ABC News's revelations that administration officials, including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, George Tenet, Colin Powell and Don Rumsfeld, met several times in the White House to discuss torture techniques for Al Qaeda suspects. The group signed off on slapping, pushing and waterboarding, in a manner "so detailed … some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed." Days later, President George W. Bush confirmed he "approved" of these tactics.

Yet despite the fact that senior members of the Bush administration may have violated the War Crimes Act of 1996, the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, there is scant serious talk of legal accountability. The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating whether agency attorneys provided the White House and CIA with faulty legal advice. That's a bit like setting the local meter maid on them.

Few believe the high-level architects of the American torture policy will ever face domestic prosecution. As Yale Law School's Jack Balkin pointed out, the political costs are too high: "One can imagine the screaming of countless pundits arguing that the Democrats were trying to criminalize political disagreements about foreign policy."

High-ranking administration officials and enemy combatants may have broken the law, and their legal situations are weirdly parallel. Both show how the rule of law can fracture under the strain of politics. Those alleged lawbreakers at Guantánamo can never be acquitted for purely political—as opposed to legal—reasons. The alleged lawbreakers in the Bush administration will never be held to account on precisely the same grounds.

[Gold9472]

Bin Laden's driver can send notes to detainees

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/515398.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
Posted on Wed, Apr. 30, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- A military judge on Wednesday ruled that Osama bin Laden's driver is permitted to sign a personal plea to alleged senior al Qaeda leaders segregated on this base, despite a U.S. government claim that it would breach national security.

Navy Capt. Keith Allred, the judge, issued the decision in early morning pretrial arguments in the case of Salim Hamdan, 36, who for the first time was absent from his hearing.

A day earlier he declared a boycott of his trial and forbade his lawyers to speak on his behalf as long as he was absent.

So Hamdan's lawyers sat at his defense table, silent, while Justice Department attorney John Murphy warned Allred that letting Hamdan write a note to reputed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and others could expose ``grave national security secrets.''

Guards have isolated 16 so-called high-value detainees under top secret circumstances somewhere on this base; to speak to them, their lawyers need special classified status.

Allred, however, ruled that there was no inherent danger in letting Hamdan write the men a note asking for their written testimony ahead of their upcoming trial.

It might even help lure him back to court, the judge said.

Hamdan had never before missed a court date across nearly four years of on-again, off-again military commission sessions in his case.

He is charged as an al Qaeda co-conspirator and insider who as worked bin Laden's $200-a-month driver in Afghanistan. Hamdan is also accused of sometimes serving as bin Laden's bodyguard and faces life in prison if convicted.

Hamdan's trial is now scheduled to open June 2. It would be the first full-blown military commission, in which U.S. military officers are jurors.

Given the driver's dialogue with the judge on Tuesday, his five-member defense team is now facing the dilemma of how and whether to defend an empty chair.

Still, Allred said he chose to hold the early Wednesday morning session on the assumption that his lawyers could repair the rift -- sometime after war court staff left this remote base on an afternoon charter back to Washington.

He said he was proceeding on the belief that Hamdan was snoozing through the session behind the razor wire of Camp Delta.

According to the judge, Hamdan told some guards on Tuesday night: ``Don't wake me in the morning. I don't want to be there. I'm sleeping in.''

So, Allred said for the record: ``Mr. Hamdan slept in this morning. He's in his cell in the camp, and all five counselors are still on the case, still representing him.''

Defense lawyers said they would submit motions and replies in writing, apparently because their client was absent.

Prosecutors then argued against a series of defense requests.

The key decision was Allred's approval of Hamdan's signing a note to several so-called ''high value detainees'' held in segregation at Camp 7, appealing for their cooperation with defense attorneys in his case.

His lawyers have been trying for months to get the alleged 9/11 mastermind, known as KSM, and other former CIA detainees to answer written questions about Hamdan's role in al Qaeda.

The Justice Department's prosecutor, Murphy, objected to the idea, saying there were inherent risks in any detainee communication with ``the brain trust of some of the worst activity that the world has seen in our lifetime.''

Hamdan's lead defense lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, says that those men would know best of all what Hamdan did, and support their defense that he was not a key al Qaeda insider but a driver on the fringes of the terror network.

Allred had earlier ordered the government to let Hamdan's lawyers submit written questions to Camp 7 captives, in Arabic, through a government security officer with authority to censor national security secrets from the answers.

No replies have emerged. Now the lawyers want Hamdan to write the men, in effect saying, 'This is me. Please answer my lawyers' questions.''

Specifically, Murphy said: ``We are worried about highly classified information and the manipulation that these detainees could undertake to thwart this commissions process.''

Government lawyers have long said they are safeguarding intelligence secrets surrounding the men, three of whom the CIA now confirms were waterboarded in custody.

Still unknown, however, is what other interrogation techniques were used on them and in years of CIA interrogation.

Murphy said the men should never have been allowed to know that Hamdan was held here, among about 260 non-high-value detainees.

The judge overruled the objection and authorized the prosecution to craft a short note, translate it and permit defense lawyers to get Hamdan's signature on it.

''They know Hamdan is here,'' Allred said.

``I think the government has an interest, the system has an interest, the defense has an interest in having him sit there and participate in the trial. It might give him a sense that he has some impact on his trial.''

[Gold9472]

Accused 9/11 planners set for court

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/536641/1780705

May 15, 2008 10:28 AM

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks, is tentatively scheduled to appear before a Guantanamo war court judge for the first time on June 5.

The chief judge for the Guantanamo tribunals, Marine Colonel Ralph Kohlmann, notified military defense lawyers of the tentative arraignment date for Mohammed and four other captives who could face execution if convicted of murder and conspiracy charges stemming from the 2001 attacks.

"The judge made it clear that if there were problems with scheduling that he requested to be notified immediately," Army Colonel Steve David, the chief defence counsel for the tribunals, said via e-mail.

The Pentagon announced on Tuesday that Susan Crawford, the official overseeing the special court at the US naval base in Cuba, had endorsed the charges against Mohammed and four other prisoners - Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash.

They are accused of conspiring with al Qaeda to murder civilians and with 2,973 counts of murder, one for each person killed when hijacked passenger planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

Crawford's approval cleared the way for their arraignment within 30 days, but the trials still face numerous hurdles.

The CIA has admitted subjecting Mohammed to harsh interrogation methods, including the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding. That calls into question the reliability of his confession that he planned every aspect of the September 11 attacks.

The former chief prosecutor of the tribunals testified last month that political appointees and higher-ranking officers exerted illegal influence over the process, pushing prosecutors to use coerced evidence and rushing them to file charges against Mohammed and the other "high-value" prisoners before the November US presidential election.

A military judge has already disqualified the tribunals' legal adviser, Air Force Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, from further involvement in the pending case against Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, and questioned his ability to act with the impartiality mandated by law.

Defence lawyers are expected to challenge Hartmann's role in the charges against Mohammed and the other four.

The Guantanamo tribunals are the first US war crimes tribunals since World War II. They were established after September 11 to try non-American captives whom the Bush administration considers "enemy combatants" not entitled to the legal protections granted to soldiers and civilians.

[Gold9472]

9/11 Co-Conspirators Charges Referred

http://www.blackanthem.com/News/commentary/9-11-Co-Conspirators-Charges-Referred16489.shtml

By U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
Blackanthem Military News
May 14, 2008 - 12:17:01 PM

WASHINTON, D.C. - The Defense Department announced today that charges against five of the six detainees who are alleged to be responsible for the planning and execution of the attacks upon the United States of America on September 11, 2001 have been referred to trial by military commission. Those attacks resulted in the death of 2,973 people, including 8 children. The referred charges detail 169 overt acts allegedly committed in furtherance of the 9/11 events. The accused will face trial in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In accordance with the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the Convening Authority has the sole discretion to determine what charges will be referred to trial. In exercising her independent judgment, the Convening Authority, Ms. Susan Crawford, has referred to trial charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi. The five accused will be tried jointly, and the cases are referred as capital for each defendant, meaning they face the possibility of being sentenced to death.

The Convening Authority has dismissed without prejudice the sworn charges against Mohamed al Kahtani. Because the charges were dismissed without prejudice, the government has the option of charging Kahtani separately, but he will not be tried with the other accused in this case.

The charges allege a long-term, highly-sophisticated, organized plan by al Qaeda to attack the United States. Each of the accused is charged with conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali are also charged with hijacking aircraft.

The charges allege that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks by proposing the operational concept to Usama bin Laden as early as 1996, obtaining approval and funding from Usama bin Laden for the attacks, overseeing the entire operation, and training the hijackers in all aspects of the operation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash is alleged to have administered an al Qaeda training camp in Logar, Afghanistan where two of the September 11th hijackers were trained. He is also alleged to have traveled to Malaysia in 1999 to observe airport security by US air carriers in order to assist in formulating the hijacking plan.

Ramzi Binalshibh is alleged to have lived with the Hamburg, Germany al Qaeda cell where three of the 9/11 hijackers resided. It is alleged that Binalshibh was originally selected by Usama bin Laden to be one of the 9/11 hijackers and that he made a "martyr video" in preparation for the operation. He was unable to obtain a US visa and, therefore, could not enter the United States as the other hijackers did. In light of this, it is alleged that Binalshibh assisted in finding flight schools for the hijackers in the United States, and continued to assist the conspiracy by engaging in numerous financial transactions in support of the 9/11 operation.

Ali Abdul Aziz Ali's role is alleged to have included sending approximately $120,000 to the hijackers for their expenses and flight training, and facilitating travel to the United States for nine of the hijackers.

Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi is alleged to have assisted and prepared the hijackers with money, western clothing, traveler's checks and credit cards. He is also alleged to have facilitated the transfer of thousands of dollars between the accounts of alleged 9/11 hijackers and himself on September 11, 2001.

The military commissions provide the following protections for the accused: to elect not to testify at trial and to have no adverse inference drawn from it; to be represented by detailed military counsel, as well as civilian counsel of his own selection and at no expense to the government; to examine all evidence presented to a jury by the prosecution; to obtain evidence and to call witnesses on his own behalf including expert witnesses; to confront and cross-examine every witness called by the prosecution; to be present during the presentation of evidence; to have no statements obtained by torture admitted; to have a military commission panel (jury) of at least five military members (12 in a capital case) determine guilt or innocence by a two-thirds majority, or in the case of a capital offense, at least 12 members must unanimously decide to impose a sentence of death; and the right to an appeal to the Court of Military Commission Review, then through the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to the U. S. Supreme Court.

These protections are guaranteed to the defendant under the Military Commissions Act, and are specifically designed to ensure that every defendant receives a fair trial, consistent with American and international standards of justice and the rule of law.

The charges are only allegations that each accused has committed a war crime under the Military Commissions Act. The accused are presumed innocent of any criminal charges unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt at a military commission.

[Gold9472]

Lawyers seek dismissal of 9/11 charges

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZXxZ9jWlnYZ5G_1_W_-FG8F2vHwD90OCM6O0

12 hours ago

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Military lawyers for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four alleged coconspirators are arguing that charges against their clients should be dropped following illegal meddling by a Pentagon official.

A motion filed late last week before a U.S. war-crimes tribunal at Guantanamo argues that the case has been tainted by the involvement of the tribunals' legal adviser, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, who was removed from another case because he lacked the required neutrality.

The defendants are to be arraigned June 5 at the Guantanamo Bay Navy base in Cuba on charges including conspiracy, hijacking an aircraft and murder. The U.S. is seeking the death penalty for all five men.

In their filing, Pentagon-appointed defense attorneys noted that Hartmann was accused of urging prosecutors to pursue "sexy" cases and directing them to use evidence that a former chief prosecutor said was tainted by coercion.

A judge presiding over the trial of a former driver for Osama bin Laden ousted Hartmann from that case earlier this month, ruling that his instructions to prosecutors suggested that factors "other than those pertaining to the merits of the case" were at play.

In an interview last week, Hartmann told The Associated Press he expected defense lawyers for other detainees to use that ruling as grounds to challenge charges against their clients. But he said he was facing no pressure to resign.

[Gold9472]

Report: Military used harsh methods on 9/11 terror suspect

http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/05/20/1043750.aspx

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer
Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 12:29 PM PT
Filed Under: Terrorism, Iraq

A new report by the Justice Department Inspector General details many of the harsh and intentionally humiliating techniques that the U.S. military used against Mohammed Al-Qahtani, a Saudi detainee at the Guantanamo Bay military prison who many U.S. officials believe was meant to be the 20th hijacker on Sept. 11, 2001.

The 438-page IG report focuses on the FBI's involvement in detainee interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it also provides a window into the methods used by the Defense Department and the CIA on uncooperative detainees such as Al-Qahtani.

Quoting military records and reports, the Justice Department Inspector General said that a "special projects team" of the U.S. military interrogated Al-Qahtani between November 2002 and January 2003.

Their methods included:


tying a dog leash to Al-Qahtani's chain, "walking him around the room and leading him through a series of dog tricks."
"repeatedly pouring water on his head"
"stress positions"
"20-hour interrogations"
"forced shaving for hygienic and psychological purposes"
"stripping him naked in the presence of a female"
"holding him down while a female interrogator straddled the detainee"
"women's underwear placed over his head and bra placed over his clothing"
"female interrogator massaging his back and neck region over his clothing"
"describing his mother and sister to him as whores"
"showing him pictures of scantily clothed women"
"discussing his repressed homosexual tendencies in his presence"
"male interrogator dancing with him"
"telling him that people would tell other detainees that he got aroused when male guards searched him"
"forced physical training"
"instructing him to pray to idol shrine"
"adjusting the air conditioning to make him uncomfortable"
Hospitalization:

The IG report notes that in December 2002, during this period of intense interrogation, Al-Qahtani was hospitalized "as a result of the DOD interrogations" for hypothermia or "low blood pressure along with low body core temperature." The IG writes that while FBI agents were aware that Al-Qahtani was being subjected to intense questioning by the military, "we have no evidence that the FBI or DOJ were aware that the specific techniques described above were used on Al-Qahtani" at that time.

Qahtani has often been referred to as the 20th hijacker because of evidence that he tried to enter the United States a few days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and because he was in touch with the men who became the hijackers. Al-Qahtani flew to the Orlando airport from Europe in August 2001, but was barred from entry to the U.S. Investigators later determined that Sept. 11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had been waiting to pick him up at the airport. Qahtani was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001.

Just last week, the Pentagon official in charge of war crimes cases declined to permit a case against Al-Qahtani to proceed, dismissing charges against him. The official, Susan Crawford, whose title is Convening Authority, approved death penalty charges against five other detainees in the 2001 attacks, while declining to approve charges Al-Qahtani. Crawford provided no explanation.

Her decision said the charges against Mr. Qahtani were being dismissed “without prejudice.” Later, a spokesman for military prosecutors said the government could “reinitiate charges against him at any time.”

Qahtani's defense lawyers and officials familiar with the case have said it is unlikely that Qahtani will face new charges because he was subjected to such aggressive interrogation techniques. Many of the aggressive interrogation methods used on Al-Qahtani were previously disclosed in TIME, which obtained an 84-page secret interrogation log prepared by his U.S. military captors.

--Contains background information from published reports.

[Gold9472]

Delay sought in Guantanamo 9/11 case

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZXxZ9jWlnYZ5G_1_W_-FG8F2vHwD90P2O4O1

By ANDREW O. SELSKY – 19 hours ago

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Military lawyers are seeking to delay the arraignment of five Guantanamo detainees suspected of mounting the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, alleging the government has made it impossible to defend them, authorities said Monday.

The motions — four were filed in a flurry on Monday and one on Friday — attempt to postpone the first pretrial hearings for men charged with the 2001 attacks that killed almost 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

The arraignment is scheduled for June 5 at the remote U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. is seeking the death penalty for all five defendants.

A postponement would likely mean the hearing would not come until after the Supreme Court rules on the Bush administration's latest attempt to try terror suspects in the first U.S. war-crimes trials since World War II.

The Court declared a previous military tribunal system unconstitutional in 2006. It is expected to decide by the end of June whether the 270 men held at Guantanamo have access to regular U.S. courts, which could undermine the military trials.

Attorneys for the five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks, including confessed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, filed motions to delay their arraignment, Joe DellaVedova, a spokesman for the war-crimes tribunals, told The Associated Press.

Two military attorneys for Ramzi Binalshibh, who allegedly served as the main intermediary between the Sept. 11 hijackers and al-Qaida leaders, said they are working in "an extremely challenging environment."

Navy Cmdr. Suzanne M. Lachelier and her assistant counsel said flights to Guantanamo are limited and that, because all information they obtain from Binalshibh is "top secret," their notes can be kept only in a room without computers at the office of the chief defense counsel in Arlington, Va.

"Counsel have no means of taking the notes back with them to their offices in Arlington, Va.; detailed counsel are unable to work with the notes in their offices on-board Guantanamo Naval Station; and counsel cannot even confer with each other about any discussions had with any 'high value' detainee, unless they return to Arlington, Va.," their motion said.

Prosecutors have until May 25 to declare to the judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, whether they oppose the motions.

Defense lawyer and Army Maj. Jon Jackson said his team does not have enough access to his client, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, or to secure facilities where classified material must be reviewed.

Al-Hawsawi, a Saudi, is accused of helping the Sept. 11 hijackers obtain money, clothing, traveler's checks and credit cards.

Jackson said he has met his client only twice.

According to a copy of the motion provided to the AP, Jackson has been barred from discussing those meetings with his assistant defense counsel, Navy Lt. Gretchen Sosbee, because the military has not yet given her security clearance. Sosbee accompanied Jackson to Guantanamo last week but was prevented from seeing al-Hawsawi, he said.

Furthermore, the defense has not received any potential evidence against al-Hawsawi supporting charges that "allege a complex conspiracy spanning several years," Jackson told the judge.

Defense lawyers are also crippled because they have been assigned no authorized location, at Guantanamo or in Washington, to review classified information, Jackson said in his motion.

"Counsel have no place to store work product, discuss classified material or prepare for their case while in Cuba," Jackson wrote, adding that construction of a secure facility in Washington — which was to have been completed by the end of 2007 — has not even begun.

DellaVedova insisted that defense lawyers have secure facilities at Guantanamo and in Washington to review the information.

Jackson asked the judge to delay his client's arraignment until the government provides a security clearance for Sosbee, supplies the defense team with secure facilities for classified material and allows "for defense preparation of this case." More time is also needed to obtain a civilian attorney for al-Hawsawi if he wants one, Jackson said.

[Gold9472]

Defense lawyers for 9/11 detainees seek to delay arraignments

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/05/defense-lawyers-for-911-detainees-seek.php

Andrew Gilmore at 12:36 PM ET

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/images/s.gif[JURIST] Military defense lawyers for the five Guantanamo Bay detainees allegedly behind the Sept. 11 attacks (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/currentawareness/911.php) [JURIST news archive] are attempting to delay their clients' arraignments, currently scheduled (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/05/alleged-sept-11-plotters-scheduled-for.php) [JURIST report] for June 5. They allege the US government has interfered with the defendants' rights to counsel by refusing to provide facilities for the review of classified evidence or to grant security clearances to attorneys assisting in the defense. The lawyers also objected to the restrictions on discussion of their clients' cases with co-counsel, limitations on the review of the attorneys' own notes taken regarding the cases, and procedures to gain access to the defendants. Last Tuesday, the Miami Herald reported that death penalty charges against the Sept. 11 defendants were confirmed (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/05/pentagon-approves-death-penalty-charges.php) [JURIST report] by the Convening Authority for the military commissions. AP has more (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZXxZ9jWlnYZ5G_1_W_-FG8F2vHwD90P2O4O1). Reuters has additional coverage (http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSGUANTANAMO).

Military defense lawyers filed motions to dismiss charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other Sept. 11 defendants Friday, arguing that the charges against them were unduly influenced (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/05/khalid-sheikh-mohammed-defense-lawyers.php) [JURIST report] by Air Force Reserve Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann. Early last week, the American Civil Liberties Union (http://www.aclu.org/) (ACLU) [advocacy website] accused the US Department of Defense of stalling on security clearances (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/05/dod-stalling-on-security-clearances-for.php) [JURIST report; ACLU press release (http://www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/35253prs20080513.html)] for civilian lawyers seeking to assist in the defense of Guantanamo detainees. The US Supreme Court is expected to rule in June on the cases of Boumediene v. Bush (http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/06-1195.htm) [docket; merit briefs (http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/dec07.shtml#boumediene)] and Al Odah v. United States (http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/06-1196.htm) [docket; merit briefs (http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/dec07.shtml#alodah)], determining whether Guantanamo detainees should be allowed to challenge their detentions in federal court.

[Gold9472]

Alleged 9/11 "20th hijacker" tried suicide: lawyer

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2032969320080520

By Jane Sutton
5/20/208

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - A Saudi citizen who allegedly intended to be the "20th hijacker" on September 11 tried to kill himself last month at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba after learning he faced charges that could carry the death penalty, his lawyer said on Monday.

The prisoner, Mohammed al Qahtani, cut himself at least three times in early April, once deeply enough to produce "profuse bleeding" that required hospital treatment, said attorney Gitanjali Gutierrez.

Qahtani apparently thought his execution was imminent and had a mental breakdown. "He lost all hope and really had a very direct psychological reaction to all of this," Gutierrez said.

A spokeswoman for the detention center declined to comment, citing a policy against discussing specific conditions of individual detainees.

Prosecutors filed charges against Qahtani in February, requesting the death penalty if he is convicted of conspiring with al Qaeda to crash hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

The Pentagon official overseeing the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals dropped the charges on May 13 without giving a reason but reserved the right to file them again later.

Gutierrez said she learned of the suicide attempt during an April visit to the prison camp at a U.S. naval base in Cuba. She said the military had just given clearance for her to publicly discuss notes taken during that visit.

U.S. government officials said Qahtani had intended to join the 19 hijackers who commandeered four passenger planes and crashed them on September 11, but that an immigration agent denied him entry into the United States at a Florida airport.

[Gold9472]

FBI agents objected to military's 9/11 interrogations, audit finds
A long-awaited Justice Department report says they questioned the legality and effectiveness of certain tactics.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fbi21-2008may21,0,2796278.story

By Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
9:11 PM PDT, May 20, 2008

WASHINGTON -- FBI agents who assisted with overseas interrogations of suspected terrorists after Sept. 11 often clashed with their military counterparts and refused to participate in the most aggressive intelligence-gathering methods because they doubted they were legal or effective, a long-awaited Justice Department audit found.

At the same time, the report released Tuesday by Inspector Gen. Glenn A. Fine faults officials at FBI headquarters for failing to provide prompt guidance to agents in the field on what to do if they witnessed interrogations using snarling dogs, sexual ploys and other abusive techniques that violated long-standing FBI policy.

The audit also found that, as early as 2002, agents were raising questions about whether the rough tactics were legal and whether evidence secured under the circumstances would stand up in court if the suspects were ever prosecuted. But Justice Department officials were mostly focused on whether the interrogations were yielding valuable intelligence rather than whether they violated any laws, the report says.

Concerns about military interrogation tactics reached the White House as early as 2003, Fine reported, but they were apparently dismissed. Aides to former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft told Fine that Ashcroft in 2003 raised questions about the rough treatment of one detainee with Condoleezza Rice, who was then national security advisor. But Justice officials told investigators that those high-level talks also appeared to have no impact on curbing the aggressive tactics. Fine said Ashcroft declined to be interviewed as part of his investigation.

The 370-page analysis, more than three years in the making, generally portrays the FBI as having taken a principled stand against abusive interrogations and torture. Though it describes FBI dealings with other agencies, it does not attempt to assess the conduct of CIA or military interrogators. Their efforts have been condemned by human rights groups and others since abuses at the Abu Ghraib military prison outside Baghdad were exposed in 2004.

The report says the FBI deserved credit for deciding in 2002 to continue to follow its own strict interrogation policies. The FBI said it was "gratified" by the findings.

The American Civil Liberties Union said the report showed that top FBI and Justice Department officials should have stepped in sooner to stop coercive questioning and that the leadership was more concerned with avoiding responsibility than with enforcing the law. A few months after FBI agents began raising concerns, the Justice Department secretly prepared a legal opinion that sanctioned harsh interrogation methods by the CIA.

Other critics said the reservations expressed by the FBI foreshadowed legal difficulties the Pentagon is now facing as it prepares to try terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay military tribunal in Cuba.

The report shows that harsh methods "were not working, would not work and would come back to haunt the United States as it moved from intelligence gathering to prosecution," said Jennifer Daskal, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch, a Washington-based advocacy group. "This is exactly what we are seeing now, with the efforts to prosecute the alleged terrorists in Guantanamo Bay fatally tainted by the possible use of evidence obtained through torture and other abuse."

According to Fine, friction between the FBI and the CIA surfaced in the spring of 2002, when two FBI agents were assigned to help the CIA obtain information from alleged Al Qaeda operations chief Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in Pakistan in 2002. Zubaydah is one of three detainees the Bush administration has acknowledged subjecting to a type of simulated drowning known as waterboarding.

The internal Justice auditors found no evidence that FBI agents witnessed or were aware of CIA interrogators using that technique. But other aggressive techniques the CIA was using gave the agents pause and raised concerns about the moral and legal culpability of observing interrogations that violated FBI policy. One FBI agent at the scene objected that techniques the CIA was using on Zubaydah amounted to "borderline torture," according to the Fine report.

Friction between the FBI and the military surfaced in late 2002 over the handling of alleged Al Qaeda operative Mohammed Qahtani, who was being held at Guantanamo Bay.

Fine said the FBI favored building rapport with the suspect over a long period so he might be persuaded to cooperate; the military insisted on a more aggressive tack. In one instance, that included attaching a leash to him and making him perform dog tricks.

FBI concerns about those practices were flagged to top Justice Department officials. But senior officials there told Fine that concerns about the legality of the techniques or their impact on future prosecutions was never a focus. The overriding concern, he found, was whether techniques were effective at developing "actionable intelligence."

The Pentagon, which is gearing up for the death penalty trials of several suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks, announced last week that it was dropping charges against Qahtani. The alleged "20th hijacker" had been designated for prosecution in February.

"We found no evidence that the FBI's concerns influenced [Department of Defense] interrogation policies," the report says. Once it was established that military interrogators were permitted to use interrogation techniques not available to FBI agents, the agents stopped complaining as much.

[simuvac]

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/22/news/CB-GEN-Guantanamo-Sept-11-Trial.php

Military judge denies motions to delay arraignment of 9/11 suspects

The Associated Press
Friday, May 23, 2008
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba: A military judge on Thursday denied motions to delay the arraignments of five Guantanamo detainees suspected of mounting the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In his ruling, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann said the military commission found that the interests of justice in the complex legal case would be best served by completing the arraignments on June 5.

"It is precisely because of the anticipated complexity of this case that it is important that the process get under way," Kohlmann said in the ruling, which was obtained by The Associated Press.

Military lawyers had sought to postpone the first pretrial hearings for men charged with the 2001 attacks that killed almost 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, saying the government has made it impossible to defend them.

The highly anticipated arraignments are scheduled for June 5 at the remote U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. is seeking the death penalty for all five defendants, including confessed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Defense lawyer and Army Maj. Jon Jackson, who represents Saudi detainee Mustafa al-Hawsawi, said he was disappointed by Kohlmann's ruling.

"Mr. Hawsawi has been held for more than four years without a hearing or access to a lawyer. Now he is being rushed into the courtroom after only two meetings with me, his lead counsel," Jackson said.

Jackson said the facilities for defense preparation at the isolated tropical base are "completely inadequate for this type of proceeding."

In his ruling, Kohlmann said concerns expressed by the defense regarding their working spaces was not a matter that justified a delay.

"It appears that progress is being made with regard to dealing with the logistic challenges associated with this case. It is likely that the lawyers' tasks in this case are going to be difficult in several regards," Kohlmann said.

The arraignments will likely precede a Supreme Court ruling on the legitimacy of the first U.S. war-crimes trials since World War II. The court is expected to rule before June 30 whether the 270 men held at Guantanamo have access to regular U.S. courts, which could undermine the military trials.

The Court declared a previous military tribunal system unconstitutional in 2006.

__

Associated Press Writer Andrew O. Selsky contributed to this report from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

[Gold9472]

Trial process to begin for accused 9-11 plotters

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Trial_process_to_begin_for_accused__05242008.html

Published: Saturday May 24, 2008

In the first step towards trying the alleged plotters behind the devastating September 11, 2001 attacks, five men including the accused mastermind will be arraigned June 5 before a US military judge in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Nearly seven years after the attacks and at least five years after their capture, Pakistan-born Kuwaiti Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the purported key 9/11 planner, and four others will formally be charged with murder, terrorism and other war crimes, launching the process of trying them under special military commissions at the US naval prison at Guantanamo.

All face possible death sentences, but the question of whether the trials will ever get underway and how long they could last still looms darkly over the process.

To be arraigned alongside Mohammed are Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, a Saudi Arabian; Ramzi Binalshibh of Yemen; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Mohammed's nephew also from Kuwait; and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, of Saudi Arabia.

The five were arrested between 2002 and 2003 and held for interrogation for several years in secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons outside the United States. In 2006 they were transferred to Guantanamo, but only in early May were they referred for trial by the convening authority of the military commissions set up to try US "war on terror" detainees.

In the June 5 hearing judge Ralph Kohlmann, a US marines colonel, will formally read the charges against them and allow each to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty, or postpone the plea.

The Pentagon expects some 60 journalists to be on hand for this relatively open proceeding, but issues involving the lawyers' tightly restricted access to the defendants already raises questions about the process.

Until charges were first officially set in February, the detainees were unable to meet with lawyers, as the military had designated the men themselves with top secret classifications.

Since then the combination of the official secrecy surrounding the government's cases and the logistics of travelling to Guantanamo have meant limited meetings with their military and civilian lawyers.

Faced with such barriers defense lawyers had asked for a continuance, or postponement, of the arraignment, but on Thursday Judge Kohlmann rejected the request.

"The commission recognizes that there are many logistic and legal issues that will need to be addressed in this case. It is precisely because of the anticipated complexity of this case, that it is important that the process get under way," he said.

Of the five the be tried, Mohammed is the most prominent, having allegedly confessed to planning and organizing the 9/11 hijacking of four US commercial jets which crashed into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, and a rural field in Pennsylvania, killing 2,974 people, not including the 19 hijackers.

His trial could become snagged on legal issues surrounding the CIA's admission that it subjected Mohammed to waterboarding, the interrogation technique simulating drowning that is widely considered torture.

The hearing will take place in a purpose-built courtroom in Guantanamo, constructed in a way that will allow the judge to prevent unauthorized people from hearing any official secrets that may be disclosed in the trials.

Even so, the whole process could grind to a halt at any time. The special military tribunals, set up just after the 9/11 attacks, have faced a series of legal challenges that saw them ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2006.

They were then reestablished with a firmer legal footing by Congress last year.

But a related case dealing with US law's applicability in Guantanamo that is expected to be decided by the Supreme Court in June could spark new challenges to the tribunals.

Moreover, the trial process could be interrupted by a change in the White House. The three politicians seeking to replace President George W. Bush next January -- Republican John McCain and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- have all said they plan to shut down Guantanamo.

"The government is very anxious to get these cases moving forward, possibly to present the next administration with a fait accompli," said Eugene Fidell, a military justice expert.

[Gold9472]

Mohammed prepares for 9/11 trial

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/05/25/mohammed_prepares_for_911_trial/4946/

Published: May 25, 2008 at 2:43 PM

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, May 25 (UPI) -- The case of the self-described leader of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States could shape the rules of the U.S. war on terrorism, his lawyer says.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a U.S. educated engineer is held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has spent the last five years fielding questions from U.S. security forces and other officials, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.

Navy Reserve Judge Advocate General Prescott Prince has been named to lead the defense team for Mohammed, who is charged with murder in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in the 2001 attacks.

Prince is barred from disclosing details of what Mohammed has told him in their conversations. However, he did say he expects the case to go on for years and culminate in a landmark Supreme Court decision.

"I think it's the constitutional case of our time," Prince told the newspaper. "Because in the 221st year of America, the question is whether the Constitution applies to the government."

Prince called Mohammed a model client and the picture of decorum and politeness.

"He does not come across as angry or bitter or hateful," Prince said.

[Gold9472]

Pentagon inviting media to Guantanamo 9/11 hearings

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Pentagon_inviting_media_to_Guantana_05272008.html

Published: Tuesday May 27, 2008

The Pentagon said Tuesday it was sending invitations to news organizations to cover the arraignments of the five alleged September 11 co-conspirators in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said about "four or five dozen" journalists and technical personnel from domestic and international news organizations would be allowed onto the base for the June 5 arraignment.

The reading of the charges is expected to mark the first public appearance of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, since his capture in Pakistan March 1, 2003.

Mohammed and four others face capital charges of murder, terrorism and other war crimes. Charges against a sixth, the alleged "20th hijacker" Mohammed al-Qahtani, were dropped in April by the Pentagon official overseeing the process.

Whitman said invitations were being sent to news organizations on Tuesday.

"Our responsibility at the Defense Department here is to make sure we have sufficient US and international media there to be able to report on the proceedings, to make it as transparent as possible.

"But obviously we can't open it up to everybody. There are logistical issues in terms of getting down to Guantanamo," he said.

"We're trying to be robust in our approach. But at the same time we are trying to do it in a responsible way, inviting news organizations that in the totality will cover the world, basically."

Only a handful of journalists will be allowed in the courtroom, confined to a glass enclosed booth where they can be shut off from hearing testimony on the judge's instructions.

The other members of the media will be in a separate media center where they can watch the proceedings on a video screen and take notes.

Audio recordings and pictures of the proceedings are barred. But a sketch artist will be in the courtroom.

[Gold9472]

Lawyers want 9/11 trial dismissed
Lawyers say US rushing trial of 9/11 defendants to influence elections

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Lawyers_want_9_11_trial_dismissed_05292008.html

ANDREW O. SELSKY
May 29, 2008 14:46 EST

Defense lawyers accused the government of rushing the Sept. 11 defendants to trial at Guantanamo to influence the U.S. presidential elections, and asked the military judge to dismiss the case in a court filing obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

The filing also includes documents showing that the former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo, who resigned in October over alleged political interference, was sanctioned by the military May 23 after testifying for the defense in a Guantanamo hearing.

The former prosecutor, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, wrote that the action will discourage any other military members from providing information about the controversial war-crimes tribunals.

Military lawyers for alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants revealed that prosecutors are seeking a Sept. 15 trial date "some seven weeks before the general election."

The five men accused of mounting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed almost 3,000 people are to be arraigned June 5 at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — the most high-profile of the military commissions, as the war-crimes proceedings are called.

"It is safe to say that there are senior officials in the military commission process who believe that there would be strategic political value to having these five men sitting in a death chamber on Nov. 4, 2008," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, one of the attorneys, referring to the date of the presidential elections.

Davis recently testified that while he was chief prosecutor, "There was that consistent theme that if we don't get these (trials) rolling before the election, this thing is going to implode, and if you get the 9/11 guys charged it would be hard ... for whoever wins the White House to stop the process."

The tribunals' legal adviser, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, denied there has been political pressure.

"It has not existed at all," Hartmann told the AP on Wednesday. "I say that absolutely, without equivocation."

But at an April 28 hearing for Osama bin Laden's former driver and bodyguard, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Davis testified that Hartmann pushed to pursue "sexy" cases over less dramatic ones.

The military judge presiding over Hamdan's case subsequently ordered Hartmann's removal as legal adviser in that proceeding.

Documents attached to the new filing showed the military acted against Davis less than a month after his testimony, saying he had served dishonorably and would be denied a medal for his more than two years as prosecutor.

"You quit your position when you were needed because you did not want to be supervised by a superior officer with whom you had a difference of opinion," Col. Kelly Wheaton e-mailed Davis last Friday.

Wheaton informed Davis that "no Defense decoration shall be awarded or presented to any Service Member whose entire service during or after the time of the distinguished act, achievement, or service has not been honorable."

Davis wrote to a military defense attorney that he told Wheaton he had his sympathy if he was "unable to distinguish unlawful command influence from a personality conflict."

Davis said he would no longer cooperate with the defense in Guantanamo cases because he feared further reprisals.

"In the grand scheme of things, a medal is relatively insignificant," Davis wrote the military defense attorney. "There are greater matters — adverse action on my security clearance or a retirement grade determination, for example — with more far-reaching and lasting consequences."

In their filing Wednesday to Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, the judge presiding over the Sept. 11 trial, the lawyers asked for Hartmann to be removed as legal adviser to war-crimes trials. Sixteen of the 260 men being held under indefinite detention at Guantanamo face trial after having been charged.

It was signed by Navy Capt. Prescott Prince, lead military counsel for Mohammed; Navy Lt. Cmdr. James Hatcher, attorney for Waleed bin Attash, who investigators say selected and trained some of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers; Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, attorney for Ramzi Binalshibh, the alleged intermediary between the hijackers and al-Qaida; Mizer, attorney for Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, a nephew and alleged lieutenant of Mohammed; and Army Maj. Jon Jackson, representing Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, who allegedly helped finance the Sept. 11 attacks.

[Gold9472]

Army Judge Is Replaced for Trial of Detainee

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/washington/31gitmo.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: May 31, 2008

The chief judge at Guantánamo replaced the military judge in one of the most closely watched war crimes cases on Thursday, creating a new controversy in the military commission system and the potential for new delays.

The decision to replace the judge, Col. Peter E. Brownback III, came without explanation from the chief military judge, Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann. Judge Brownback has been presiding over pretrial proceedings in the prosecution of Omar Ahmed Khadr, a 21-year-old Canadian charged with the killing of an American serviceman in Afghanistan.

Pentagon spokesmen said Judge Brownback, a retired Army judge who was recalled to hear Guantánamo cases in 2004, would return to retirement as a result of “a mutual decision” between the judge and the Army.

But defense lawyers and critics of Guantánamo said there had been no warning of the change and suggested that he had been removed because of a recent ruling that was a rebuke to prosecutors.

During a proceeding on May 8, Judge Brownback expressed irritation that military prosecutors had failed to turn over records of Mr. Khadr’s incarceration to defense lawyers. He threatened to stop pretrial proceedings if the records were not supplied by May 22. They met that deadline.

At the time, Judge Brownback said he had been “badgered and beaten and bruised” by the chief military prosecutor in the case, Maj. Jeffrey D. Groharing, to move the case toward a trial quickly.

Mr. Khadr’s military defense lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, on Friday called the replacement of the judge “very odd.”

“The judge who was frustrating the government’s forward progress in the Khadr case,” Commander Kuebler said, “is suddenly gone.”

A trial had been expected as soon as this summer.

Major Groharing said on Friday that the prosecution had always acted ethically and “didn’t have anything to do with a new judge being assigned to this case.”

Some of Judge Brownback’s rulings had been setbacks for Mr. Khadr, including a decision in April that rejected a central argument of the defense that Mr. Khadr, who was 15 when he was first detained, should not be prosecuted but granted protection as a child soldier.

Jennifer Daskal, an observer for Human Rights Watch at Guantánamo, said the change of judges suggested “political meddling” in the process.

In a terse e-mail message to a court clerk, Judge Kohlmann simply appointed a new judge, Col. Patrick Parrish.

There are no listed telephone numbers for the chambers of Guantánamo judges and a spokesman for the Office of Military Commissions at the Pentagon, Capt. André Kok, said he could provide no way of reaching Judge Brownback.

[Gold9472]

Pakistani extremist sent funds to 9/11 team

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2008/June/theworld_June77.xml&section=theworld

2 June 2008

WASHINGTON- Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali is alleged to have helped channel funds to the Al-Qaeda team which carried out the devastating attacks on September 11, 2001 on the United States.

Ali is a nephew of another of the defendants, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused among other crimes of having masterminded the 2001 attacks. He is also a cousin of Ramzi Youssef, jailed in the US for a 1993 bomb attack on New York's World Trade Center.

According to the US intelligence services, Ali was born in 1977 in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, whence his nickname 'Ammar the Baluchi'.

Like his uncle, he was brought up in the Arab Gulf state of Kuwait before moving in 1998 to Dubai, where he became a computer programmer.

Growing up as a radical, he is alleged to have taken part on his uncle's orders in the organization of the September 11, 2001 plot, sending money on several occasions to members of the network to fund their flying lessons in the United States.

He tried to join up with the attackers. But in late August 2001, he was denied an entry visa for the United States because the US consulate in Dubai suspected he was planning to seek work in the United States.

After the US offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan at the end of 2001, he took refuge, like Sheikh Mohammed in Pakistan.

There he took part in plots to attack the US consulate in Karachi or western targets in Pakistan, which were not carried out.

On April 29, 2003, he was captured during a police dragnet in Karachi, at the same time as Walid bin Attash, who is suspected of masterminding the October 2000 attack on the US destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.

After their capture both men were handed over by the Pakistanis to the United States, and are believed to have spent several years in the Central Intelligence Agency's network of secret prisons around the world, before being transferred to the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In March 2007, during a initial hearing he denied any involvement in the attacks, saying he was a businessman who had transferred funds to help his acquaintances, according to a transcript published by the US military.

[Gold9472]

9/11 suspect finally goes to trial in military system

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-06-02-Gitmo_N.htm

By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY
6/3/2008

When alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed walks into his first court appearance Thursday in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it will launch the most high-profile test of a military court system that has been created, destroyed and rebuilt through nearly seven years of wrangling among the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court.

Mohammed's long-awaited arraignment could begin to answer fundamental questions about the United States' handling of justice in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: Will the military commission system, which President Bush created to prosecute accused terrorists, ever hold one of them accountable for the tragedy? Or will the federal government's efforts to secure guilty verdicts crumble amid mounting concerns about the evidence, fairness to the defendants and treatment of the accused while in custody? And if guilty verdicts ultimately are rendered for Mohammed, four alleged co-conspirators and about 75 other Gitmo detainees facing prosecution, will those verdicts be widely viewed as valid?

The answers could help determine whether the alternative justice system launched two months after the 9/11 attacks will prosecute alleged terrorists for years or even decades to come. Nearly seven years after the attacks — and after several revisions spurred by the Supreme Court and made by Congress — the system has not taken anyone to trial.

Instead, it has been mired in criticism over whether it should allow the use of evidence obtained through harsh interrogation techniques — including waterboarding, which creates the sensation of drowning — for permitting evidence that can be withheld from defendants, and for holding closed court hearings without defendants or their lawyers.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will meet Wednesday to scrutinize how the United States prosecutes alleged terrorists and to debate whether the system needs to be changed again.

Critics and even several prominent onetime supporters of the system now say it is so deficient legally — and so flawed in the eyes of human rights groups and foreign governments such as the United Kingdom — that it should be abolished. If that happens, the United States will have to decide whether to hold the prisoners indefinitely without granting them trials or find another way to prosecute them.

Military and legal specialists who study the commissions suggest four alternatives to the system at Guantanamo: using U.S. federal courts to hold trials, using the military courts-martial system, creating a new national security court or simply holding detainees until the undefined, open-ended "war on terror" ends. The analysts say each alternative highlights a perceived flaw in the military commission system that must be fixed for it to be credible.

"It's dishonest to go through the charade and pretend we're doing something legitimate," says John Hutson, the dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire and a former Navy judge advocate who initially was an "ardent" supporter of the commissions. He believes the detainees deserve full trials in which they can see all the evidence against them.

Military officials insist the commissions are the best way to balance the need for fair trials with the obligation to protect Americans from people they say are eager to kill U.S. soldiers and civilians. Even though terrorists don't abide by traditional rules of war, military officials say they get the same rights as traditional prisoners of war.

"These courts, as constituted by Congress, meet and exceed all international standards," says retired Army major general John Altenburg, who oversaw the commissions from the Pentagon from 2004 to 2006. "We're too hung up on television programs and criminal justice as we know it in our own country. These people aren't entitled to that level of due process."

Even as Mohammed's case moves forward, the commission system could be derailed.

The Supreme Court, which has ruled against the Bush administration's detention policies three times since 2004, likely will rule soon on the latest challenge, which tests whether detainees have the right to protest their detention in U.S. courts. The court's decision could further delay hearings and force more changes.

All three presidential candidates have vowed to close the Guantanamo prison, although none has provided details on a justice system or holding site that they believe should replace it.

What's left is a cloud of uncertainty looming over the commissions and the prison that Amnesty International has dubbed the "gulag of our times."

"If we had gotten some of these cases to trial, people would have seen what a fabulous system of justice the military system is," says Andrew McCarthy, who led the Justice Department's prosecution in the cases involving the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and consulted for the Pentagon on the military commissions. "Now you've got a perception problem, which I don't know that you can cure at this point."

Questions about rules of evidence
One alternative to the military commissions system is the federal courts, which would let detainees see the evidence against them.

American courts generally require that defendants have access to all the evidence or witnesses who will be used at trial. Yet the Military Commissions Act passed by Congress in 2006 lets prosecutors introduce evidence against a detainee without sharing it if a judge believes doing so would compromise national security.

Proponents of the regular U.S. courts say federal judges have shown they can handle sensitive issues.

Federal prosecutors have convicted Zacarias Moussaoui for his role inplanning and training for the Sept. 11 attacks; Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted of assisting in a plot to bomb New York City landmarks; and others.

Moussaoui pleaded guilty in 2005 to terrorism conspiracy charges. A jury convicted Abdel-Rahman in 1995 of seditious conspiracy and other charges. Both are serving life sentences.

"The judges were able to come up with some provisions to deal with national security concerns," says Stacy Sullivan, an adviser on counterterrorism for Human Rights Watch who has observed hearings in Guantanamo.

But Richard Samp, chief council for the Washington Legal Foundation, a conservative think tank, believes the evidence that federal judges allowed to become public during the trials hurt the war on terrorism.

He says the cases tried in federal court — especially Moussaoui's — provided al-Qaeda with information about U.S. intelligence-gathering techniques.

Some defense attorneys believe the commission system is weighted far too heavily in favor of the prosecution and cloaks mistreatment and neglect of detainees.

Air Force Maj. David Frakt has asked that a psychologist examine Mohammed Jawad, a detainee he is defending who is charged with throwing a grenade at U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2002.

It wasn't until last week, Frakt says, that he was informed Jawad tried to commit suicide by hanging himself in his cell more than four years ago. He says the failure to disclose that speaks volumes about detainees' ability to get a fair trial.

Altenburg, who oversaw the commissions, says there has been no coordinated effort to withhold information. He says delays result from trying to prosecute alleged war criminals during a war, forcing intelligence officials to hand over evidence that is being used in the battlefield.

Seeking international trust
Some analysts ask why the military didn't use its courts-martial system. Hutson, the Franklin Pierce Law Center dean, says the proven, well-respected process could protect national security while ensuring fair trials.

Like the federal courts, this option would require that defendants and their lawyers see all the evidence against them.

Yet members of the military would remain as judge and jury, which would do little to alleviate the chorus of opposition against Guantanamo, says McCarthy, the former federal prosecutor.

McCarthy says there should be a clean break from the military-judge system to help the United States regain international trust. "The appearance of integrity is important in this war," he says. "Unless we have a system that has and exudes integrity, we're hurting our security."

He favors a third option for handling detainees: a new court that largely follows the military commission model but inserts a federal judge atop the proceedings.

A national security court could combine the neutrality of federal judges with the security safeguards in the military commissions.

Altenburg calls such a terrorism court a "reasonable alternative" but says there's no point in setting up an entirely new system now. "They're going to have the same hitches that the military suffered" when establishing the commissions, he says.

For some, no prospect of a trial
A fourth option is to treat the detainees as the United States has treated past prisoners of war: hold them until the government's "war on terror" is over — whenever that may be.

Timothy Lynch, director of the Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice, supports military commissions. But if enough pressure builds to abandon them, he thinks America should detain the most dangerous detainees until the war ends — a political determination, he says, to be made by a future president in consultation with Congress.

About 120 of the 270 detainees in Guantanamo are being held without the prospect of a trial, according to the Pentagon.

"In our past wars, we've held many prisoners in POW-style camps. We can do the same thing in this war," Lynch says.

Human rights activists believe such indefinite detention is inhumane, because it is unclear how or when the war on terror will end.

"Is it the war in Afghanistan? Is it the war in Iraq? It's an indefinite war. A war with no time frames," says Jamil Dakwar, director of the Human Rights Program for the American Civil Liberties Union. "All of this is going to create a humanitarian crisis and will only increase the problems the government is facing in the future."

The alternatives are beginning to receive more scrutiny on Capitol Hill and among military specialists. Yet no quick consensus is emerging. The fate of the Guantanamo detainees likely will be decided by the next president.

"There is a desire on the part of some defense counsel to delay proceedings until the next administration, in hopes that fairer procedures will be put into place," says Frakt, the defense attorney. "At the same time, every day that we delay is another day that our clients spend in misery in Guantanamo."

[Gold9472]

9/11 accused in Guantanamo court Thursday

http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/437284

Jun 04, 2008 08:50 PM
Michelle Shephard
National Security Reporter

GUANTANAMO BAY–At a tightly-choreographed court appearance that has been months in the planning, the world will get its first glimpse Thursday of the five men the Pentagon claims were responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Sixty hand-picked American and foreign journalists who were flown from Washington to this U.S. navy base have quickly transformed a cavernous hangar here into an international newsroom. Although no cameras will be allowed in the courtroom, television reporters are set to send live broadcasts detailing what some describe as the most important military trials in modern history.

The Bush administration needs the hearing to go according to script in an attempt to rescue Guantanamo's bruised reputation. There were rehearsals and mock trials in recent months so courtroom staff could prepare for Thursday, while construction on a $12 million tent city known as "Camp Justice" was completed to accommodate all the visitors.

But if past hearings for other detainees are any indication, officials are undoubtedly bracing for problems. Since the war crimes hearings began in late 2006, court appearances have at times been a comedy of errors.

Inaccurate translations, a faulty sound system, or even a power failure that killed the lights and sent soldiers scrambling to surround the detainee and judge, have made it hard to compare these historic trials to the last U.S. war crimes trials held in Nuremberg at the end of World War II.

And controversy has already surfaced this week, when family members of the 9/11 victims issued a letter protesting the invitation of only one relative to the hearing. "As people who lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks of 9/11, we want nothing more than to see that justice is served in the prosecution of suspects. However, we know that no justice will come out of a system that has been compromised by politics and stripped of the rule of law," seven family members wrote.

"Selectively inviting only 9/11 family members whose views are in alignment with those of the Bush administration is only one example of the repeated attempts to infuse politics into what should be an impartial process that has the goal of achieving justice."

U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann acknowledged the mistake during a press conference here Wednesday night and said there are no relatives here as planned.

"It shouldn't have been done that way. It should have been done more comprehensively, more completely, more thoroughly and in the future we will have a lottery system to make sure the victim's family have equal access," said the senior Guantanamo legal advisor.

Appearing Thursday morning will be five of the so-called "high-value detainees" who are considered the most senior members of Al Qaeda now in custody. They include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the reputed 9/11 mastermind who is often referred to as KSM. Unlike other detainees here such as Canadian Omar Khadr, who was 15 when he was shot and captured after allegedly fatally wounding a U.S. soldier, these five men are the first to be accused of direct involvement in planning the September 11 attacks that killed 2,973.

They are also among the detainees who were taken to secret CIA facilities before U.S. President George W. Bush ordered the spy agency to transfer them here. CIA director Gen. Michael V. Hayden has already publicly confirmed that Mohammed was one of the suspects who the agency waterboarded — a technique whereby interrogators simulate a drowning.

Despite their secret detention and harsh treatment, the five terrorism suspects are unlikely to elicit the same type of international sympathy that many of the remaining 270 prisoners here have generated.

The Pentagon is pushing to have their trial start in September. Critics say the timing is no coincidence, as it would fall weeks before the U.S. presidential election. "A trial of this historic importance should be shielded from any hint of election-year politics," said Joanne Mariner, Human Rights Watch's terrorism and counterterrorism director in a statement Wednesday.

"Unfortunately the military commissions at Guantanamo have none of the independence of U.S. federal courts, leaving them vulnerable to political influence."

[Gold9472]

Alleged 9/11 plotters face military tribunal

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZXxZ9jWlnYZ5G_1_W_-FG8F2vHwD913H0T00

By ANDREW O. SELSKY – 3 hours ago

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — Almost seven years after terrorists hijacked airliners and used them as missiles to kill 2,973 people, five men who allegedly plotted the attacks face a military tribunal Thursday.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, will be arraigned simultaneously with four other detainees inside a high-security courthouse at the remote U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Mohammed boasted of numerous attacks and plots against the United States in a closed military hearing last year, and the al-Qaida kingpin and his confederates will be given the chance to speak out again in their war crimes trial, according to a top tribunal official, Air Force Brig. Gen. Tom Hartmann.

"In the course of trial they'll have opportunity to present their case, any way they want to present it subject to rules and procedures," Hartmann told The Associated Press. "That's a great freedom and a great protection we are providing to them. We think ... it is the American way."

The arraignment will launch the highest-profile test yet of a tribunal system that faces an uncertain future. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down an earlier system as unconstitutional in 2006, and is to rule this month on the rights of Guantanamo prisoners, potentially delaying or halting the proceedings.

And with less than eight months remaining in U.S. President George W. Bush's term, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain both say they want to close the military's offshore detention center.

Dozens of U.S. and international journalists arrived at Guantanamo on Wednesday on a military plane from Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, joining prosecutors, defense attorneys and observers who arrived earlier at the Navy base.

Mohammed and the four alleged coconspirators all face possible death sentences. They are expected to be seated Thursday morning at separate defense tables aligned in a row inside the prefab courthouse. Many of the participants and observers will stay nearby in tents erected on an abandoned airport runway as part of the "expeditionary" legal complex.

Family members of those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, wanted to attend, but the military said it was too difficult logistically to accommodate dozens more people. Instead, the military is planning to show the trial but not the arraignment on closed-circuit television to victims' families gathered on U.S. military bases.

"For transparency and to add legitimacy to the trial, they should have the loved ones there," said Dominic J. Puopolo, whose mother Sonia Morales Puopolo was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11, the first jet that crashed into the World Trade Center.

Puopolo said he also wanted to see the defendants, especially Mohammed, who claimed he personally proposed the plot to Osama bin Laden.

"This is an architect of such pure evil," Puopolo told AP. "I want to see him eye to eye."

Even without televised coverage of his arraignment — Mohammed's first public appearance since his capture in 2003 — the U.S. is taking a security risk by giving him an opportunity to spread al-Qaida propaganda, said Benedetta Berti, a research fellow at Tufts University's Jebsen Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies.

"This is a very educated man," she said. "It is a risk because he could attack the U.S. in terms of international opinion and his audience is not just the international community, it is more specifically potential jihadists."

The tribunals, which Congress and the Bush administration resurrected after the 2006 Supreme Court ruling, have been mired in confusion over courtroom rules and dogged by delays. No detainee has been tried yet, although David Hicks was convicted through a plea bargain and allowed to serve a nine-month sentence in Australia.

Critics say men accused of such horrific crimes must be brought to justice, but in a way that shows the world that the U.S. has treated them fairly.

"While everyone seems to recognize that the time to bring those responsible for 9/11 to justice is long overdue, this needs to be done in a system that has credibility," said Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch.

Hartmann insisted the trials will be fair even though the evidence may include coerced statements and material so classified that even the defendants can't see it or challenge it.

Hartmann also sought to draw a distinction between the tribunals and the sometimes brutal U.S. detention and interrogation practices that have been condemned around the world.

"We are not Guantanamo, we are not Camp X-Ray, we are not Abu Ghraib," he said, referring to notorious holding centers at Guantanamo and Iraq. "We are the military commissions, uniformed officers on the prosecution and the defense, with established court procedures."

Attorney General Michael Mukasey also said Wednesday that the tribunals will be "in the best traditions of the American legal system" even though the military judges can consider hearsay evidence and confessions obtained through coercion, which aren't admissible in civilian courts. "Different situations call for different solutions," he said.

The four defendants due to appear with Mohammed are: Ramzi Binalshibh, said to have been the main intermediary between the hijackers and al-Qaida leaders; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew and lieutenant of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; al-Baluchi's assistant, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi; and Waleed bin Attash, a detainee known as Khallad, who allegedly selected and trained some of the 19 hijackers.

[Gold9472]

Nice spin job on the families...

[Gold9472]

9/11 Families: Gitmo Tribunals 'Tainted'
Group of Victims' Relatives Say Military Tribunals 'Compromised by Politics'

http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Blotter/story?id=4996146

By ARIANE de VOGUE
June 4, 2008

In advance of Thursday's arraignment of alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others at Guantanamo Bay, the relatives of seven victims of the 9/11 attacks are charging that the military tribunals are "tainted by political influence."

In a June 3 letter to Susan Crawford, the judge who serves as the convening authority over the commissions, the family members claim that the latest example of the system's "politicization" was a secret invitation to attend the proceedings that allegedly was extended only to Deborah Burlingame, who lost her brother in 9/11 and has supported the Bush administration's position on the military tribunals.

Burlingame was also a featured speaker at the last Republican National Convention.

"As people who lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks of 9/11, we want nothing more than to see that justice is served in the prosecution of suspects. However, we know that no justice will come out of a system that has been compromised by politics and stripped of the rule of law," the families wrote in the letter, released by the American Civil Liberties Union.

[Gold9472]

Those Scarred By 9/11 Hope Trials Bring Justice

http://www.firefightingnews.com/article-US.cfm?articleID=49613

Posted June 4, 2008 EST

Florida - Sally Regenhard still sobs at the thought of the price her son Christian, a New York firefighter, paid trying to save those inside the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. I feel that the 9/11 families have had no justice, no accountability, no responsibility from anyone -- from either terrorists or local people in New York City who failed this city to national governmental agencies that failed the American people, she says.

On Thursday, a new chapter opens for Regenhard and other family members of 9/11 victims who have been seeking justice for their loved ones: Alleged al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four others will formally be arraigned as co-conspirators at a military commission in distant Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"There's no closure for parents. Ever. At least we'll get an idea of what a modicum of justice looks likes, seems like, tastes like," Regenhard said from her home in the Bronx. "There's a thirst for justice."

No homogenous group, the families left scarred by Sept. 11 include the tens of thousands of spouses, orphans and parents of the 2,973 adults and children killed that day.

Add the survivors, those who escaped injured, both physically and emotionally, and their number is too vast to quantify.

They include people like Alice Hoagland, whose son Mark Bingham fought the hijackers of United 93, bringing it down in a Pennsylvania field rather than perhaps on Pennsylvania Avenue.

She welcomes the trial at Guantanamo of Mohammed, who allegedly confessed in CIA custody, "and I do hope that he is found guilty," she said. "I'd like to see him justly punished . . . for his ugly crimes every day of his life."

And they include the children whose parents perished at the World Trade Center and who are still grieving, says Candy Cucharo, director of programs at Tuesday's Children, a nonprofit family service organization founded by family and friends of 9/11 victims.

This is going to be a trauma trigger for them," said Cucharo, who works with the orphans of 9/11.

"For many kids, this is going to be a very traumatic event, reading it in the media, seeing it on television it's going to bring them back to their loss."

Thursday's arraignment is the first public appearance of the alleged organizers, financiers and trainers of the 19 hijackers, among them Mohammed -- the man called KSM who has reportedly bragged to U.S. military officers that he masterminded "from A to Z" the mass murder by airplane hijacking.

No one knows what he will do when he is led before a Marine Corps judge.

He and his alleged co-conspirators have been shielded from the public since their capture across the globe in 2003 -- and subsequent secret overseas CIA custody, which included waterboarding Mohammed into confessing.

But the arraignment will surely thrust that dark day back into the headlines.

The Pentagon planned to airlift dozens of media from Washington to the remote U.S. Navy base, where an arraignment typically includes a formal reading of the charges.

These charges include the names of all 2,973 victims.

With no provision for photography or Court TV style coverage, journalists being brought to the base on the eve of the Thursday arraignment will be left to describe what they see and hear.

No family members will be in attendance. The Defense Department was still developing a lottery system to choose observers from among the Sept. 11 families and considering a secured closed-circuit feed to U.S. military bases in the United States.

Some regret that the trials will be held offshore, in far away Guantanamo, to be tried by U.S. military officers, not at the federal court in Manhattan, where other alleged terrorists have been tried and convicted.

Others say they don't want to put New York at risk, or through the pain, by bringing the alleged senior al Qaeda terrorists there.

Deputy Fire Chief Jim Riches, who led search and rescue operations at Ground Zero, personally carried his 29-year-old firefighter son's remains from the rubble.

Now he wants America to see the trial and the evidence and know what was done.

"They committed the crime in New York, where these people died, the murders occurred," he said. "They're making a commission on a military base. Well, I would like to see it at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, where I live."

So what, he said, if Mohammed boasted of what he did and later, in Pakistan, beheaded Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl "with my blessed hand."

"Taunting America will be their final act," Riches said. "Let's see how strong they are when they put that rope around their necks. I would pull the trigger. Or push the button. Or inject them and look right in their eyes -- if these guys are guilty.

'I would tell him, 'There's no 90 virgins up there buddy. You're going down to see Satan.' "

[Gold9472]

Landmark 9/11 trials set to begin
The alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the US is to appear at a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7437164.stm

6/5/2008

It will be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's first time in public since he was captured in Pakistan in 2003.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against him and four others also accused of plotting the attacks.

The BBC's Jonathan Beale - one of 60 journalists attending the trial - says the hearings raise questions about the legitimacy of US military commissions.

The US describes Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, believed to have been al-Qaeda's third in command, as "one of history's most infamous terrorists".

Waterboarding
Following his arrest he was held at a CIA secret prison, where he was subjected to harsh interrogation techniques and a practice known as waterboarding, that simulates drowning, until he was moved to Guantanamo Bay two years ago.

US military say that as well as admitting involvement in the 11 September 2001 attacks on Washington and New York, he has confessed to being involved in more than 30 terrorist plots around the world, including plans to attack London's Big Ben and Canary Wharf.

He is among five so called "high value detainees" accused of plotting and aiding the 9/11 attacks who will appear before a military judge in a courthouse built inside the US detention facility on Cuba.

The other suspects are:

Ramzi Binalshibh, a Saudi man described by the US as the co-ordinator of the 9/11 attacks, who, according to intelligence officials, was supposed to be one of the hijackers, but was unable to get a US visa
Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, a Saudi man said by US intelligence officials to be one of two key financial people used by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to arrange the funding for the 11 September hijackings
Ali Ban al-Aziz Ali, also known as Amar al-Balochi, who is accused of serving as a key lieutenant to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - his uncle - during the 11 September plot
Walled bin Attach, a Yemeni national who, according to the Pentagon, has admitted masterminding the bombing of the American destroyer, USS Cole, in Yemen in 2000, which killed 17 sailors, and is who is accused of involvement in the 11 September 2001 attacks

The charges against them list "169 overt acts allegedly committed by the defendants in furtherance of the September 11 events".

The charges, which include 2,973 individual counts of murder - one for each person killed in the 9/11 attacks - are the first directly related to the 9/11 attacks to be brought against any Guantanamo inmates.

The five are among 19 prisoners due to face the military tribunals, which were set up in the wake of 9/11 to try non-American prisoners who have been classed as "enemy combatants" by the White House and therefore deemed to not be entitled to the legal rights normally afforded to prisoners.

Justice in the dock
The trials have already raised questions about not just the treatment of detainees, but also the legitimacy of American military commissions.

Our correspondent says these trials will be as much a test case as a showcase of military justice.

The US authorities say they have bent over backwards to make sure that the trials are fair but some of its own lawyers have already condemned the process as fundamentally flawed.

US air force Brigadier General Tom Hartmann told the Associated Press news agency that the tribunals would allow the detainees the chance of a proper hearing.

"In the course of trial they'll have opportunity to present their case, any way they want to present it, subject to rules and procedures," he said. "That's a great freedom and a great protection we are providing to them. We think... it is the American way."

"We are not Guantanamo, we are not Camp X-Ray, we are not Abu Ghraib," Brig Gen Hartmann added. "We are the military commissions, uniformed officers on the prosecution and the defence, with established court procedures."

Human Rights Watch, a New York-based organisation, has said that the system lacks credibility.

"Possibly putting someone to death based on evidence obtained through water-boarding, or after prolonged periods of sleep deprivation while being forced into painful stress positions, is not the answer," said Jennifer Daskal, a lawyer for the group.

Later this month the US Supreme Court is to rule on the rights of prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay, threatening a possible delay or even halt to the proceedings.

The court ruled in 2006 that an earlier tribunal system was unconstitutional.

Relatives of those killed on 11 September had wanted to attend the trial, but the military decided that it could not accommodate them at Guantanamo Bay.

Much of the complex built for the trial, known as Camp Justice, consists of tents erected on an abandoned runway at the base.

Instead family members will be able to watch the proceedings at other US military bases via closed circuit TV.

Sixty US and international journalists have flown to Guantanamo Bay to witness the opening of the trial.

[Gold9472]

Guantanamo court day for alleged 9/11 mastermind

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZXxZ9jWlnYZ5G_1_W_-FG8F2vHwD913PJ9G0

By ANDREW O. SELSKY – 4 hours ago

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — The military expects a confrontational hearing when the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and four alleged confederates are brought before a Marine colonel presiding over their war-crimes tribunal.

At an arraignment scheduled for Thursday, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was expected to make his first public appearance since being captured in Pakistan in 2003, held in CIA custody at secret sites and transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Tom Hartmann, a top tribunal official, told dozens of journalists late Wednesday he expects defense lawyers will robustly argue points with prosecutors and Judge Ralph Kohlmann on behalf of their clients, who face the death penalty.

"Expect to see challenges tomorrow, and the intensity of the process," Hartmann said at a briefing in an abandoned aircraft hangar near the courthouse at this isolated U.S. Navy base.

Army Col. Steve David, chief defense counsel for the tribunals, said the military commissions — which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2006 as unconstitutional before they were altered and resurrected months later — are "fundamentally flawed."

"We will zealously identify and expose each and every" flaw, he said.

The tribunals have been mired in confusion over courtroom rules and dogged by delays.

Military commissions have been conducted since George Washington used them after the end of the Revolutionary War, but this is the first time the United States has used them during an ongoing conflict, Hartmann said.

Mohammed is represented by two officers from the Navy and the Air Force. Two civilian attorneys from Idaho, including one who defended a client accused in the white supremacist Ruby Ridge case, also represent the Pakistani.

Defense attorneys for the five detainees accused in the Sept. 11 attack that killed 2,973 people say the U.S. is rushing the case to trial to influence the presidential election. They recently asked Kohlmann to throw out the case and remove Hartmann, who was accused of political meddling by a former chief prosecutor for the military commissions.

Two weeks ago, Deputy Secretary of State Gordon England declared that providing "fair trials" at Guantanamo is the No. 1 legal services obligation for the Defense Department, said Hartmann, the legal adviser to the tribunals. He said he has not been asked to recuse himself from the upcoming trial.

Mohammed will be arraigned simultaneously with the four men inside the high-tech courthouse, part of the "expeditionary legal complex" arrayed on an abandoned airfield at Guantanamo. Guards will be near the men but no firearms are allowed in the courtroom, said Army Col. Wendy Kelly. Mohammed and the other four detainees can be restrained by retractable leg chains hidden underneath the raised courtroom floor if they become unruly, Kelly said.

The arraignment will launch the highest-profile test yet of a tribunal system that faces an uncertain future.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down an earlier system as unconstitutional in 2006, and is to rule this month on the rights of Guantanamo prisoners, potentially delaying or halting the proceedings. And with less than eight months remaining in President Bush's term, candidates Barack Obama and John McCain both say they want to close the military's offshore detention center.

Obama opposed the Military Commissions Act that in 2006 resurrected the military commissions, but McCain supported it. The modular courtroom can be taken down and "sent to Fort Bragg, Fort Lewis, or any installation that needs a big courtroom," Kelly said.

Dozens of U.S. and international journalists arrived at Guantanamo on Wednesday on a military plane for the joint arraignment, which the military expects to last just one day.

The five prisoners will be formally notified of the nature of the charges, will be told of their rights to attorneys and will be given the opportunity to enter a plea, though they do not have to enter one, Hartmann said.

All five are charged with murder in violation of the law of war, conspiracy, attacking civilians, terrorism and other crimes.

The four defendants due to appear with Mohammed are: Ramzi Binalshibh, said to have been the main intermediary between the hijackers and al-Qaida leaders; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew and lieutenant of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; al-Baluchi's assistant, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi; and Waleed bin Attash, a detainee known as Khallad, who allegedly selected and trained some of the 19 hijackers.

[Gold9472]

9/11 families excluded from Guantanamo hearing

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSNASU6040120080605?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Wed Jun 4, 2008 11:03pm EDT

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - As the Guantanamo war crimes court prepared to arraign five prisoners on death penalty charges of orchestrating the September 11 attacks, a Pentagon official apologized on Wednesday for excluding victims' families from the hearing.

The U.S. military quietly invited one woman whose brother was an American Airlines pilot killed in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon in the 2001 attacks.

But the invitation to attend Thursday's arraignment at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba was rescinded when the New York Daily News revealed that lone invitee Debra Burlingame was an ardent defender of President George W. Bush who spoke in support of his administration at the Republican Party convention during his 2004 re-election campaign.

Relatives of other victims complained that the Guantanamo trials were being politicized and the Pentagon's legal adviser, Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, acknowledged the matter was mishandled.

"Out of good intentions, one of them was invited. It shouldn't have been done that way, it should have been done more comprehensively, more completely, more thoroughly," Hartmann told dozens of journalists who were flown to Guantanamo to observe Thursday's hearing.

"In the future, we will have a lottery system to make sure the victim families have equal access, equal opportunity to come, to visit, to see the hearings, any parts of the hearings that they like ... and we will be consistent in our practices from now on."

Accused September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other prisoners -- Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash -- are to appear before a judge at the remote naval base for the first time on charges of conspiring with al Qaeda to murder civilians.

19 PRISONERS FACE CHARGES
They are also charged with 2,973 counts of murder, one for each person killed in 2001 when hijacked passenger planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

The suspects, who could be executed if convicted, were transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006 after spending about three years in secret CIA prisons.

They are among 19 prisoners now facing charges in the tribunals established after the September 11 attacks to try non-American captives whom the Bush administrations considers unlawful "enemy combatants" not entitled to the legal protections granted to soldiers and civilians.

The tribunals first convened in August 2004 and pretrial hearings have plodded along amid numerous and often successful legal challenges from military defense lawyers who call the process unfair and rigged to convict.

One case was resolved when an Australian prisoner pleaded guilty via negotiations that cut his sentence to nine months in prison, but no case has advanced to trial.

The Pentagon approved charges in May for the five accused September 11 plotters, who are the first Guantanamo prisoners accused of direct involvement in the attacks that launched the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

The military lawyers assigned to defend them have only recently met them and have accused the government of trying to rush the cases to trial in order to influence the November U.S. presidential election.

While no one group can speak for all of the families of those killed, seven women who lost husbands and sons in the attacks echoed those accusations in a letter sent on Wednesday to the Pentagon official overseeing the trials, Susan Crawford.

[Gold9472]

9/11 suspect: 'I wish to be martyred'

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/05/guantanamo.arraignments/?iref=mpstoryview

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/US/06/05/guantanamo.arraignments/art.ksh2.jpg
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed stands before a military judge Thursday in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told a military court judge Thursday that he wishes to plead guilty to charges in connection with his role in the attack and become a martyr.

Mohammed told the judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, that he wants to represent himself. Kohlmann asked Mohammed numerous times if he understood that he faces the death penalty, and Mohammed at one point said, "That is what I wish. I wish to be martyred."

He told the judge he could not accept any attorney because he only believes in Sharia, or Islamic law.

Mohammed and his four co-defendants, all suspected al Qaeda figures, are being arraigned on numerous charges for their alleged roles in the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

It is the first time that reporters have been able to see the accused al Qaeda operatives, who were all in the same room for the first time since their arrests in 2002 and 2003.

The defendants were seated at separate tables. None stood when Kohlmann entered. They spoke freely among themselves throughout the proceeding, and Mohammed appeared to be instructing the others.

Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who is accused of helping coordinate the attacks, was the only defendant in leg shackles. He entered the courtroom with a defiant swagger, laughing at media members who were straining to get a look at him.

In addition to Mohammed and bin al-Shibh, the defendants are Walid bin Attash, who is said to have helped train the hijackers; and Mustafa al Hawsawi and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, both of whom are accused of arranging financing for the plot.

Attash also told the judge he wanted to dismiss his legal team and represent himself.

Wearing a prison outfit and a foot-long gray beard, Mohammed appeared much thinner than when he was captured five years ago.

When he was addressed by Kohlmann, he started singing a prayer in Arabic and then repeated it in English.

The judge stopped him, saying, "I understand you have been held here for a long time and have some things to say."

Mohammed asked to continue what he was saying, noting that he understood he could not talk about torture or the Quran. Kohlmann allowed it, and Mohammed started to talk about wishing to represent himself.

Mohammed's lawyer interjected, saying his client did not understand the importance of the arraignment, and the judge explained to Mohammed that it would not be a good idea to represent himself.

Kohlmann announced at the start of the session that at least part of the detainees' statements would be classified and the judge would block out audio.

The defendants have been in U.S. government custody since 2002 and 2003, and they were transferred to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in September 2006. The charges against them include murder in violation of the law of war, various terrorism counts and intentionally causing bodily injury.

In a written statement read at a March 2007 hearing, at which he was present, Mohammed said he was responsible for the attacks "from A to Z."

Although Thursday's proceedings may not be complex, they follow years of struggles by the Bush administration to craft a process for bringing the detainees to trial, and officials involved in the military commissions know that the eyes of the world will be on them.

Critics have called Guantanamo Bay a legal "black hole" for detainees who the United States says are not protected as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.

Defense attorneys had asked for Thursday's proceedings to be delayed, arguing that they have not had enough time with their clients since the charges were announced in May.

Army Maj. Jon Jackson, al Hawsawi's lawyer, said that it's a good thing the cases are finally moving forward but that defense attorneys should have more time to discuss the cases with their clients.

"We, the defense, should have been granted a reasonable delay in order to develop a relationship with these men, to talk with them about their case, to discuss strategies before we are rushed into the courtroom," Jackson said before heading to Guantanamo Bay.

Kohlmann denied the delay request.

Defense lawyers also have accused senior Pentagon officials of pushing the cases forward "in order to influence the November elections," as Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, who is defending Ali, put it last week.

But officials at the Office of Military Commissions, the Pentagon unit that serves as the convening authority for the tribunal, deny that assertion and argue that defense lawyers will be given enough time to mount their cases.

"The fact they are just starting in that process isn't an indication they won't have time to prepare," said Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, the legal adviser to the office.

The actual charges against the men were only sworn against them May 9. And although prosecutors are pushing for a September trial, officials familiar with the process expect long delays and much legal fighting. They say a trial is probably at least many months away.

Another controversy concerns whether prosecutors will introduce information obtained as a result of coercive interrogation techniques used by the CIA, techniques critics say amount to torture.

[Gold9472]

9/11 mastermind calls for death penalty

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jxuTO05RC88qvEkUaI-JUUz74aUg

1 hour ago

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba (AFP) — The alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks Thursday called to be sentenced to death so he could become a martyr at the start of a US military hearing of five alleged plotters.

"This is what I want, I'm looking to be a martyr for long time," Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani national, told the hearing at Guantanamo Bay as he was reminded by the military judge that he faced the death penalty.

"God is all sufficient for me," he translated into English as he read verses from the Koran, the Muslim holy book. He also threw out his appointed military and civilian defense team, saying he would defend himself.

Sheikh Mohammed, 43, has claimed to have been behind not just the September 11 attacks but also some 30 operations against the West in the past decade, according to transcripts of his interrogation released by the Pentagon.

His appearance on Thursday is the first time he has been seen in public since his capture in Pakistan on March 1, 2003.

Dressed in white but not handcuffed, he appeared along with four alleged co-conspirators at the hearing at the controversial US naval base in southern Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He and his alleged co-conspirators, Ramzi Binalshibh , Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Wallid bin Attash and Mustapha al-Hawsawi have been charged for their role in the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon which killed some 3,000 people.

They all face the death penalty if convicted on charges including conspiracy, murder, attacking civilians, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property, terrorism, and material support for terrorism.

The men appeared relaxed as they chatted in Arabic before the hearing started at which the charges will be read by judge Colonel Ralph Kohlmann.

The judge opened the military commission by saying the government would consider any statements by the five as confidential because of their detentions in secret CIA prisons.

"Any statement by any of the detainees is presumptively classified," Kohlmann said.

That means there would be a 20-second delay before the defendants statements are broadcast by video to the nearby purpose-built press room in order to allow prosecutors to cut any sensitive information.

All five were to get the chance on Thursday to say if they accepted their military and civilian defense lawyers, and whether they wished to plead immediately on the charges.

All the suspects were arrested between 2002 and 2003, and transferred to the controversial base on Cuba in 2006, allegedly after spending years in secret CIA prisons.

The military tribunals have been mired in controversy since they were established by President George W. Bush at the end of 2001.

In 2006, the US Supreme Court ruled they were illegal, but then Congress adopted a new law allowing for them to be re-established and allowing indirect witness statements or testimony won under duress to be submitted as evidence.Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, legal advisor to the military commissions, said the defense team had been granted "extraordinary" rights.

But he noted that if they are acquitted, the suspects could still continue to be held until the end of the so-called "war on terror."

[Gold9472]

9/11 mom: Grant self-proclaimed plotter death wish

http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/longisland/ny-literr065715703jun06,0,5844389.story

BY LAURA RIVERA
June 6, 2008

It may be the only point on which Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son Christian was killed in the World Trade Center, agrees with the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Though Regenhard is generally opposed to the death penalty, she said it may be justified in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

"If he's guilty," said Regenhard, of the Bronx, "a lot of 9/11 family members would be happy to see him get what he wants.

"He should definitely meet his maker, be that the devil or be that something else," said Regenhard, a member of 9/11 Parents & Families of Firefighters.

The accused al-Qaida operative's comments yesterday during his arraignment in Cuba that he hopes for a death sentence were part of what many see as his desire for martyrdom.

Relatives of the victims of the defendant's alleged handiwork were notably absent from the proceedings in Cuba. They were given no option to view or attend the hearings.

"That was a mistake," said Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, the chief legal adviser for the military commissions. "We'll make sure that doesn't happen again."

Carol Ashley, whose daughter Janice died on the 93rd floor of Tower One, said Mohammed's quest for martyrdom is precisely what should be denied to him and the four other defendants arraigned at the U.S. military prison yesterday.

"Making them martyrs by executing them would further inflame radical jihadists," said Ashley, of Rockville Centre. "I would like to deny them that. I would rather see them sit in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives."

This story was supplemented with a Washington Post report.

[Gold9472]

Eyewitness: 9/11 trial opens
The BBC's Jonathan Beale describes the opening of the trial of the alleged mastermind of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US and his four co-defendants in Guantanamo Bay.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7439550.stm

6/7/2008

The US military calls it Camp Justice - a $12m (£6m) legal complex situated down the road from the detention camp that human rights activists describe as a modern-day Gulag.

The trial of the five so-called high-value detainees accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks was held at the now notorious Guantanamo Bay amid suffocating military security - the new courtroom was surrounded by razor wire fences.

This is an unusual setting for an unusual process in which the US military is the jailer, judge and jury of the five detainees being tried.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the attacks, was already sitting down when reporters were escorted into the building.

Beside him were his mostly uniformed legal team and a translator. Behind him - the alleged four co-conspirators, accused of aiding and taking part in the plot that killed almost 3,000 people.

'Enjoying the moment'
The focus of attention, though, was on the man often referred to by just his initials - KSM. He gesticulated and pointed to get the attention of his co-defendants.

We could not quite hear, but he was clearly passing on messages to the others facing trial.

One of the defending military lawyers complained that Sheikh Mohammed was intimidating his detainee - Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, a Saudi national.

The lawyer said KSM had mocked his defendant in Arabic by asking if Mr al-Hawsawi was in the American army for at first agreeing to be represented by a US soldier.

It reinforced the impression that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the leader. The US claims he was the third most senior figure in al-Qaeda.

His appearance has changed dramatically since the photograph taken on an early morning raid that led to his arrest in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in 2003. Then he looked dishevelled and overweight. Now he was thinner and wearing a long grey beard, a robe and a prayer hat.

When he was addressed, he spoke in clear English, though it soon give way to a chant in Arabic in praise of Allah, which he occasionally interrupted to translate to the rest of the court.

It was clear that he was not intimidated by his surroundings or the charges against him - he was enjoying the moment.

He lectured the court that this was an inquisition, not a trial. He claimed that he had been tortured and then - much to the consternation of his legal team - he announced that he would be representing himself.

When the judge, a marine colonel, asked if he understood the significance of that decision - as he was facing the death penalty - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed made clear that he understood very well.

He said he had been looking to become a martyr for a very long time.

'Decoy' lawyers
This is a taste of what is going to be an extraordinary trial.

The US military says that it has bent over backwards to make the proceedings transparent and fair.

But at times the judge ordered that the audio feed to those listening to be cut off.

It happened when Ramzi Binalshibh - a man who also said he wanted martyrdom - was asked about the medicine he had been taking. Even his own military lawyers had not been given those details.

At times, it was difficult to tell who was running the proceedings.

Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali - who is alleged to have helped finance the 9/11 hijackers - also denounced the trial in fluent English.

He said even though the government "tortured me free of charge for all these years, I can't accept lawyers under the circumstances".

He described the lawyers being offered to him as "decoys and decorations".

'Shameful' trial
Human rights groups observing the proceedings predictably denounced them as a farce.

What is more surprising, is the condemnation coming from the men and women in American military uniform who have been given the task of defending the five men.

At a news conference at the end of a long day, one of them described the proceedings as "shameful".

What happened today, she said, tarnished the uniform. She added that it would not make the already difficult job of the judge any easier.

[Gold9472]

Criticism rages with accused 9/11 conspirators in court

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5glMdcuLxh8E5Js3MrdVFSy2li5aA

2 days ago

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba (AFP) — The appearance before a military judge of accused 9/11 conspirators has done little to quiet critics of the tribunal system conceived by the US government to try suspected terrorists.

This is the first major test for the extraordinary military tribunals set up after the worst terror strike on US soil. The tribunals were called off in 2006 by the Supreme Court but then were set back up by the then Republican-led Congress.

Since then the tribunals have faced a firestorm of international criticism, some US opposition and reverses that have delayed the opening of the first genuine trial.

"It was not justice, it was ridiculous," the military attorney for Mustafa al-Hawsawi, Major Jon Jackson, said Thursday after a hearing in the ultramodern new court building set up at the US naval base on Cuba's southeastern tip.

Appearances were kept up. The five accused appeared fit, each accompanied by a team of attorneys. And even if their exchanges with military judge Ralph Kohlmann at times veered toward the surreal, the tone remained polite.

But one by one, the accused refused their lawyers' assistance, and some asked to be executed so they could be martyrs.

"It hardly comes as any surprise that after holding individuals in solitary confinement for five years and subjecting them to torture, these detainees would reject the legal system and offers to represent them," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Earlier this year the CIA admitted that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was subjected to the technique of simulated drowning known as "water-boarding" which has been widely denounced as torture.

Chief military defense attorney Colonel Steven David slammed what he said was the judge's rush to hold the hearing without giving the lawyers time to win their clients' trust.

Attorneys were able to spend little time with the accused, he alleged, while the prosecution has been preparing for years.

Although the issue was only brought up at the end of the hearing, the defense also strongly attacked the judge's decision to allow the accused to talk among themselves during arguments -- while the government for years has worked to keep the men from communicating with each other.

While the tone at times seemed light "it was clear that M. Mohammed was attempting to intimidate M. Hawasawi," argued Jackson.

Visibly angry, Commander Suzanne Lachelier, attorney for Ramzi Binalshibh, lamented that "what we saw today was a lack of desire to honor the principles that those kids are fighting for over there in Afghanistan and Iraq."

A former attorney of Frenchman Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted by a federal court to life in prison for aiding hijackers, Edward MacMahon came here to defend Wallid ben-Attash.

Like the five accused Thursday, Moussaoui also tried to ditch his lawyers and steer the trial, but "not everybody in the courtroom thought it was a great idea.

"The idea of the trial was to determine his sentence, it wasn't to allow the defendant to run the show, which is essentially what you saw in this courtroom," MacMahon said.

Colonel Lawrence Morris, the lead prosecutor, disagreed.

"Today you witnessed the continued, steady progress of the justice system," he said. "You stay here, and you watch every minute of this trial (...) and with that open mind, you will be impressed and stunned by the robustness of due process."

The prosecution has asked the judge to fix the opening of the trial for mid-September, a date that falls at the heart of the US presidential campaign. Defense attorneys and rights groups allege the timing is designed to influence the November election.

[Gold9472]

Defense lawyer: U.S. urged interrogators to destroy notes

http://www.abc4.com/news/world/story.aspx?content_id=a0a7ac6f-e723-49d3-a230-9e8581f27853

6/7/2008

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - A military defense lawyer says the Pentagon urged interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to destroy handwritten notes in case they were called to testify about potentially harsh treatment of detainees.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler says the instructions were included in an operations manual shown to him by prosecutors.

The attorney for Canadian detainee Omar Khadr says the apparent destruction of evidence prevents him from challenging the reliability of any alleged confessions. He said Sunday he will use the document to seek a dismissal of charges against Khadr.

A Pentagon spokesman said he was reviewing the matter.

[Gold9472]

In Gitmo's Legal Otherworld, 9/11 Trial Defendants Cry Torture

http://www.alternet.org/rights/87503/

By Andy Worthington, Andy Worthington's Blog. Posted June 9, 2008.

While much reporting after last week's arraignments focused on KSM's desire to be executed, torture itself is on trial at Guantánamo Bay.

Finally, almost seven years after the horrendous attacks of September 11, 2001, the arraignments of five prisoners allegedly responsible for orchestrating and facilitating the attacks took place at Guantánamo on June 5.

Sixty reporters from around the world were in attendance, as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Walid bin Attash emerged from the shadows in which they have been held for the last five to six years.

Although all five were transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006, they were previously held in secret prisons run by the CIA -- apparently in locations as diverse as Thailand and Eastern Europe -- where they were subjected to what the administration euphemistically refers to as "enhanced interrogation techniques." As these techniques include waterboarding, an ancient method of torture that involves controlled drowning, to which at least one of these men -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- was subjected, it was unsurprising that both Mohammed and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali made a point of mentioning that they were tortured.

According to the reporters who attended the arraignment, Mohammed -- often identified simply as KSM, who admitted during his tribunal at Guantánamo last year that he was "responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z" -- effortlessly assumed a position of leadership within the group, as the men, who had all been held in total isolation for years before the arraignment, "laughed and chatted like old chums," according to the Los Angeles Times.

Clearly baiting the judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, KSM responded to a statement by Col. Kohlmann, who interrupted a session of chanting to remind him that he "was told what he can and can't say," by replying, "I know I can't cross that red line. I know I can't talk about torture," as ABC News described it. At another point in the ten-hour hearing, KSM called the proceedings "an inquisition, not a trial," and added, pointedly, "After five years of torturing … you transfer us to Inquisition Land in Guantánamo." At yet another point, as London's Times described it, he "accused the authorities of extracting his confession by force," saying, "All of this has been taken under torturing. You know that very well."

KSM's nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, who is accused of helping facilitate the attacks by transferring money to the 9/11 hijackers, also spoke about torture, while simultaneously mocking the proceedings. Speaking fluent English, he responded to Col. Kohlmann's assurance of his right to legal assistance by stating, "Everything that has happened here is unfair and unjust." He added, referring specifically to the offer of free legal representation, "Since the first time I was arrested, I might have appreciated that. The government is talking about lawyers free of charge. The government also tortured me free of charge all these years."

Allegations of torture have haunted the arraignments and pre-trial hearings of other prisoners facing trial by Military Commission, but they are of particular concern to the administration in the cases of KSM and his co-accused. Evidence of torture would, of course, be inadmissible in a regular court, but although the judges in the Military Commissions are empowered to accept confessions obtained through "enhanced interrogations" (so long as they were obtained before the Military Commissions Act was passed in 2006), the authorities are so aware of how damaging revelations of torture would be to the Commissions' reputation that they recently reinterrogated these men -- and nine other "high-value detainees" transferred to Guantánamo with them in 2006 -- using "clean teams" of FBI agents to gain "new" confessions that are torture-free.

The idea that the history of post-9/11 U.S. torture can be erased in this way is darkly risible, of course, and as the comments of KSM and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali make clear, it will be impossible to proceed with the trial without torture once more raising its ugly head to impugn America's moral standing, and to cast grave doubts about the quality of the "evidence" obtained from these men.

It could all have been so different, as Dan Coleman of the FBI explained to the New Yorker's Jane Mayer in 2006. Now retired, Coleman was a senior interrogator, who worked on high-profile terror cases in the years before 9/11 without resorting to violence, and he remains fundamentally opposed to torture, because it is unreliable, and because it corrupts those who undertake it.

Coleman told Mayer that "people don't do anything unless they're rewarded." He explained that if the FBI had beaten confessions out of suspects with what he called "all that alpha-male shit," it would have been self-defeating. "Brutality may yield a timely scrap of information," he conceded. "But in the longer fight against terrorism," as Mayer described it, "such an approach is 'completely insufficient.'" Coleman added, "You need to talk to people for weeks. Years."

[Gold9472]

Supreme Court accepts 9/11 detainee case

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/16/scotus.ashcroft/

From Bill Mears
CNN Supreme Court Producer
6/17/2008

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether top government officials can be held personally liable for allegedly knowing of or condoning mistreatment of people detained after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Oral arguments will be held in the fall.

The decision comes just days after the justices ruled accused terrorists and foreign fighters held overseas by the U.S. military can contest their detentions in civilian courts.

The current appeal deals with Javaid Iqbal, a 40-year-old Pakistani man, who was arrested in New York two months after the 9/11 attacks. He was never charged with any terrorism offenses, although he was convicted of fraud for having false papers and eventually deported.

He later filed a series of lawsuits against top Bush officials, alleging he was beaten by guards during his yearlong detention and that officials personally condoned isolating Muslim and Arab immigrants in a Brooklyn prison wing.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft and current FBI Director Robert Mueller were among those personally sued. They have denied holding and segregating anyone after the terror attacks because of their religious beliefs or ethnicity.

Iqbal's suit was rejected by the federal District Court in New York, but a federal appeals court ruled the lawsuit could continue.

Ashcroft and Mueller appealed that decision, saying their shouldn't be held liable for alleged actions by their subordinates. If the Supreme Court eventually rules that the case can go ahead, it would likely be sent back to the original court for a decision.

The case is Ashcroft v. Iqbal (07-1015).

In an unrelated case, the court rejected an appeal Monday from dozens of Illinois parents who say state officials threatened to take their children away based often only on anonymous tips of abuse or neglect. The justices declined to review the case without explanation.

[Gold9472]

Lawyer seeks clearance for 9/11 defendant

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZXxZ9jWlnYZ5G_1_W_-FG8F2vHwD91C1E700

By ANDREW O. SELSKY – 1 hour ago

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A military attorney for one of the Sept. 11 defendants at Guantanamo Bay predicted on Tuesday the Pakistani would at best see only a sliver of classified evidence and would be convicted in what amounts to "a top secret trial."

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer told The Associated Press he will seek a security clearance for Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, a nephew and alleged lieutenant of confessed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but expects it will be denied.

Mizer noted that if the defendant lacks a security clearance, his defense team will be unable to share classified evidence with him unless and until the judge allows it to be discussed in open court.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Tom Hartmann, a senior official with the Guantanamo trials, said in a telephone interview that he seriously doubts any of the five Sept. 11 defendants would be issued a security clearance. But Hartmann insisted that they will be able to see all the evidence presented to the jury.

However, some classified information presented to the jury and the defendants may be censored or summarized, Hartmann said, touching on a key element in whether America's first war-crimes trials since the World War II era are seen as fair.

Hartmann has repeatedly said the high-profile military trials will be as fair and transparent as possible. Mizer said such claims are "typical military commission showmanship."

"The government provides the prisoners at GTMO with empty legal guarantees that are devoid of any practical benefit to the prisoner and then proclaims to the world that the trials at GTMO are a model of due process," Mizer said in an e-mail, using the military shorthand for Guantanamo.

Mizer predicted that al-Aziz, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, will "likely be convicted in a top secret trial where he has had access to only some of the government's evidence."

Mizer said that on four occasions while defending another Guantanamo detainee, he himself was barred from seeing classified documents the government presented to a military judge, even though the Navy lawyer has security clearance.

"I cannot rebut evidence that I cannot see, and we can lose legal motions based upon evidence that is not available to defense attorneys with the highest levels of security clearance," Mizer said.

Hartmann acknowledged that on rare occasions, defense lawyers might be denied access to classified information presented to the judge, saying that the military trials must "balance national security interests with the accused needing to see the information."

A June 5 arraignment was the first appearance for the five defendants since they were captured, held by the CIA and then moved to Guantanamo in 2006. All said they want to represent themselves. The military judge deferred a decision on whether two of the prisoners — Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi — could reject their attorneys.

Still, Mizer said he intends to see al-Baluchi at the U.S. Naval base in southeast Cuba on Wednesday and give him the form to apply for a security clearance.

"I intend to call the government on this bogus claim that the accused will be able to see the evidence against them," Mizer said.

The judge hearing the Sept. 11 case, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, has not yet set a trial date. All five face the death penalty if convicted of terrorism-related charges.

Al-Baluchi is alleged to have sent approximately US$120,000 to the Sept. 11 hijackers for their expenses and flight training, and to have helped nine of them travel to the United States.

[Gold9472]

US asks to rewrite detainee evidence

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080620/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/guantanamo_evidence

6/20/2008

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration wants to rewrite the official evidence against Guantanamo Bay detainees, allowing it to shore up its cases before they come under scrutiny by civilian judges for the first time.

The government has stood behind the evidence for years. Military review boards relied on it to justify holding hundreds of prisoners indefinitely without charge. Justice Department attorneys said it was thoroughly and fairly reviewed.

Now that federal judges are about to review the evidence, however, the government says it needs to make changes.

The decision follows last week's Supreme Court ruling, which held that detainees have the right to challenge their detention in civilian court, not just before secret military panels. At a closed-door meeting with judges and defense attorneys this week, government lawyers said they needed time to add new evidence and make other changes to evidentiary documents known as "factual returns."

Attorneys for the detainees criticized the idea, saying the government is basically asking for a last-minute do-over.

"It's sort of an admission that the original returns were defective," said attorney David Remes, who represents many detainees and attended Wednesday's meeting. "It's also an admission that the government thinks it needs to beef up the evidence."

Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin declined to comment on the plan. The discussions were confirmed by several attorneys and officials who attended or were briefed on the meeting with the judges and defense lawyers.

"It's a totally fishy maneuver that suggests that the government wants, at the 11th hour, to get its ducks in a row," said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney representing several detainees. He was briefed on the plan.

The documents include the government's accusations and summaries of the evidence that was presented to the military review panel. The records were filed in federal court in many detainee cases in 2004 and 2005, before Congress stripped those courts of the authority to hold hearings.

Detainees' attorneys who have reviewed the records criticized much of the evidence as hearsay cobbled together from bounty hunters and border guards who accused people of being terrorists in exchange for reward money.

At Guantanamo Bay, the traditional rules of evidence do not apply in trials run by the military. In a Washington federal courtroom, they would.

The government wants to submit new records, which would allow it to add new intelligence and expand its reasoning for holding the detainees. Since the hearings will decide whether the detainees are lawfully being held now — not whether they were lawfully being held over the past several years — the government wants to provide the court its newest, best evidence.

It will be up to federal judges to decide whether the Justice Department can rewrite those documents.

The question is part of a broader dispute over what the upcoming hearings will look like. Attorneys for the detainees want judges to review all the evidence and decide whether each prisoner should be released. The government believes the judges should look only at limited evidence prepared by officials at Guantanamo Bay.

That's why defense attorneys are troubled by the idea that authorities now want to rewrite that evidence. If the court limits arguments to just the government's record, and gives the government a chance to improve that record, they believe the detainees' chances will be hurt.

"They're not just talking about making a little supplement where they've learned something new," said attorney Charles H. Carpenter, who was in the meeting. "They're talking about possibly amending every single one."

[Gold9472]

Can you imagine?

Evidence for military courts:

This person was responsible for the murder of 2,973 people.

Evidence for civilian courts:

This person was responsible for the murder of 2,973 people, but everyone that ever knew anything about it is dead, all of the documentation to substantiate that claim burned up in a horrible fire, and oh yea, the actual detainee tried to escape yesterday, and was shot and killed.

[Gold9472]

US to carry on military trials at Guantanamo despite ruling

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080624/pl_afp/usattacksguantanamojustice;_ylt=AsgXIT4ktM6WciAw3uk6aN1MEP0E

by Fanny Carrier
Tue Jun 24, 8:59 AM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Hearings for terror suspects before US military tribunals in Guantanamo are going ahead despite a Supreme Court ruling that affirmed detainees have a right to challenge their detention in a civilian court.

Legal experts had described the high court's decision as the death knell of the special tribunals created by President George W. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress to try "war on terror" suspects.

But Justice Department chief Michael Mukasey said the controversial tribunals at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba would continue their work and last week, two preliminary hearings were held as scheduled.

The hearings focused on Omar Khadr, a Canadian, and Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan, both detained in Afghanistan for having allegedly thrown grenades when they were still teenagers.

Jawad, whose trial date was set for October 8, reportedly used his hearing to denounce his treatment, alleging during a two-week period US guards changed his cell every two hours to prevent him from sleeping, a technique dubbed the "frequent flyer-program."

Meanwhile a three-judge panel in federal court on Friday declined to intervene in the Khadr case in an appeal that focused on a procedural dispute.

The decision though does not preclude federal judges from wading directly into the tribunal trials in Guantanamo following the Supreme Court's ruling, which rejected the government's assertion that the detainees lack habeas corpus rights.

The US Court of Appeals for the US capital on Monday ruled that Chinese prisoner Huzaifa Parhat, of the Chinese Muslim Uighur minority, is not an enemy combatant and has the right to seek his release from custody at Guantanamo.

Parhat's release, however, was not expected any time soon since the appeals court said the Pentagon could hold a new tribunal on his status, which observers deemed likely.

Details of the decision were not immediately available because it involved classified information, according to the appeals court statement.

Although no trial has begun in earnest at the Guantanamo naval base, 19 detainees have been charged and "there will be more coming in the not too distant future," said Joe DellaVedova of the office of military commissions.

"The military commissions process continues to move forward, in a fair, open and transparent manner," he said.

Among those already charged are several suspects who allegedly planned the September 11 attacks, as well as Al-Qaeda militants accused of having fired rockets in the vicinity of US troops in Afghanistan or having undergone training in the use of explosives.

The first tribunal trial is scheduled to start on July 21 in a newly set up "portable" courtroom to try Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.

The judge in the case, Captain Keith Allred, has scheduled a hearing for July 14 that will likely offer a chance to assess the consequences of the landmark Supreme Court ruling for the tribunals.

The fallout from the high court's ruling is still unclear.

The justices concluded that the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, officially on Cuban territory, can be treated as US territory where rights enshrined in the US Constitution must be respected.

But it remains an open question if inmates enjoy all rights named in the constitution or only certain fundamental rights.

[Gold9472]

9/11 detainees face separate hearings on intimidation claims

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/01/911.defendants/

7/2/2008

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A military judge will hold separate hearings for five men accused in the September 11 terrorist attacks to determine if they were intimidated into asking to represent themselves.

In June, lawyers for five men accused in the 9/11 attacks said their clients were denied the right to due process.

Defense lawyers say Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, the judge in the case, scheduled individual appearances for the detainees on July 9 and 10 in response to claims that one of the defendants may have influenced the others to join him in rejecting lawyers.

Last month, all five detainees made their first appearance together before Kohlmann and told him that they wished to represent themselves on charges stemming from the September 11 attacks.

At the June 5 hearing, Kohlmann agreed to let Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali represent themselves. He reserved judgment on Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Ramzi bin al-Shibh. Read more about the detainees and the legal process »

Immediately after the hearing, al-Hawsawi's lawyer said that Mohammed had intimidated his client into asking to represent himself.

"It was clear that Mr. Mohammed was attempting to intimidate Mr. al-Hawsawi into not accepting me as counsel," said Army Maj. Jon Jackson, whose client is accused of helping finance the attacks.

Jackson noted that Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the plot, had exchanged words with his co-defendants during the hours-long hearing, where he said he wanted a death sentence so he could become a martyr.

"Al-Hawsawi never said he wanted to plead guilty or martyr himself," Jackson told CNN.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, bin al-Shibh's attorney, said her client may not be fit to decide on his representation because he is being medicated.

Lachelier said the information she has received limited information about bin al-Shibh's medical condition, including a list of drugs but no information about why the drugs were prescribed.

According to Lachelier, Kohlmann has ordered a medical report on bin al-Shibh, who is accused of coordinating the attacks, by August 8 and a hearing on his mental status on August 15.

"I think that's a reasonable reading of the rules," she said, adding that it ignores a separate issue of whether bin al-Shibh is competent to act as his own lawyer.

During the June hearing, bin al-Shibh was the only defendant who was shackled.

"I have been seeking martyrdom for five years," he said. "I tried for 9/11 to get a visa, and I could not."

[Gold9472]

Judge orders individual 9/11 trial hearings

http://www.miamiherald.com/459/story/590247.html

7/3/2008

A military judge Tuesday said he would explore whether reputed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed bullied his alleged co-conspirators into firing their lawyers, and next week will question each of the men accused of plotting the 2001 terrorist attacks.

At issue was whether Mohammed, who has boasted he plotted the 9/11 attacks "from A to Z," was a puppet master, a Svengali of sorts, at their June 5 arraignment at the U.S. Navy Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, the judge, notified lawyers in a six-page order that he would hold the special hearings starting July 9.

One by one, the judge ruled, he would "address the issue of what role, if any, perceived or actual, intimidation between the several accused [conspirators] played or is playing" in their united stand to spurn Pentagon defense lawyers.

The June 5 arraignment was the first time the public saw the alleged al Qaeda architects of the jetliner hijackings that killed 2,987 people. It was also the first time they saw each other at Guantánamo.

All were secretly interrogated for years by the CIA. All rejected the legitimacy of the war court and all face execution, if convicted. Two said they welcomed death as Islamic martyrdom.

But Pentagon defense lawyers said during the hearing, and afterward, that they believed some of the accused were intimidated by the man known in CIA circles as KSM.

The Pentagon Office of Military Commissions refused to release or comment on Kohlmann's ruling, signed Tuesday. Lawyers who obtained copies explained it to reporters and read from it.

In other key items:
[LIST]
The judge ordered a mental health examination of Ramzi bin al Shibh, a Yemeni accused of helping the 9/11 hijackers, to see if he is sane enough to stand trial.

Guards shackled bin al Shibh's ankles to the floor at his arraignment, where it was disclosed that the prison camp has him taking unidentified "psychotropic drugs." In one exchange, he told the judge that he welcomed martyrdom -- and that he would've taken part in the 9/11 attacks but could not obtain a U.S. visa.

The judge scheduled "law and discovery motions" for Sept. 25, a timetable that suggests a jury might not start hearing the case before the presidential elections. The Pentagon had sought a Sept. 15 trial date.
[/LIST]
Pretrial hearings are crucial to deciding what law applies and what evidence the accused can see at the first U.S. war crimes tribunals since World War II. Later evidentiary motions are likely to tackle defense claims that government evidence was gleaned from "torture," when CIA agents waterboarded Mohammed in secret overseas custody to extract al Qaeda secrets.

That was, in part, why Mohammed, 43, was the main attraction at the nine-hour hearing June 5. He appeared with a large white-speckled beard, a stern grandfatherly figure who recited Koranic verse.

Mohammed went first, rejected his counsel and one by one the men who sat as co-defendants behind him echoed him -- until late in the day when Army Maj. Jon Jackson protested what he called a climate of intimidation of his client, Mustafa Hawsawi, the 9/11 plot's alleged financier.

Mohammed allegedly told Hawsawi in Arabic, "Don't talk to your lawyer, talk to me" and ``What are you -- in the American Army now?"

"I don't speak Arabic," said Jackson, who said he got a translation. ``But my impression was he changed his mind based on what people were saying to him and about him."

Several other Guantánamo detainees have likewise refused their Pentagon-appointed lawyers, or sought to defend themselves at the war court.

At the June 5 hearing, Mohammed was "something of a commanding presence," said attorney Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch.

She monitored the hearing, at the invitation of the Pentagon, from the gallery, behind a thick, soundproof window.

"They were all chatting with each other," she said. ``But I couldn't tell that KSM was in charge in any way."

Security staff likely taped their Arabic conversation, she said, suggesting that the judge should order a transcript in English.

Navy Capt. Prescott Prince, Mohammed's lawyer, said his client was clear in his desire to defend himself at trial.

"What does he need to talk to Mr. Mohammed for?" said Prince after receiving Kohlmann's order. ``There is no allegation that Mr. Mohammed was intimidated by anybody."

Several Pentagon defense attorneys are preparing to serve as stand-by counsel, if the judge later decides the accused are not competent to defend themselves.

The U.S. Supreme Court rule 7-2 on June 19 that sometimes a mentally ill defendant can be sane enough to stand trial, but not to be his own lawyer.

Kohlmann mentioned in his order a notice by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, the Pentagon-appointed defense lawyer for Ammar al Baluchi, Mohammed's nephew.

Mizer notified the court that, while Baluchi would defend himself, Mizer and some American Civil Liberties Union attorneys would write briefs and file motions on his behalf.

"The government seems to be taking the position that he can't have it both ways," Mizer said in an interview Tuesday. ``He has to either stand naked and alone against the might of the United States government or he has to have no participation in his trial and accept fully the defense attorneys."

Mizer said he and Seattle attorneys Jeffrey Robinson and Amanda Lee had worked out a different agreement. "We have full authority to file motions on his behalf," he said. But, ``I expect that Mr. al Baluchi may wish to represent himself . . . while he is in the courtroom. He doesn't want to break ranks with his uncle; that's the only issue."

[Gold9472]

ACLU: U.S. blocking payments to Guantanamo attorneys

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/200/story/43453.html

By Carol Rosenberg | Miami Herald
4/9/2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — The U.S. government is blocking the American Civil Liberties Union from paying attorneys representing suspected terrorists held here, insisting that the ACLU must first receive a license from the U.S. Treasury Department before making the payments.

ACLU director Anthony Romero on Tuesday accused the Bush administration of "obstruction of justice" by delaying approval of the license, which the government argues is required under U.S. law because the beneficiaries of the lawyers' services are foreign terrorists.

"Now the government is stonewalling again by not allowing Americans' private dollars to be paid to American lawyers to defend civil liberties,'' Romero said.

Treasury Department spokesman John Rankin declined to comment on the showdown with the ACLU, citing privacy policies.

But he said the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control "is treating this request with the seriousness it deserves and strives to process license applications as expeditiously as possible.''

OFAC is perhaps best known for enforcing regulations against Americans' spending money in places like Cuba or North Korea. But OFAC also is responsible for making certain American funds aren't sent to terrorist groups.

The ACLU announced in April that it was teaming with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to provide top-flight criminal attorneys to Guantanamo detainees facing the death penalty before military commissions at Guantanamo for their alleged role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks.

Under the program, called the John Adams Project after the second American president, who earned criticism from fellow colonists from defending British soldiers, attorneys representing the detainees would be paid for travel, expenses, research and copying as well as $250 an hour. The ACLU said $8.5 million had been set aside for the project. Romero said attorneys already are due $200,000 in payments.

The program was endorsed by a wide range of lawyers including former Attorney General Janet Reno and former FBI Director William Webster.

Participants include Boise, Idaho, lawyers David Nevin and Scott McKay, who are defense consultants to alleged 9/11 architect Khalid Sheik Mohammed, 43; Seattle attorneys Jeff Robinson and Amanda Lee, defending Mohammed's nephew, Ammar al Baluchi, 30, who noted at his June 5 arraignment that he is a Microsoft certified computer engineer; and Chicago lawyer Tom Durkin, defending Ramzi bin al Shibh, accused of organizing some of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Nevin declared himself surprised at the standoff, especially since the ACLU had long been "in the business of defending people's rights.''

He added: "Obviously, everyone is going to do whatever is required to be done. But, intuitively, it seems odd to me that anyone's permission is necessary.''

The Treasury Department's Rankin this week offered no timetable for when the license might be issued.

''OFAC processes thousands of license requests each year for a variety of sanctions programs and consults with other offices and leadership in the U.S. Treasury and other agencies as the circumstances merit,'' he said.

Rankin said OFAC's role in the case was triggered because the Bush administration has designated Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind, and the other four defendants as "Specially Designated Global Terrorists.''

There was no explanation, however, of how that designation squares with the administration's insistence that the military commissions operate under the assumption that the accused are considered innocent until proven guilty.

[Gold9472]

U.S. judge warns against delay for Guantanamo cases

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKN0831935620080708

By James Vicini
7/9/2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge said on Tuesday he would be concerned and suspicious if the Bush administration delayed cases brought by Guantanamo Bay prisoners seeking their release.

Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan said at a hearing the government needed to understand "that the time has come to move these (cases) forward."

The hearing took place after last month's landmark Supreme Court ruling that allowed prisoners being held at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to go before federal judges in Washington to seek their release.

Hogan, named to coordinate the lawsuits, said he was committed to moving the cases forward as quickly as possible.

There are about 265 detainees at Guantanamo, which was set up in 2002 to hold terrorism suspects captured after the September 11 attacks. Most have been held for years without being charged and many have complained of abuse.

The U.S. District Court has pending nearly 250 cases involving more than 643 detainees who have been or are being held at Guantanamo. Several dozen new cases are expected to be filed in the near future.

Hogan said some detainees have yet to get a court hearing after being held for 6-1/2 years.

U.S. Justice Department plans to have up to 50 lawyers working on the cases may not be enough, Hogan said. The department has to understand these cases must be addressed first, before other matters.

Hogan said delays would "reflect badly" on the government and would cause him to become concerned and suspicious. Lawyers for the prisoners have complained the government is not moving as fast as it could.

One lawyer for the prisoners, Shayana Kadidal, told the hearing "speed and fairness" were the most important considerations for the court.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Gregory Katsas asked the judge to allow the government to file new evidence to justify holding the detainees, a process expected to take months.

The initial evidence, filed in 2004, was based on the findings of military tribunals that determined the prisoners were "enemy combatants."

Hogan expressed concern about allowing the government to file amended information without showing it was necessary.

The judge also said he planned to issue an order by the end of the week setting out various schedules.

[Gold9472]

Defendant in 9/11 plot denies he was coerced to reject representation by military lawyers

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/09/news/Guantanamo-Sept-11-Trial.php

The Associated Press
Published: July 9, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba: A Saudi accused of arranging financing for the Sept. 11 hijackers denied Wednesday that he was pressured by a co-defendant to reject his Pentagon-appointed attorney.

Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, one of five Guantanamo prisoners charged in the attacks, said he has not decided whether to accept U.S.-appointed lawyers to represent him at the military tribunal. But he rejected allegations that accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed pressured him to represent himself.

"Without doubt, no," al-Hawsawi told the judge through an interpreter.

The five co-defendants were transferred to Guantanamo from secret CIA prisons in 2006 and face possible execution if convicted on charges including murder and conspiracy for the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

All are scheduled to appear separately this week as the judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, explores the coercion allegations. At a joint arraignment on June 5, the five said they would represent themselves. Lawyers for al-Hawsawi and another prisoner complained that they were intimidated by others into rejecting their legal representation.

Al-Hawsawi wore a flowing white robe and wispy black beard to his second pretrial hearing at the isolated U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba. He said he was skeptical his American military lawyers would be able to represent him effectively.

But Kohlmann told al-Hawsawi that he would not have the security clearances required to see some of the classified evidence against him.

"If it sounds like I'm trying to talk you out of representing yourself, that would be accurate," Kohlmann told him.

Al-Hawsawi allegedly helped the hijackers with money, western clothing and credit cards, according the charges.

His lead attorney, Army Maj. Jon Jackson, said the defense team is trying to locate a Muslim lawyer in Egypt whom al-Hawsawi requested for possible representation.

The U.S. has charged 20 of roughly 265 inmates held at Guantanamo on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban. So far none of the cases has gone to trial in the special military courts.

[Gold9472]

9/11 suspect to defend self at Guantanamo trial

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZXxZ9jWlnYZ5G_1_W_-FG8F2vHwD91QLVUO4

By MIKE MELIA – 1 hour ago

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — A Guantanamo prisoner accused in the Sept. 11 attacks complained Wednesday that his confinement and obstructions by the U.S. military are complicating his court-approved effort to serve as his own lawyer.

Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, one of five men charged in the attacks, said the military did not deliver two letters and a law motion that he wrote to the judge ahead of the pretrial hearing.

The judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, said Ali's situation will only become more difficult and tried to persuade him to accept his lawyers. Without a security clearance, he said Ali will not have access to classified material during the death penalty trial.

"The way the rules are you will not have access to classified material to assist you in your case," he said.

Ali said one of his letters disputed allegations that the defendants were coerced into rejecting their lawyers — the focus of this week's hearings — saying the allegations were the result of a poorly translated joke by the attacks' confessed mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

"I should have a right to write a letter to the judge directly," said Ali, a nephew and alleged lieutenant to Mohammed who spoke in English.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said the military is looking into Ali's allegations. He declined further comment.

The five co-defendants were transferred to Guantanamo from secret CIA prisons in 2006 and face possible execution if convicted on charges including murder and conspiracy for the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Four of them say they will represent themselves, setting up further logistical challenges as they attempt to mount a defense while locked in a top-secret prison at the remote U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

They are all appearing separately this week as Kohlmann explores allegations that Mohammed bullied the others into going along with his decision to represent himself at the June 5 arraignment. One defense lawyer said an interpreter overheard other defendants asking a detainee, "So, you're in the Army now?"

But Ali said Mohammed was only teasing another detainee, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, about the white robe he wore inside the courtroom.

"Mr. Mohammed was joking, just criticizing the clothes he was wearing. He was saying, 'Are you in the American Navy now,'" he said. "We need translators from our native language who understand our accent."

Ali and al-Hawsawi, who are both accused of helping to finance the Sept. 11 hijackers, repeatedly denied taking direction from any co-defendants during their appearances Wednesday.

"In our religion, nobody is above us," Ali said.

Both men also said they were skeptical their Pentagon-appointed lawyers would represent them effectively. Al-Hawsawi said he has not decided whether to accept their help, but Ali stood by his decision to represent himself.

Ali said he needs a computer as well as a better way to communicate with the Americans assigned to his case, whom he has retained as standby counsel. Currently, he said they do not receive his letters until they come to Guantanamo.

He acknowledged his lack of a legal education and a security clearance could put him at greater risk of conviction, but he does not want to validate proceedings he sees as illegitimate.

A spokesman for the commissions, Air Force Capt. Andre Kok, said the defendants will be allowed to see any classified evidence that is presented to the jury.

The U.S. has charged 20 of roughly 265 inmates held at Guantanamo on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban. So far none of the cases has gone to trial in the special military courts.

[Gold9472]

Judge urges 9/11 suspects to accept legal help
He says they will lose access to evidence. Both insist they were not bullied into firing their lawyers.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gitmo10-2008jul10,0,5326946.story

By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 10, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA -- A military judge Wednesday strongly advised two accused co-conspirators in the Sept. 11 attacks not to represent themselves in their upcoming trial because their defense would suffer from several factors, including a lack of access to the classified evidence that the government plans to use against them.

"It would be best for you to accept the assistance of counsel. If it sounds as if I am trying to talk you out of representing yourself, that would be accurate," Judge Ralph H. Kohlmann told one of the defendants, Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi, who the government says was an Al Qaeda paymaster in the 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Kohlmann, a Marine colonel, had similar advice at a second military commission hearing later in the day for Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, who also is charged with being a financial conduit between Al Qaeda leadership and the Sept. 11 hijackers as they trained in the United States.

Both men said at their June 5 arraignment at the naval base here that they wanted to represent themselves, as did the plot's self-described mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and the two other alleged plotters. At the time, Kohlmann allowed Ali to do so, at least for the time being, but said he was concerned that Hawsawi may have been coerced into firing his defense lawyers during a pre-hearing conversation with Mohammed.

Kohlmann told both men that they could face the death penalty if convicted and that it would be all but impossible for them to defend themselves in such a protracted, complicated legal battle without experienced lawyers.

Without a legal team on the outside, Kohlmann told them, they wouldn't be able to communicate with potential witnesses or perform other important administrative and investigative duties because they are locked up in a maximum-security facility. And they would have to draft complicated opening and closing statements and legal motions without any legal training or access to much of the case materials that specially approved lawyers would have, he said.

"All of these things are usually done in a trial better by a lawyer with special knowledge and experience with the laws and procedures," Kohlmann said in separate comments to both men. "In addition, you will not be given access to classified materials before trial because you lack the security clearances, [which] would severely hinder any effort by you to represent yourself."

Both men sat impassively in the sterile courtroom as the judge gave his advice. Both responded calmly and methodically, with Hawsawi using an interpreter.

The judge noted that prosecutors had filed a motion the day before the hearing in which they too urged the judge to warn the accused about the hardships they would encounter by representing themselves, especially the lack of access to classified evidence.

Although the men are slated to be tried together, each of them has at least two military lawyers appointed by the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions and several civilian lawyers paid through the American Civil Liberties Union's John Adams Project.

In the past, military commission officials have said that the so-called high-value detainees would get access to the classified information gathered against them, but only once the trial was underway. Army Col. Lawrence Morris, the chief prosecutor, said that Kohlmann's comments were not inconsistent with that policy.

Some defense lawyers, including Hawsawi's, said that lack of access to the evidence was one of many unfair and possibly unconstitutional obstacles that the government had put in the way of the five men, even as it claimed publicly that they would be given a fair and transparent trial.

Kohlmann ordered the hearings for the two men, and three more set for today, so that he could ask each of them separately whether they were unduly influenced by Mohammed, who said at the group arraignment that he wanted the men to coordinate their defense and, ultimately, "martyr" themselves -- in other words, ensure that they all received the death penalty.

Army Major Jon S. Jackson, Hawsawi's chief appointed defense lawyer, helped trigger the hearings by saying that his client was visibly shaking and had been intimidated by Mohammed into saying he wanted to fire his lawyers.

But on Wednesday, Hawsawi at first said he could not recall whether Mohammed had said anything to intimidate him. Ultimately, both he and Ali insisted that they had not been coerced, with Ali saying that it was all a misunderstanding based, in part, on a translator's mistakes.

"Nobody is in a position to give such an order," Ali told Kohlmann. "I'm a free human being. I'm not a slave."

Ali, a soft-spoken Pakistani with near-flawless English, was adamant Wednesday that he wanted to represent himself, even as he acknowledged that he lacked experience. "There are a lot of reasons for that -- some religious issues, ethical issues and, third, I am not satisfied with the proceedings," he told the judge. "Simply, the justice of these so-called top-secret trials are in question."

But Ali also indicated that he had already run into problems in trying to represent himself. He told Kohlmann that he had, within the last few weeks, written the judge two letters and one legal motion but that he could not get anyone to take them to him.

Kohlmann acknowledged that he had never received the letters and said that he would look into the matter, as did a spokesman for the Pentagon.

Later, Jackson insisted in an interview that Hawsawi wanted him as his lawyer but changed his mind after being bullied by Mohammed and the other two accused men, Ramzi Binalshibh and Walid bin Attash. "It was clear to me then, and it is still clear to me today, that he was pressured," Jackson said of Hawsawi.

[Gold9472]

9/11 plotters tell Guantanamo judge of legal woes
Self-described mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and another suspect, who are acting as their own lawyers, tell the judge they can't file motions or get pretrial documents translated.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gitmo11-2008jul11,0,6113380.story

By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 11, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA -- Facing the death penalty for their roles in the Sept. 11 attacks, self-described mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and an alleged accomplice told a judge Thursday that the military commission process was so dysfunctional that they could not file legal motions in their defense or have pretrial documents translated into their native languages.

In separate hearings, Mohammed and Walid bin Attash and their legal advisors ticked off one example after another of a pretrial system they say is barely operating. "We are not in normal situation. We are in hell," Mohammed told the military judge, Marine Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann.

Some of the defendants' claims were confirmed by government prosecutors, a Pentagon official and Kohlmann, who said he would look into them.

Last month, Kohlmann granted requests by Mohammed, a Pakistani, and Attash, a Yemeni, to act as their own lawyers in the case, in which they and three other men face a variety of charges in connection with the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. That means they are entitled to file legal motions and have access to much of the evidence -- like the Justice Department and military prosecutors seeking to convict them -- according to officials from the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions, which is overseeing the controversial and unprecedented trials.

Kohlmann acknowledged to both men that he never received motions each of them had written in their detention cells, nor other communications the men wanted the judge to see.

Three letters from Mohammed to his backup legal counsel, written more than a month ago, also were not delivered, according to Mohammed and the three lawyers. Recent court filings and other communications by prosecutors and the judge himself either were never delivered to Mohammed and Attash or were sent in English, not Arabic.

Attash, accused of training some of the hijackers at Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, said he received one important six-page filing by prosecutors that had been translated into Arabic -- but not until Thursday morning, nine days after it was filed, as he was walking into the high-security court for his hearing. "I was handcuffed, and I didn't read it," he added, prompting the judge to call a recess so that Attash could read it.

Kohlmann appeared taken aback by the assertions and promised to look into them if the two suspects filed court motions requesting that he do so. He said he would consider ordering a mass translation of potentially thousands of court documents.

Several human rights special observers who attended Thursday's proceedings said there were breakdowns in the system that could take months, if not years, to address. Those problems have already undermined the credibility of the military commission process, they said.

"The whole system is completely imploding," said observer Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It is astonishing that they cannot get documents, file legal memos or have things translated for them. Today's hearing shows that these commissions are just not workable and that Judge Kohlmann realizes the headache he is in for."

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon, acknowledged some of the problems and said that Joint Task Force Guantanamo "has implemented a process to ensure that filings and legal mail to and from the court are handled appropriately and efficiently."

The military's chief prosecutor, Army Col. Lawrence Morris, said authorities were working to ensure that the five suspected terrorists get a fair trial and that those who are acting as their own lawyers get the resources and access to documents they need, as long as it doesn't jeopardize national security.

Kohlmann had ordered the two hearings, and three others over the last two days, to ensure that Mohammed and Attash understood the consequences of representing themselves. At both hearings Thursday, Kohlmann stressed to the accused men that they would fare better if they allowed the government-appointed legal teams to represent them, especially since the lawyers could file motions, track down witnesses and do other things the defendants could not from their cells.

But Mohammed, in one of many back-and-forths with the judge, said the system was so dysfunctional that "it won't make a big difference if I reject my lawyer."

Mohammed and Attash said they still wanted to represent themselves, but with some military and civilian lawyers as standby counsel.

A third suspect, Ramzi Binalshibh, refused to attend his hearing Thursday for unspecified reasons. The judge has ordered a mental competency exam for Binalshibh, who is on government-administered psychotropic drugs, to see if he is fit to act as his own lawyer.

Legal advisors for Mohammed and Attash said the problems with the military commissions went far beyond those the men face while acting as their own lawyers.

Navy Capt. Prescott L. Prince and civilian lawyers David Nevin and Scott McKay said, for instance, that the government has decreed that anything Mohammed says or writes is considered classified, essentially prohibiting them from using it in court filings or in investigative efforts aimed at determining whether he is guilty of the terrorist acts for which he has claimed responsibility.

"There is impediment after impediment after impediment," McKay said.

Throughout the hearings Thursday, Mohammed and Attash remained polite and responsive, often engaging Kohlmann in discussions about their legal rights.

Mohammed, who has said he wants to "martyr" himself, or be put to death for his self-described role as the orchestrator of the attacks, appeared especially interested in determining how he could oversee his defense.

Attash said: "Any attack I undertook against America or even participated or helped in, I am proud of it and am happy about it."

[Gold9472]

Guantanamo detainees say they're being denied legal tools

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/43892.html

By Carol Rosenberg | Miami Herald
7/11/2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — Reputed al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed complained Thursday that he couldn't get a pad of paper to prepare for his capital-crimes court appearance.

His nephew, Ammar al Baluchi, asked a day earlier for access to a law library. The alleged 9/11 co-conspirator, a computer engineer, complained to his military judge that he prepared a motion but his jailers wouldn't give it to the court. For 10 days.

Congress may have given war-on-terrorism captives the right to act as their own lawyers in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, but based on pretrial hearings this week for the men accused of killing nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon and the prison camps haven't provided the "worst of the worst" with the tools to defend themselves.

[Gold9472]

Sleep deprivation raised in bin Laden driver case

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1441480520080714

By Jim Loney
7/14/2008

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - A newly-released document suggests Osama bin Laden's former driver may have been subjected to 50 days of sleep deprivation at the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba, the prisoner's defense lawyers said on Monday.

Lawyers for Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni in his late 30s, previously alleged Hamdan was beaten and abused. But they said sleep deprivation for 50 days, if proved, would be among the worst abuse he suffered at the hands of his American captors.

They also said the records indicated Hamdan and other prisoners at the remote detention camp in southeastern Cuba were visited by someone called "Alfred Hitchcock," apparently after the British master of psychological thriller films who died in 1980.

Hamdan is charged with conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists. Prosecutors argue he was a willing participant in al Qaeda while his lawyers say he was a member of a motor pool and drove bin Laden because he needed the $200 monthly salary.

Hamdan, wearing a traditional headdress and a white gown under a Western-style blazer, attended the first day of a week of hearings on legal motions before the war court.

His trial, scheduled to start in a week, would be the first at the tribunals. He faces life in prison if convicted.

Hamdan's lawyers said they discovered the document among 600 pages of "confinement" evidence handed over to the defense team on Saturday, 9 days before trial. It said Hamdan was put into "Operation Sandman" between June 11 and July 30, 2003.

Operation Sandman has been described in press reports as a program devised by behavioral scientists where an inmate's sleep is systematically interrupted.

"My view personally is that sleep deprivation of that nature extending for 50 days would constitute torture," said Joseph McMillan, one of Hamdan's civilian lawyers.

Documents released last week indicated that Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr was deprived of uninterrupted sleep at Guantanamo before an interview by a Canadian investigator.

Last month a defense lawyer urged a Guantanamo judge to help restore America's reputation by dropping attempted murder charges against Afghan prisoner Mohammed Jawad because he was subjected to 14 consecutive days of sleep deprivation.

Hamdan's lawyers have asked the war court to throw out his out-of-court statements due to coercion.

Their motions allege Hamdan was beaten in Afghanistan and subjected to "more sophisticated" abuse at Guantanamo including sexual humiliation, isolation, intimidation and deception.

WHO WAS ALFRED HITCHCOCK?
Defense lawyers said they were curious about the meaning of entries in the documents that "Alfred Hitchcock" had visited Hamdan and other prisoners.

"Who Alfred Hitchcock is I have no idea," said Navy Lt. Cmdr Brian Mizer, a defense lawyer. "It's obviously a code name for something."

Mike Berrigan, deputy chief defense counsel for the tribunals, called the last-minute submission of the documents "outrageous" and said it was another example of the unfairness of the tribunals.

"It's no way to do business and it puts a lie, to the world, that these are full and fair proceedings," he said.

Military officials had no immediate comment. The defense said it would seek sanctions as a result of the last-minute handover of papers due last December.

Earlier in the hearings, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, the military judge, said accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and some of his co-defendants may have relevant evidence to offer as defense witnesses for Hamdan.

The defense intends to call eight prisoners, including Mohammed and three other alleged September 11 plotters, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa al Hawsawi. They say Mohammed and bin Attash have evidence to exonerate Hamdan.

[Gold9472]

Khadr interrogation footage puts spotlight on CSIS

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080713.wkhadr14/BNStory/National/home

COLIN FREEZE
From Monday's Globe and Mail

July 13, 2008 at 9:10 PM EDT

When a Canadian spymaster was asked three years ago whether his agency had kept any tapes of its talks with teenage prisoner Omar Khadr in Guantanamo Bay, his reply was that nothing could be said.

The alleged existence of any such tapes was classified.

“To answer that question would disclose national security privileged information,” said Jack Hooper, a CSIS deputy director compelled to testify by lawyers acting for Mr. Khadr, the Canadian citizen being detained in the U.S. prison camp in Cuba.

“Mr. Khadr has provided us with a great deal of specific information concerning Canadian-based operatives associated with al-Qaeda, some of whom are still at large,” Mr. Hooper said. But he said it was illegal to even speak to whether records of the conversations were retained. “Disclosure of that information would reveal service operational methodologies and tactics.”

It was illegal – in 2005. But this week, CSIS, which has always operated in the shadows, will find itself in an uncomfortable spotlight. After a series of stunning legal decisions, footage of the CSIS interrogation of Mr. Khadr is about to be revealed.

Four DVDs – originally marked “Secret/No Foreign” by U.S. agencies that created them – show the Canadian Security Intelligence Service at work, something that has never happened before. This is being done over the objections of CSIS, which is far better known for destroying its own tapes than showing them, and U.S. agencies who will likely be irritated that Canadians courts have ordered up the DVDs that will provide a rare glimpse inside the secret prison camp operating on leased land in Cuba.

A CSIS agent, who travelled to Guantanamo Bay in February, 2003, will be shown grilling Mr. Khadr about six months after his capture, for seven hours over three days. His face obscured to preserve his secret identity, the agent will be seen asking Mr. Khadr questions about the al-Qaeda figures he met while he was raised in Afghanistan by his fundamentalist parents, before being captured as a 15-year-old alleged “enemy combatant.”

The CSIS operative will also be seen asking the teenager hard questions about his relationship with Islam. More than once, Mr. Khadr will be shown breaking down, crying, denying he knows anything about al-Qaeda.

The CSIS footage promises to be wrenching and remarkable, given the service was created a quarter-century ago to protect Canada while – and this is the cardinal rule – keeping its sources and methods secret.

Lately, clandestine activities provided for in 1984's CSIS Act have been running into a competing and concurrent law. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms bestows some of the world's highest civil-liberties protections to Canadian citizens, meaning that just as CSIS is getting more ambitious about chasing alleged terrorists at home and abroad, it is finding it is getting a lot harder to keep national security secrets.

“This has got to be the decade that the spies came in from the cold,” Jim Judd, CSIS's director said in a speech in April. “Whether voluntarily, or kicking and screaming.”

He spoke of a world where the “judicialization” of intelligence practices and aggressive reporting threatens the very idea of state secrecy.

Since Omar Khadr was detained in Guantanamo Bay on allegations he killed an American soldier, the now-21-year-old has been visited several times by agents from CSIS and Foreign Affairs Canada, after they negotiated access to Guantanamo Bay through the Pentagon.

Then, in 2005, a Federal Court judge examined Mr. Khadr's case and banned CSIS from future visits, ruling the “conditions at Guantanamo Bay do not meet Charter standards.” In May of this year, the Supreme Court of Canada went further: Canadian agencies were ordered to hand over the secret fruits of their past interviews to Mr. Khadr's defence team.

Exactly what would be produced for public consumption and what would be kept secret was ambiguous until the Federal Court of Canada settled matters last month. After hearing motions from The Globe and Mail and CTV and other media organizations, Mr. Justice Richard Mosley said certain documents and the DVDs could be released to the Khadr legal team, who were free to circulate materials as they saw fit.

The documents made headlines after being e-mailed to media organizations last week. This week, Mr. Khadr's defence plans to circulate the videos, with the hope of shaming Canadian officials into lobbying for his repatriation.

Federal government lawyers had argued that the disclosures of U.S. information could cause rifts with American intelligence. Judge Mosley did not dispute this. “It may cause some harm to Canada-U.S. relations,” he ruled, but added he expects the damage will be “minimal.”

“In any event,” he said, “I am satisfied that the public interest in disclosure of this information outweighs the public interest in non-disclosure.”

[simuvac]

He spoke of a world where the “judicialization” of intelligence practices and aggressive reporting threatens the very idea of state secrecy.

Like that's a bad thing.

[Gold9472]

The Alfred Hitchcock tidbit is interesting.

[Gold9472]

Decision on first Guantanamo trial expected Friday

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Decision_on_first_Guantanamo_trial__07152008.html

7/16/2008

The Bush administration and defense lawyers are awaiting a federal judge's decision due Friday to see whether the first war crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay will go ahead next week or be postponed once again.

Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's former chauffeur and bodyguard held for more than six years, is scheduled to face charges of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism beginning Monday in the nation's first war crimes tribunal since the end of World War II.

Lawyers for Hamdan, a 37-year-old Yemenite, have called for suspension of the trial following the US Supreme Court's June decision allowing the roughly 260 inmates at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to challenge their detention in civilian courts.

The US Justice Department by contrast is pushing for the trial by military tribunal to go proceed next week, court documents released Tuesday showed.

President George W. Bush and his administration have faced heated criticism since 2002 for detaining prisoners for years without ever giving them the right to defend themselves in court.

A federal judge in Washington, James Robertson, will have the final word on Friday, after a hearing with the two sides Thursday.

His decision is complicated by some 200 procedures of Habeas Corpus -- the right to contest one's detention -- filed by detainees in Guantanamo, Hamdan included, and being examined by federal court judges.

It also comes as the youngest detainee at Guantanamo, Canadian teenager Omar Khadr, was shown sobbing and begging for help as he was interrogated at the prison by Canadian agents in 2003 in a video released Tuesday.

Khadr, accused of killing a US soldier in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15 years old, faces trial by military tribunal in October.

Hamdan is challenging the validity of the military tribunal set up by Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

That system was struck down by the Supreme Court in June 2006, only to see Congress pass legislation to legalize it four months later.

But in a serious blow to the Bush administration's hopes to try all the "war on terror" suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, a Supreme Court decision last month allowed the inmates to challenge their detention in civilian courts.

That decision has "complicated the situation in Guantanamo," Bush told a press conference Tuesday.

"My view all along has been either send them back home, or give them a chance to have a day in court," the president said. "I still believe that makes sense."

In court documents released Tuesday regarding Hamdan's case, the Justice Department argued that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 "unquestionably confers jurisdiction on the military court to try (the) petitioner."

"The public has a strong interest in seeing such individuals brought to justice as soon as possible."

The department also stated that Hamdan's attempt to challenge the validity of the military tribunal would afford him rights that were "utterly unprecedented" in military tribunals.

Hamdan's lawyers said his petition "challenges the jurisdiction and constitutionality of the (military) commission itself."

"Without an opportunity to resolve these challenges before trial, Hamdan will be irreparably harmed," they said.

[Gold9472]

US judge to consider blocking 1st Guantanamo trial

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080717/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/bin_laden_s_driver_2

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jul 17, 4:35 AM ET

WASHINGTON - A federal judge is considering whether to block the first Guantanamo Bay war crimes trial from beginning next week. If he does, it could throw another kink into the Bush administration's legal strategy in the war on terrorism.

Salim Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, is scheduled to go on trial Monday as the first defendant in a special military commission system set up to prosecute detainees at the Navy base in Cuba. Other detainees, including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, are awaiting trials of their own.

But a Supreme Court ruling last month jeopardized those plans. The court ruled that detainees must be allowed to challenge their detention in civilian courts, a right that the Bush administration said for years did not exist.

Hamdan quickly asked a federal judge to delay his military commission trial, saying he must be allowed to challenge the legality of the system before he can be prosecuted. Otherwise, he says, he could be convicted in a process that is later revealed to be unconstitutional.

Furthermore, he says only enemy combatants can stand trial before a military commission. And since the Supreme Court says he has the right to challenge that label, Hamdan argues he cannot be prosecuted until that challenge plays out.

A military judge at Guantanamo Bay has already refused to delay the trial and the Justice Department is urging U.S. District Judge James Robertson not to get involved. Robertson scheduled a hearing Thursday in Washington to consider the matter.

Prosecuting suspected terrorists is a key part of the war on terrorism, the Justice Department said, and a necessary step toward closing the Guantanamo Bay prison.

"Putting the military commission proceedings on hold now would be contrary to these interests and hamper the government's war efforts, not to mention constitute a significant intrusion into areas within the province of the executive branch," government attorneys said.

Robertson may rule from the bench Thursday.

[Gold9472]

Judge refuses to delay detainee trial

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/17/gitmo.trial/

7/17/2008

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A federal judge refused Thursday to delay the approaching military commission trial of a Yemeni man who served as Osama bin Laden's personal bodyguard and driver.

Defense attorney Joe McMillan argues for the injunction before federal judge James Robertson.

Salim Hamdan will stand trial Monday at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled at a hearing in Washington.

Attorneys for Hamdan claimed that the military commission procedures violate Hamdan's constitutional rights and that no rules had been established for such trials.

However, Robertson said it was not the right time for defense attorneys to raise such arguments, which can be done on appeal after the trial is completed. And he said it was not the court's role to continue delaying the proceedings.

Hamdan is charged with providing material support for terrorism and conspiracy. Prosecutors contend that he was a member of al Qaeda from 1996 through 2001 and conspired with the group regarding terrorist attacks.

The government maintains that Hamdan has admitted being a member of al Qaeda and a driver for bin Laden.

His attorneys were attempting to cite a Supreme Court ruling last month that Guantanamo Bay detainees have the right to challenge their detention in American courts, which would be to their advantage in delaying his trial. Robertson refused to grant their motion.

Neal Katyal, a Georgetown University law professor who represented Hamdan at the hearings, said he does not know whether he will appeal Robertson's ruling.

"We knew this was difficult going in," said Joe McMillan, another Hamdan attorney.

Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said in a statement that the department was pleased with Robertson's decision.

"The government looks forward to presenting its case against Mr. Hamdan for the commission," the statement said. "We note that, under the procedures established by Congress in the Military Commissions Act, Mr. Hamdan will receive greater procedural protections than those ever before provided to defendants in military commission trials."

Katyal argued before Robertson, "we don't know what rule book even applies to these trials." He said authorities should "get it right the first time, with basic rules set in place."

Justice Department attorney John O'Quinn argued that it was time for Hamdan's trial to go forward, saying Congress had passed the Military Commissions Act in 2006 -- in a case involving Hamdan -- setting forth guidelines for commission trials.

He won an important victory at the U.S. Supreme Court that year, when the justices struck down a version of the military commissions. The case led to the Military Commissions Act, which imposed greater legal barriers for prisoners held at Guantanamo. In their ruling last month, the sharply divided justices threw out a portion of that law.

Katyal noted that Hamdan has been held for years at Guantanamo. But Robertson pointed out that if he granted the attorneys' motion to delay the trial, it would set off another protracted legal battle.

Robertson said in making his ruling that it applies only to Hamdan's case, not those of other Guantanamo detainees.

Under the Military Commissions Act, those facing military commission trials have a limited right to appeal any conviction, reducing the jurisdiction of federal courts. The suspects must also prove to a three-person panel of military officers that they are not a terrorism risk. But defendants would have access to evidence normally given to a jury, and CIA agents were given more guidance in how far they can go in interrogating prisoners.

In addition to the Hamdan case, in 2004 the justices affirmed the right of prisoners to challenge their detention in federal court. Congress and the Bush administration have sought to restrict such access.

The White House has said it is considering whether to close the Guantanamo prison, suggesting that some of the high-level al Qaeda detainees could be transferred to the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, and a military brig in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Both presumptive presidential nominees, Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, have said they would close Guantanamo Bay.

Americans are split on the issue, according to a 2007 poll by CNN and Opinion Research Corp., with 46 percent supporting its continued operation and 45 percent opposed.

Most of the dozens of pending detainee cases have been handled in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. In February 2007, that court upheld the Military Commissions Act's provision stripping courts of jurisdiction to hear challenges from Guantanamo prisoners, but a three-judge panel of the same D.C. Circuit later expressed concern about why the U.S. military continues to limit attorney access to the Guantanamo men.

About 270 detainees are being held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to the Pentagon. They include 14 suspected top al Qaeda figures, among them Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, suspected mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks, who was transferred to the facility for trial in 2006.

[Gold9472]

Alleged 9/11 mastermind may testify in Hamdan's trial

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/44714.html

By Carol Rosenberg | Miami Herald

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — A war court judge on Friday ordered the government to allow Salim Hamdan's attorneys to meet with the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks before the start Monday of Hamdan's trial on charge he supplied material support to a terrorist organization as Osama bin laden's driver.

Navy Capt. Keith Allred, the judge in the military commission, said that Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer should be allowed to interview Khalid Sheik Mohammed and six other so-called high-value detainees implicated in plotting the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. At issue for Hamdan is whether Mohammed and other alleged members of the senior al Qaida inner circle would offer testimony that would back his claim that he never was anything more than a hired go-for for the al Qaida leader.

Prosecutors had consistently balked at granting Hamdan's lawyers access, but said Friday that arrangements would be made. Allred said this week that Mohammed and others should be allowed to testify. But by Friday afternoon it was not clear whether Mohammed would actually testify and if so whether reporters and other court observers would be allowed to watch.

Allred ordered that Mizer be allowed access to the men over the weekend.

The Pentagon has been assembling 22 witnesses for the trial. The government has predicted it would take 10 to 14 days to present its evidence, followed by a week or more of defense testimony.

'The CIA, which had kept Mohammed and the other alleged 9/11 conspirators in secret detention until turning them over to the military, has insisted that their former captives can talk only to people at Guantanamo with special classified security clearances. But Mizer already holds the needed clearances.

[Gold9472]

Guantanamo Bay: Bin Laden's driver begins trial today

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/newsbriefs/story.html?id=c12aafa1-aeea-4a56-84b7-5cc4635af7db

Citizen News Services
Published: Monday, July 21, 2008

Osama bin Laden's driver will face a controversial form of American justice today in the first Guantanamo war crimes trial, 61/2 years after the United States opened its prison camp in Cuba to jail fighters in the "war on terror." Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni, faces life in prison if convicted of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism in a court created by President George W. Bush in response to 9/11.

[Gold9472]

Former Bin Laden Driver Pleads Not Guilty
Salim Hamdan is the First Person to Face a U.S. War Crimes Trial Since WWII

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/wireStory?id=5414313

7/21/2008

The first war crimes trial at Guantanamo has begun with a not guilty plea from a former driver for Osama bin Laden.

Salim Hamdan entered the plea Monday through his lawyer under tight security at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

He is the first prisoner to face a U.S. war crimes trial since World War II.

Hamdan is charged with conspiracy and aiding terrorism. He could get up to life in prison if convicted.

The trial is expected to take three to four weeks with testimony from nearly two dozen Pentagon witnesses.

[Gold9472]

Bin Laden's driver is in the dock, but America's war on terror is on trial
The first military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay begins tomorrow. Its outcome will determine far more than the fate of a minor al-Qa'ida figure

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bin-ladens-driver-is-in-the-dock-but-americas-war-on-terror-is-on-trial-872413.html

By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Sunday, 20 July 2008

Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's personal driver, will enter a specially built courtroom in Guantanamo Bay tomorrow for the first full trial of any of the hundreds of detainees to have been sent to America's infamous prison camp since the 9/11 attacks nearly seven years ago.

Instead of one of al-Qa'ida's top leaders in captivity – such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – the accused in the first US military tribunal since the Second World War is a 39-year-old Yemeni, whose lawyers say he belongs on a psychiatric ward rather than in jail. Heightening the irony, a military judge has overruled prosecutors and decided that Mr Hamdan's lawyers can question the alleged mastermind of the September 2001 attacks and other possible witnesses about the driver. The judge threatened to delay the trial if prosecutors did not arrange this over the weekend.

Even the US does not claim that the driver and sometime mechanic, who earned a mere $200 (£100) a month, was a major terror figure. But prosecutors allege that he carried weapons used by al-Qai'da and helped to spirit Bin Laden out of Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. If convicted, he could find himself in prison for life.

For many, however, it is the erosion of America's historic liberties that will be on trial tomorrow. The Bush administration created a system of detention without due process when it set up the Guantanamo prison camp in 2002, a legal limbo in which hundreds of detainees – including Mr Hamdan, according to his lawyers – have suffered psychological and possibly physical torture. The driver is alleged to have gone mad as a direct result of being kept in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day in a tiny cell; he is hardly the ideal subject for the first major test of President George Bush's much-criticised system of military commissions to bring terrorism suspects to justice.

Mr Hamdan left his home in Yemen in 1996 and tried to sign on as an Islamist fighter in Tajikistan, but could not get into the country. The US says he went to Afghanistan instead, and ended up working for Bin Laden. After the terror attacks on New York and Washington, Mr Hamdan drove al-Qa'ida's supreme leader between safe houses to avoid US missiles, according to prosecutors, who say he broke away a month later and evacuated his daughter and pregnant wife from Kandahar in the midst of the invasion.

It is not only Mr Hamdan's future that will be determined by the trial. There is great concern among members of the Bush administration that they too could find themselves before foreign or international courts for the role they played in facilitating and encouraging the torture of detainees.

The infamous "torture memos" circulated by Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Charles Addington, and two former administration figures, Douglas Feith and Alberto Gonzales, covertly approved the abuse of prisoners by the CIA. These men were publicly warned recently by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Colin Powell when Mr Powell was Secretary of State, to "never travel outside the US, except perhaps to Saudi Arabia or Israel".

One of the most explosive parts of the trial could be the efforts by the defence to show in coming weeks that Pentagon officials interfered with military prosecutors and pressed cases for strictly political reasons. Hearings on that issue are expected to reveal how White House officials and aides of Mr Cheney were on the phone to Guantanamo – in a way, some claim, that made a mockery of American military justice. The former chief Guantanamo prosecutor, Colonel Morris Davis, a harsh critic of the way the war crimes tribunal system is run, could even testify for Mr Hamdan.

Since the US designated its naval base at the tip of Cuba as a place to imprison some of its greatest enemies, about 800 people have been held at Guantanamo, and some 420 have been released back to their countries without charge. The oldest known suspect imprisoned there was 95-year-old Mohammed Sadiq from Afghanistan, who has been released. The youngest is Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who was just 16 years old when he was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2002.

A grainy video of a weeping Mr Khadr, who is still being held, emerged last week, providing an unprecedented glimpse into the harsh conditions at Guantanamo. Now 21, he was shown being interrogated for three days by Canadian intelligence agents after he had been tortured by sleep deprivation for three weeks. The longest portion of the video, an eight-minute segment, shows a sobbing Mr Khadr, burying his head in his hands and moaning "Help me, help me" as the agents look on.

The footage, from a camera hidden behind a ventilation shaft, is the first video of a Guantanamo interrogation to become public. It was obtained under court order by Mr Khadr's Canadian lawyers, who want to bring him home. But neither the US nor the Canadian government wants to see him released. The US military accuses him of killing a soldier with a grenade and injuring another. However, efforts to persuade military courts that he is an "enemy combatant" were thrown out last year.

As for Mr Hamdan, he is "small fry, a grunt, and Bush knows it", said Marc Falkoff, a lawyer representing several other Yemeni detainees. "But the administration was never going to bring one of its high-profile detainees out first when nobody quite knows what's going to happen in this brand-new legal process."

The military commissions were created to try people designated "unlawful enemy combatants" after the Supreme Court issued a stinging rebuke to the Bush administration in June 2006 for tearing up the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war and denying the most basic right of habeas corpus to prisoners. Despite the international clamour against Guantanamo, the US has charged only 20 of its prisoners, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was tortured by "waterboarding" before arriving at the camp. One detainee, David Hicks, accepted a plea bargain in 2007, served nine months and is now free in his native Australia.

Mr Hamdan is suicidal and hears voices. He talks incessantly to himself and says that living alone inside a metal cell and never being allowed to see the sun "boils his mind". The isolation in which prisoners are held is blamed for driving them out of their minds with despair.

"He will shout at us; he will bang his fists on the table," said his military-appointed defence lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Brian Mizer. His attempts to stop the case until his client is granted more humane conditions, enabling him to prepare his defence, were rejected last week. The authorities complain that Mr Hamdan was far from a model inmate and that he routinely spat at guards and threw urine.

Guantanamo inmates face more time in isolation than many on Death Row in the US, say experts on American prison conditions. But the camp's spokeswoman, Commander Pauline Storum, claims that detainees are more psychologically robust than the ordinary US prison population, with fewer than 10 per cent mentally ill, compared with 50 per cent of the inmates in US jails. Nor is there is solitary confinement in Guantanamo, she adds, only "single-occupancy cells", and in any event prisoners communicate with each other by banging on their walls.

Lawyers handling some 80 war crimes cases are closely watching Mr Hamdan's trial. "The issue of mistreatment of prisoners, the miserable lives they live in these cells, will come up in every case," says Clive Stafford Smith, the British lawyer who is representing 35 detainees. In April, when Mr Hamdan appeared before the navy captain acting as his military judge, he announced that he would boycott his trial, crying out: "There is no such thing as justice here!" The judge told him to have faith in US law, declaring: "You have already been to the Supreme Court [in Washington]."

But the prisoner corrected him. While his lawyers had won a famous victory over the Bush administration in a case known as Hamdan vs Rumsfeld, he had not left Guantanamo. Instead, in more than six years of incarceration, he has made exactly two phone calls to his family back in Yemen, and received no visits. He has been punished for having a Snickers bar in his cell that his lawyers gave him and for stockpiling too many pairs of socks.

"Conditions are asphalt, excrement and worse," he wrote to his lawyers. "Why, why, why?"

The echoes of Hamdan vs Rumsfeld are still rumbling through the legal system. While Mr Cheney's adviser called efforts to apply the protections of the Geneva Conventions to prisoners "an abomination", the Supreme Court ruled emphatically that the administration had to abide by these laws in its war on terror. Even in wartime, the court said, the President was bound by laws and treaties, including the Geneva Conventions. The administration had no right to impose military commissions unilaterally, with rules made up in the White House.

So under pressure from President Bush, the 2006 Military Commissions Act was passed by Congress. This is what will finally be tested tomorrow. The Supreme Court has given Mr Hamdan the opportunity to challenge his status as an "enemy combatant" by presenting "reasonably available" evidence and witnesses to a panel of three commissioned officers, while being represented by a military officer.

[Gold9472]

Gitmo judge: No 'coercive' questioning evidence
Military jurist bars some statements in case against former bin Laden driver

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25789074/

updated 8:08 p.m. ET, Mon., July. 21, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - The judge in the first American war crimes trial since World War II barred evidence on Monday that interrogators obtained from Osama bin Laden's driver following his capture in Afghanistan.

Prosecutors are considering whether to appeal the judge's ruling — a development that could halt the trial of Salim Hamdan that began earlier Monday after years of delays and legal setbacks.

"We need to evaluate ... to what extent it has an impact on our ability to fully portray his criminality in this case, but also what it might set out for future cases," said Army Col. Lawrence Morris, the tribunals' chief prosecutor.

Hamdan, who was captured at a roadblock in Afghanistan in November 2001, pleaded not guilty at the start of a trial that will be closely watched as the first full test of the Pentagon's system for prosecuting alleged terrorists. He faces a maximum life sentence if convicted of conspiracy and aiding terrorism.

The judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, said the prosecution cannot use a series of interrogations at the Bagram air base and Panshir, Afghanistan, because of the "highly coercive environments and conditions under which they were made."

At Bagram, Hamdan says he was kept in isolation 24 hours a day with his hands and feet restrained, and armed soldiers prompted him to talk by kneeing him in the back. He says his captors at Panshir repeatedly tied him up, put a bag over his head and knocked him to the ground.

Defense had asked for more
The judge did leave the door open for the prosecution to use other statements Hamdan gave elsewhere in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo. Defense lawyers asked Allred to throw out all of his interrogations, arguing he incriminated himself under the effects of alleged abuse — including sleep deprivation and solitary confinement.

Michael Berrigan, the deputy chief defense counsel, described the ruling as a major blow to the tribunal system that allows hearsay and evidence obtained through coercion.

"It's a very significant ruling because these prosecutions are built to make full advantage of statements obtained from detainees," he said.

A jury of six officers with one alternate was selected from a pool of 13 flown in from other U.S. bases over the weekend. Hamdan's lawyers succeeded in barring others, including one who had friends at the Pentagon at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, and another who had been a key government witness as a student.

Monday marked the first time after years of pretrial hearings and legal challenges that any prisoner reached this stage of the tribunals.

The U.S. plans to prosecute about 80 Guantanamo prisoners, including the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four alleged coconspirators.

Hamdan seemed to go along with the process despite earlier threats to boycott. The Yemeni with a fourth-grade education appeared to cooperate fully with his Pentagon-appointed military lawyer, whispering in his ear during the questioning of potential jurors.

"Mr. Hamdan expressed great interest in this," said Charles Swift, one of his civilian attorneys.

Morris said the statements obtained from Hamdan are "significant" to the government's case, and his office was evaluating whether to proceed to trial without some of them.

No statements without witness
In addition to the other interrogations, the judge said he would throw out statements whenever a government witness is unavailable to vouch for the questioners' tactics. He also withheld a ruling on a key interrogation at Guantanamo in May 2003 until defense lawyers can review roughly 600 pages of confinement records provided by the government on Sunday night.

Hamdan has been held at Guantanamo since May 2002. A challenge filed by his lawyers resulted in a 2006 Supreme Court ruling striking down the original rules for the military tribunals. Congress and President Bush responded with new rules, the Military Commissions Act.

Hamdan met bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1996 and began working on his farm before winning a promotion as his driver.

Defense lawyers say he only kept the job for the $200-a-month salary. But prosecutors allege he was a personal driver and bodyguard of the al-Qaida leader. They say he transported weapons for the Taliban and helped bin Laden escape U.S. retribution following the Sept. 11 attacks.

[simuvac]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKN2230096620080723

Bin Laden driver said to have known 9/11 target

Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:54am BST
By Jim Loney

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden's driver knew the target of the fourth hijacked jetliner in the September 11 attacks, a prosecutor said on Tuesday.

Salim Hamdan's lawyer said in opening statements that the Yemeni, held for nearly seven years before his trial, was just a paid employee of the fugitive al Qaeda leader, a driver in the motor pool who never joined the militant group or plotted attacks on America.

But prosecutor Timothy Stone, in an attempt to draw a link between Hamdan and the al Qaeda leadership in the first Guantanamo war crimes trial, told the six-member jury of U.S. military officers who will decide Hamdan's guilt or innocence that Hamdan had inside knowledge of the 2001 attacks on the United States because he overheard a conversation between bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

"If they hadn't shot down the fourth plane it would've hit the dome," Stone, a Navy officer, said in his opening remarks.

The tribunal's chief prosecutor, Col. Lawrence Morris, later explained that Stone was quoting Hamdan in evidence that will be presented at trial. Morris declined to say if the "dome" was a reference to the U.S. Capitol.

"Virtually no one knew the intended target, but the accused knew," Stone said.

United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania. U.S. officials have never stated it was shot down although rumours saying that abound to this day.

Hamdan, a father of two with a fourth-grade education, is charged with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism in the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War Two. He could face life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors say Hamdan had access to al Qaeda's inner circle. Stone told the jury that Hamdan earned the trust of bin Laden and helped him flee after attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and the September 11 attacks.

"He served as bodyguard, driver, transported and delivered weapons, ammunition and supplies to al Qaeda," Stone said.

Hamdan was being tried in a hilltop courthouse at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, which has been a lightning rod for criticism of the United States since early 2002, when it began housing a prison camp to hold alleged Taliban and al Qaeda fighters from the battlefields of Afghanistan.

The war crimes tribunal system has been criticized by human rights groups and defence lawyers, some of them U.S. military officers. Detainees have been held for years without charges.

Washington has declared them unlawful enemy combatants not entitled to the rights afforded formal prisoners of war.

Responding to the widespread criticism, Morris, the chief prosecutor, said on Tuesday: "In my opinion they are seeing the most just war crimes trial that anyone has ever seen."

WORKED FOR WAGES

Defence lawyer Harry Schneider described Hamdan as a poor Yemeni who lost his parents at a young age and lived on the streets, where he developed a knack for fixing cars.

"The evidence is that he worked for wages. He didn't wage attacks on America," he said. "He had a job because he had to earn a living, not because he had a jihad against America."

"There will be no evidence that Mr. Hamdan espoused or believed or embraced any form of what you will hear about, radical Islam beliefs, extremist Muslim beliefs," he said.

The first two prosecution witnesses were U.S. military officers who were in Afghanistan during the early days of the U.S. invasion in 2001. Both addressed a key issue at trial -- whether Hamdan had surface-to-air missiles when he was captured at a checkpoint near Takhteh Pol in November 2001.

Defence lawyers dispute the prosecution's contention that Hamdan had the weapons. But a U.S. officer identified only as "Sergeant Major A" said the missiles were found in the "trunk of a car driven by Mr. Hamdan."

He said troops also found a mortar manual with "al Qaeda" on the front, a book by bin Laden and a card issued to al Qaeda fighters and signed by Mullah Omar, the Taliban commander.

Ali Soufan, an al Qaeda expert with the FBI, took the jury through a long description of al Qaeda's hierarchy and called bin Laden "the emir, the prince." He said Hamdan was part of bin Laden's security detail.

"The people who are around bin Laden have to be trusted ... true believers in the cause," he said.

(Editing by Eric Beech)

[Gold9472]

Guantanamo testimony: U.S. let bin Laden's top bodyguard go

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/45505.html

By Carol Rosenberg | The Miami Herald
7/25/2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — Soon after Osama bin Laden's driver got here in 2002, he told interrogators the identity of the al Qaeda chief's most senior bodyguard — then a fellow prison camp detainee.

But, inexplicably, the U.S. let the bodyguard go.

This startling information was revealed in the fourth day of the war crimes trial of Salim Hamdan, 37, facing conspiracy and material support for terror charges as an alleged member of bin Laden's inner circle.

Michael St. Ours, an agent with the Naval Criminal Intelligence Service, NCIS, provided the first tidbit. He testified for the prosecution that his job as a prison camps interrogator in May 2002 was to find and focus on the bodyguards among the detainees.

And Hamdan helped identify 30 of them — 10 percent of the roughly 300 detainees then held here. They had just been transferred to Camp Delta from the crude compound called Camp X-Ray, and U.S. intelligence was still trying to unmask them.

Chief among them was Casablanca-born Abdallah Tabarak, then 47, described by St. Ours as "a hard individual," and, thanks to Hamdan, "the head bodyguard of all the bodyguards."

St. Ours said he was eager to speak with Tabarak. But the Moroccan was "uncooperative," and St. Ours moved on to other intelligence jobs — and never learned afterward what became of him.

Then, on cross-examination, Hamdan defense attorney Harry Schneider dropped a bombshell:

"Would it surprise you to learn he was released without ever being charged?" St. Ours looked stunned.

"Yeah," he said.

Prison camp and Pentagon spokesmen did not reply Thursday to a request for an explanation. Tabarak's name was gone from an official prison camp roster drawn up by the Defense Department in September 2004, after some 200 captives had been sent away. A month before, Morocco's state news agency said all five of its nationals had been repatriated from the camps, for investigation.

For two days, FBI and other federal agents have testified about the extent -- and limits -- of Hamdan's cooperation in a string of interrogations since his November 2001 capture by U.S.-allied Afghan forces at a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan.

Defense lawyers have sought to portray the father of two with a fourth-grade education as ultimately helpful to the Americans — after he initially covered up his relationship with bin Laden.

Prosecutors have called him truculent, a loyal and trusted member of bin Laden's inner circle who grudgingly spoke with interrogators — and never came clean on why there were two surface-to-air missiles in his car when he was captured.

Hamdan said at his Nov. 25, 2001, battlefield interrogation that he borrowed the car, and the missiles happened to be inside it.

Late November 2001: Satellite Phone Ruse Aids Bin Laden’s Escape
As US forces close in on Tora Bora, bin Laden’s escape is helped by a simple ruse. A loyal bodyguard named Abdallah Tabarak takes bin Laden’s satellite phone and goes in one direction while bin Laden goes in the other. It is correctly assumed that the US can remotely track the location of the phone. Tabarak is eventually captured with the phone while bin Laden apparently escapes. Tabarak is later put in the US-run Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. Interrogation of him and others in Tora Bora confirm the account. [Washington Post, 1/21/2003] This story indicates bin Laden was still at least occasionally using satellite phones long after media reports that the use of such phones could reveal his location (see February 9-21, 2001). The US will consider Tabarak such a high-value prisoner that at one point he will be the only Guantanamo prisoner that the Red Cross will be denied access to. However, in mid-2004 he will be released and returned to his home country of Morocco, then released by the Moroccan government by the end of the year. Neither the US nor the Moroccan government will offer any explanation for his release. The Washington Post will call the release of the well-known and long-time al-Qaeda operative an unexplained “mystery.” [Washington Post, 1/30/2006]

[Gold9472]

Guantanamo prisoner's cooperation with interrogators hurts him at war crimes trial

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GUANTANAMO_BIN_LADENS_DRIVER?SITE=AZTUC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

By MIKE MELIA
Associated Press Writer
7/25/2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) -- An al-Qaida driver who gave detailed, insider knowledge of the terror network to U.S. agents is seeing his words used against him at the first Guantanamo war crimes trial.

The first week of Salim Hamdan's trial ended Friday with the latest in a series of FBI interrogators testifying about valuable information from the defendant, a former driver for Osama bin Laden who once mingled with many of America's most wanted terror suspects.

"I don't know if I ever thanked him," said special agent George Crouch, who interrogated Hamdan in 2002.

Agents have said that Hamdan identified key terrorist leaders, mapped out bin Laden's escape routes and led them to al-Qaida safehouses after he was captured at a roadblock in southern Afghanistan in November 2001.

Hamdan's lawyers say he has been interrogated by more than 40 U.S. agents, and argue all his statements were tainted by coercive tactics including sleep deprivation and solitary confinement.

The target of the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War II, Hamdan faces a maximum life sentence if convicted of conspiracy and supporting terrorism.

Friday's court session adjourned early because Hamdan, who was treated for a fever at the prison hospital Thursday, still was not feeling well, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, his Pentagon-appointed attorney. The trial is scheduled to resume Monday.

The defense team lost a bid earlier this week to have Hamdan's statements thrown out because he was not advised of a right against providing incriminating information. But in questioning government witnesses, his lawyers have suggested to the jury of American military officers that he had no way of knowing that he was the target of a criminal investigation.

"Did anyone ever say, 'You've got to understand, somebody can use this against you?'" said Harry Schneider, one of Hamdan's lawyers, as he cross-examined Crouch. The agent said he did not remember.

Military prosecutors argue Hamdan cooperated reluctantly, and by the time he shared important information, it was of little tactical value.

The agents who testified said Hamdan was polite and generally provided reliable information, but was not necessarily forthcoming. Crouch said Hamdan, like many detainees, was often evasive.

"You want to tell the interrogator what you think they already know, and hold out on what you think they don't know," he said.

While the Pentagon chose Hamdan as one of the first detainees to face charges, some of his peers who did not cooperate with their captors have been sent home from Guantanamo.

Michael St. Ours, a Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent, said a man identified by Hamdan as bin Laden's top bodyguard, Abdellah Tabarak, refused to meet with him for interrogations. Tabarak was released to his native Morocco in 2004.

Hamdan's lawyers have raised doubts about the tactics used to obtain Hamdan's statements, arguing in court that newly discovered classified records show he was kept up for questioning late at night ahead of an interrogation by one of the FBI agents who testified Friday.

Responding to McMillan, the agent, Daniel William, testified that he was not aware of any effort to disrupt Hamdan's sleep before his interrogation in August 2002.

"There was no 'good cop, bad cop.' It was not anything we do," William told the court.

The judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, has suppressed some of Hamdan's statements, ruling they were obtained under "coercive" conditions.

This week, the defense received hundreds of pages of classified records on Hamdan's confinement that his lawyers are reviewing for other potential examples of harsh treatment.

Michael Berrigan, the deputy chief defense counsel, said the military provided the documents after a court-imposed deadline and the defense is now scrambling to review them.

The chief prosecutor for the tribunals, Army Col. Lawrence Morris, said he regrets that the documents were released late and his office is working with the government to deliver records more efficiently.

Crouch said he gained Hamdan's confidence in June 2002 through favors such as arranging for him to speak with his wife for the first time since being taken into U.S. custody.

"He cried quite a bit," he said. "He was very grateful for the opportunity to speak with his wife."

[Gold9472]

Former military prosecutor who refused to bring charges against 9/11 detainee coming to FSU

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080725/BREAKINGNEWS/80725014

July 25, 2008

A former military prosecutor who refused to pursue charges against a Guantanamo Bay detainee linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is set to give a talk next week at Florida State University.

U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Stuart Couch declined to bring the charges because he believed the evidence against Mohamedou Ould Slahi was tainted by torture. Slahi is a suspected al-Qaeda operative who allegedly assembled the so-called Hamburg cell, which included the hijacker who piloted United 175 into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, according to a news release from FSU.

Couch held that incriminating statements made by Slahi were obtained after he was tortured by military personnel.

The talk is set for noon Thursday at the FSU College of Law Rotunda, 425 W. Jefferson St.

[Gold9472]

9/11 Guantanamo trials unlikely before Bush leaves office

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/319/story/27409.html

By Carol Rosenberg and Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is scrambling to assemble defense teams for six Guantanamo detainees who are facing the death penalty for their alleged roles in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Knowledgeable legal experts, however, said it's unlikely that they can be tried speedily, meaning the cases probably won't be heard before the Bush administration leaves office next January.

"I will move as quickly as I can, but we will take our time and we will not be bullied by the government," said Army Col. Steve David, the chief defense counsel in the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions.

"I believe this is a defining moment in our history, and we are going to take our time to do it right," he said.

"Any attempt to do these cases in 2008 would be a mockery," said Joseph Margulies, a professor at the Northwestern University School of Law and a noted death penalty expert. He said that it would take at least a year for lawyers to familiarize themselves with the evidence against the six men.

The Pentagon Monday announced charges against the six that include conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians and terrorism. Among those charged was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

It was the first time that U.S. authorities have charged anyone held at Guantanamo with direct involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Prosecutors face a series of hurdles in bringing the cases, including likely battles over what evidence they'll be allowed to bring before the military commissions that will hear the cases.

The law that created the commissions forbids the use of evidence gathered by torture. Last week, CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden acknowledged to Congress that Mohammed and two other CIA detainees had been subjected to waterboarding, a technique that simulates the sensation of drowning. Hayden said in his testimony that the technique might not be legal, but the Bush administration has said that waterboarding isn't torture.

"If the government wants to use those statements or anything derived from those statements, it will have a serious problem," said Eugene Fidell, a Washington, D.C. attorney who specializes in military law.

David, an Indiana state judge who was mobilized to his current job, said that his office has nowhere near enough staff members to handle the defense of the six 9/11 defendants.

He said he'd need at least six lawyers, six paralegals and six independent investigators with top security clearances to work on the trials. As of Monday morning, he said, seven military lawyers had been assigned to his office. Six of those are already assigned to other cases.

The seventh — an Army major — began work Monday, and David said he didn't know if the new man had either death penalty defense experience or the necessary security clearances.

In the charging documents released Monday, the military spelled out how the six allegedly plotted the attacks, trained to fly planes, moved funds and practiced how to hide knives in their luggage.

The documents charge that Mohammed orchestrated the attacks and regularly updated al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden on the plot's progress. Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003.

Outlining the plot took up 22 of the charging document's 88 pages. The remainder listed the names of the 2,973 people who died in the attacks.

The other five charged were:

Mohammed al Qahtani, whom the military said could have been the 20th hijacker had he not been turned down for a visa;
Ramzi Binalshibh, who's considered a top al Qaida detainee in Guantanamo. The military called Binalshibh a main intermediary between the hijackers and bin Laden. He also was named Mohammed's main assistant for "Planes Operations";
Ali Abd al Aziz Ali, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed;
Mustafa Ahmad al Hawsawi, who helped move money among the hijackers;
Waleed bin Attash, who's charged with training some of the hijackers. For example, the military alleges that he prepared reports for al Qaida on to get knives onto flights.

The charges still must be approved by a civilian Pentagon official.

Only one of the six — Qahtani — has seen a lawyer during his five-plus years in U.S. custody, and it wasn't clear whether that lawyer, Gitanjali Gutierrez of the New York Center for Constitutional Rights, would represent him at the war crimes trial.

Other lawyers said it was unlikely that private civilian lawyers would be willing to help defend accused 9/11 conspirators.

"You need someone who is independently wealthy and has no concern for his physical safety," said Washington, D.C. attorney David Remes of Covington and Burling, who's filed petitions on behalf of Yemenis held at Guantanamo.

"No firm with substantial resources that works for corporations is going to take the cases of these men, because being accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks is different in kind from being accused of being a mere foot soldier," Remes said. "If the accusations against these men are correct, they really are the worst of the worst."

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 prohibits federal funds from being used in the alleged terrorists' defense, which would bar the use of federal public defenders, and resources to mount a defense would be scarce even for attorneys willing to undertake the cases.

"If private counsel wants to get involved, they have to do it for free, pass around a hat, or be paid for by a private organization," said Margulies, who's handling an unrelated wrongful detention case for another Guantanamo detainee, Abu Zubaydah, who was one of the three prisoners that Hayden said was waterboarded.

Defense lawyers, Margulies said, will need at least a year to familiarize themselves with the cases against their clients, find translators with the proper security clearances to speak help them speak with their clients and hire investigators to review highly classified information.

[Gold9472]

Guantanamo trial views graphic 9/11 video

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Guantanamo_trial_views_graphic_911_video_0728.html

Reuters
Published: Monday July 28, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Prosecutors in the trial of Osama bin Laden's driver unveiled a graphic video on Monday of the September 11 attacks and other al Qaeda operations that is likely to play a repeated role in pending war crimes cases.

The video is entitled "The Al Qaeda Plan," an echo of "The Nazi Plan" made by Oscar-winning director George Stevens as evidence in the Nuremberg war crimes trials of German leaders after World War II.

"Oh my God" was heard repeatedly as crowds watched the twin towers of the World Trade center collapse on September 11, 2001, in a vivid highlight of the movie shown over defense objections at the terrorism conspiracy trial of Salim Hamdan.

The six-member panel that will decide Hamdan's fate also saw footage of charred bodies stripped of flesh in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa and the body of a U.S. soldier dragged through the streets in Somalia in 2003.

Control tower conversations with one of the doomed September 11 planes were also included.

"The Al Qaeda Plan" was made for $25,000 by terrorism consultant Evan Kohlmann for the Office of Military Commissions, which is conducting the trials of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo. Its 90 minutes of video clips depict the history of al Qaeda from its formation in 1988 through the September 11 attacks.

The commission's lead prosecutor, Col. Lawrence Morris, said the tape would be used in other trials but no decision had been made whether to use it in the trial of accused September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Hamdan's attorneys objected that the footage would prejudice the jury. "They're trying to terrorize the members," defense attorney Charles Swift told the court.

But prosecutors said the video helped illustrate the goals of al Qaeda training and ideology. "It is a very important part of the prosecution's case," said prosecutor Clayton Trivett.

Commission Judge Keith Allred approved the video, after first saying it would serve more to prejudice the case than to prove a point. "The planes crashing into the towers and the people screaming doesn't prove anything," he said.

A pivotal point of contention is the significance of Hamdan's role in al Qaeda. The Yemeni native was caught in November 2001 with two surface-to-air missiles in his car.

Defense attorneys say he was a lowly driver, but the prosecution has sought to portray him as a trusted bodyguard who helped bin Laden evade capture and stay alive.

The two sides have also skirmished over an expert's testimony on the laws of war. With Hamdan being tried as a war criminal under a 2006 U.S. law, the prosecution is seeking to show the United States was in a continuing armed conflict with al Qaeda well before the September 11 attacks.

Hamdan's attorneys have sought to demonstrate that the battle with al Qaeda did not reach the state of armed conflict until the September 11 attacks, which could make it harder for the prosecution to prove Hamdan's actions count as a war crime.

Separately on Monday, the Pentagon announced it had filed charges against another detainee at Guantanamo and released three from the detention center.

The Pentagon said Abdul Ghani was accused of attempted murder, material support for terrorism and conspiracy over accusations he fired rockets and planted bombs aimed at U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, and tried to kill an Afghani soldier in 2002.

The Pentagon said it had released three detainees -- one to Afghanistan, one to the United Arab Emirates and one to Qatar. It said more than 65 Guantanamo detainees are eligible for transfer or release subject to talks on where they will go.

[Gold9472]

Nothing like some good old fashioned professionally made propaganda in the court room I always say...

[Gold9472]

9/11 Architect Is Unlikely to Aid Defense Of Ex-Driver

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073003005.html

By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 31, 2008; Page A13

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, July 30 -- The self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has refused to meet with attorneys for Osama bin Laden's former driver and probably will not testify at the driver's military trial, the lawyers said Wednesday.

Attorneys for the former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, had sought the testimony of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and seven other detainees at the U.S. military prison here, in the belief they could exonerate Hamdan of terrorism conspiracy charges. Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, has provided written answers to questions from Hamdan's attorneys.

But Mohammed sent word to the defense that "he's not inclined to come to court," Harry Schneider, a lawyer for Hamdan, said at a hearing. "I see no value in trying to bring him forcibly to testify," Schneider said. He added that it is likely that Mohammed's written answers will be submitted to the jury instead.

The development is a potential blow to Hamdan's chances of acquittal in the first U.S. military commission since World War II. Mohammed was expected to tell the jury that Hamdan was a minor figure, and the military judge has said his testimony is potentially exculpatory.

Whether Hamdan was an al-Qaeda insider who ferried weapons, as the charges say, or a mere chauffeur, as his defense team contends, was the focus of the trial Wednesday.

Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent Robert McFadden testified that Hamdan told him in a 2003 interrogation that Hamdan had pledged bayat, or sworn allegiance, to bin Laden. McFadden quoted Hamdan as saying that he had an "uncontrollable enthusiasm" for bin Laden's mission of "expelling the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula."

The testimony is potentially significant because a pledge of bayat would signal a closer relationship between Hamdan and the al-Qaeda leader than other government witnesses have established.

But McFadden's statement was made outside the presence of the jury because defense attorneys are seeking to have it thrown out, contending that the 2003 interrogation of Hamdan was coercive. The judge, Navy Capt. Keith J. Allred, said in a preliminary ruling that Hamdan's admissions would not be allowed into evidence unless prosecutors could prove they were not made under coercive conditions.

The judge convened a hearing on that issue Wednesday, and McFadden testified that the conversation he and another agent had with Hamdan was "friendly, cordial." Hamdan said it was "regular" conversation," during which he did not complain of mistreatment. But he denied pledging bayat to bin Laden.

Allred said he would rule by Thursday morning.

[Gold9472]

Alleged 9/11 mastermind won't testify - live

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/623820.html

7/31/2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Reputed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed has balked at testifying in person at the trial of Osama bin Laden's driver, defense lawyers said Wednesday. Instead, the jury will get written statements from the al Qaeda kingpin and another alleged plotter in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Lawyers for Salim Hamdan, 37, plan to use the testimony of Mohammed and Walid Bin Attash to try to exonerate the driver, Hamdan, of being an al Qaeda co-conspirator.

One of those men has already written Hamdan's lawyers that the Yemeni with a fourth-grade education ''Was not fit to plan or execute,'' according to defense attorney Harry Schneider of Seattle. ``He is fit to change tires. And oil filters.''

The argument dovetails nicely with the driver's defense that he never joined al Qaeda, did not know in advance about the details of al Qaeda terror plots and merely drove for $200 a month -- and not for ideology.

The prosecution says he admitted to knowing broadly that ''operations'' were coming, and took part in high-security motorcades that spirited bin Laden and other top al Qaeda leaders safely around Afghanistan, in case of U.S. reprisal.

Moreover, they describe Hamdan as a sometime member of the al Qaeda leader's elite bodyguard unit, and a sometime weapons courier.

Defense lawyers have tried for months to get access to the alleged al Qaeda senior leaders in U.S. custody, formerly held by the CIA. The government resisted, until the eve of trial. The idea was to bring in what defense lawyers call self-confessed terrorists, people who are reportedly proud of their deeds to describe what Hamdan's role was in the organization, if any.

But Schneider notified the trial judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, late Wednesday afternoon that the so-called high-value detainee known in CIA circles as ''KSM'' would not be testifying in person, and neither would Bin Attash, who like Hamdan is a Yemeni.

Bin Attash is also implicated in both the 9/11 plot and the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole of Aden, Yemen, an event that Hamdan claims to have first believed was carried out by the Israelis, not his boss. Seventeen soldiers died in the suicide attack by two men who blew up an explosives-laden boat alongside the $1 billion U.S. Navy destroyer -- and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh initially blamed Israel's Mossad.

Last week, ''KSM refused to meet'' with Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, Schneider told the trial judge. Mizer is Hamdan's Pentagon-appointed attorney, and had the necessary security clearances to meet with former CIA-held captives. Schneider did not.

Moreover, Mohammed ''sent notice through his detailed defense counsel that he would refuse to go to court.'' So Schneider said they would use his and Bin Attash's earlier written responses to questions sent to them by the Hamdan.

Of Mohammed, who has convinced a Marine Corps judge to let him defend himself at his own death penalty trial, Schneider said: ``I see no value to seeing him testify forcibly.''

Still unclear was whether another supposed bin Laden lieutenant, Mahdi al Iraq, would be called to testify as the lone high-value detainee at the Hamdan trial.

[Gold9472]

Verdict due in US trial of bin Laden's driver

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Verdict_due_in_US_trial_of_bin_Lade_08032008.html

8/3/2008

A verdict awaits Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Hamdan, this week in a trial seen as a test of the controversial military tribunals set up by the US administration to try suspects in the "war on terror."

Accused of "conspiracy" and "material support to terrorism," the Yemeni national is the first inmate at the Guantanamo detention camp to face a full-scale trial before the special tribunals created by President George W. Bush.

Hamdan, who is about 40 years old, faces a possible sentence of life in prison if a jury of six military officers finds him guilty. He has already spent six years behind bars at the prison in the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

His lawyers have questioned the fairness of the proceedings and argued that Hamdan was an insignificant figure while employed by bin Laden from 1998 to 2001, saying he was not involved in any way in Al-Qaeda operations.

Several witnesses, including the alleged mastermind behind the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, said Hamdan had no advance knowledge of attacks orchestrated by bin Laden against US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 or the attacks of September 11, 2001 against New York and Washington.

"He was not fit to plan or execute," Mohammed, who is also due to be tried by the tribunals, said in written testimony.

"Hamdan had no previous knowledge of the operation, or any other one," he wrote, adding: "He is fit to change trucks' tires, change oil filters, wash and clean cars."

But the prosecution had FBI agents and other federal investigators tell the tribunal that interrogations showed Hamdan had spent time at Al-Qaeda training camps, was part of an inner circle loyal to bin Laden and that he had helped transport weapons including surface-to-air missiles.

The interrogations cited in the case were conducted after Hamdan's capture in November 2001 in Afghanistan following the US-led invasion that toppled the Taliban regime there.

With closing arguments set for Monday, the military jurors could begin their deliberations on Monday amid predictions from human rights groups that Hamdan will likely be found guilty on at least some of the charges.

The Bush administration hopes the first war crimes trial since World War II will show critics at home and abroad that the Guantanamo tribunals, or commissions, offer the accused a fair process.

The administration has faced heated criticism over the Guantanamo prison, which has held detainees without charges for years, and the special tribunals which operate under different rules than regular civilian or military courts.

Only a small group of authorized observers and journalists are allowed into the small courtroom and military authorities prohibit the proceedings to be videotaped by any television news networks. Reporters can bring in a pencil and notebook, nothing else.

Hamdan sits alongside his attorneys, unrestrained by cuffs or shackles, with headphones over his white turban providing him with Arabic translation.

Captain Keith Allred, the military officer presiding over the case, has barred some statements from being admitted as evidence ruling they were obtained in coercive conditions while Hamdan was under US detention in Afghanistan.

Defense lawyers charged Hamdan was subjected to abuse while in US custody, including humiliating interrogation tactics and sleep deprivation.

But the Pentagon denies any abuse and says the military commissions offer a fair and just trial.

Five inmates at Guantanamo accused of participating in the September 11 attacks, including Mohammed, are scheduled to be tried in coming months.

And the trial of Omar Khadr, a Canadian national captured in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old, is also expected to go ahead later this year in Guantanamo.

[Gold9472]

Hamdan Seen as 'Not Fit' for Terror
Alleged 9/11 Architect Says bin Laden's Driver Was 'Not a Soldier'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080100982.html?hpid=sec-nation

By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 2, 2008; Page A07

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Aug. 1 -- Osama bin Laden's former driver was a "primitive" chauffeur and mechanic who "was not fit to plan or execute" terrorist attacks, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks told jurors in writing Friday at the driver's military trial.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 architect, wrote that Salim Ahmed Hamdan was a low-level support staffer who never joined al-Qaeda and did not share bin Laden's ideology. Hamdan is on trial in the first U.S. military commission since World War II. His lawyers rested their case Friday, and closing arguments are scheduled for Monday.

"He did not play any role. He was not a soldier, he was a driver," Mohammed said in answers to written questions from Hamdan's lawyers that were relayed to the six military jurors. "His nature was more primitive (Bedouin) person and far from civilization. He was not fit to plan or execute."

The testimony provided another tantalizing glimpse inside the mind of Mohammed, who has been charged in the most devastating terrorist attack in U.S. history and has been a figure of intrigue since his arrest in 2003. He sketched out a vision of al-Qaeda as a group whose members also have "wives and children and schools" and said that anyone who thinks a mere driver would be involved in attacks "is a fool."

Attorneys for Hamdan, who is charged with ferrying weapons for al-Qaeda as part of a terrorism conspiracy, had wanted Mohammed to testify live in court at the U.S. detention facility here. They had told jurors there was "a significant chance" they would hear from the perpetrators of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

But Mohammed, after answering written questions, refused to meet with Hamdan's lawyers and declined to appear in court. His written remarks back up the defense's argument that Hamdan was a mere chauffeur uninvolved in terrorism. But it is uncertain if a military jury will take the word of an accused al-Qaeda leader.

The statements of Mohammed, who first appeared in court in June and railed at the military commission system that is expected to try him as well, revealed no lack of self-confidence. He called himself the "executive director of 9/11" and said he oversaw all al-Qaeda cells operating outside Afghanistan. He dismissed drivers such as Hamdan, a Yemeni father of two with a fourth-grade education, as mostly "illiterate."

His statement said Americans do not understand that al-Qaeda is a multifaceted terrorist organization that also employs a support network of professionals, such as teachers and computer engineers. "We are not gangs," he wrote.

"As the American Army (we) have drivers, cooks, crewmen and legal personal," Mohammed wrote, according to a translation from his original Arabic that was provided to the jurors. "We also, are human beings . . . we have interests in life. Our people have wives and children and schools. . . . You can not understand terrorism and Al-Qaeda from 9/11 operation."

He said al-Qaeda has been able to carry out its attacks successfully because of the group's diffuse structure and penchant for secrecy.

"One of the reasons for the success of the outside operations is the secrecy of the operations," Mohammed wrote. "So many of (bin Laden's) inner circles have no knowledge of what he was planning and so many of Al-Qaeda's members and even the trainers at the military camps do not have any knowledge of the works of the outside cells. That includes the civilian employees."

Hamdan, whom prosecution witnesses have described as personally close to bin Laden, was a mere cog in the al-Qaeda structure, the self-proclaimed terrorist leader wrote. "He was a driver and auto mechanic . . . he was not at all a military man," Mohammed said. "He is fit to change trucks' tires, change oil filters, wash and clean cars, and fasten cargo in pick up trucks."

Mohammed also attempted to shed light on what Hamdan was doing when he was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001. Prosecution witnesses testified that Hamdan had two shoulder-fired missiles in his car when he was arrested and that he told interrogators he transported weapons for al-Qaeda.

After the United States attacked Afghanistan following Sept. 11, Hamdan's job was to transport "Al-Qaeda's families" out of harm's way, Mohammed said. He would know, Mohammed added, because "I was personally responsible for transporting and getting out all families from Afghanistan to Pakistan."

A statement by another detainee also said Hamdan was not involved.

[Gold9472]

US: Bin Laden driver helped make 9/11 possible

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hlkUMaokG6I7flYKGhlBfsW9qP9wD92BJP900

By MIKE MELIA – 1 hour ago

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — Osama bin Laden's former driver offered the terrorist leader aid and protection that helped make the Sept. 11 attacks possible, prosecutors said Monday in closing arguments at the first Guantanamo war crimes trial.

Prosecutor John Murphy said evidence in Salim Hamdan's two-week trial showed the Yemeni detainee played a "vital role" in the conspiracy behind the 2001 attacks.

"There's an intricate pattern in which this accused helped in the preparation of and transportation of the leadership that made this possible," said Murphy, a civilian attorney with the Justice Department.

But Hamdan's Pentagon-appointed attorney countered that the defendant was merely a low-level bin Laden employee who never joined the al-Qaida conspiracy against the United States.

"Not one witness said he had any role in the terrorist attacks themselves," Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer said in closing arguments. "Mr. Hamdan is not an al-Qaida warrior."

A jury of military officers is expected to begin deliberating a verdict later Monday in the case against Hamdan, who is charged with conspiracy and supporting terrorism. He faces a maximum life sentence if convicted at the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War II.

The judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, told the jury of six military officers that at least four must find Hamdan guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt" to convict him.

Allred reminded jurors that he allowed evidence from FBI interrogators who did not advise Hamdan of his right against self-incrimination and urged them to decide its merit for themselves.

"You must decide the weight and significance, if any, such statements deserve," Allred told the jurors, who were hand-picked by the Pentagon and flown to the base in southern Cuba for the case.

Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in southern Afghanistan in November 2001 with two surface-to-air missiles in the car. Prosecutors accused Hamdan of transporting weapons for al-Qaida and evacuating bin Laden to safety after learning he was about to launch terrorist "operations," including the Sept. 11 attacks.

Hamdan is one of roughly 80 prisoners that the Pentagon plans to prosecute in the tribunal system.

So far, only one Guantanamo inmate has been convicted. Australian David Hicks reached a plea agreement that sent him home to serve a nine-month prison sentence.

[Gold9472]

Changing lug nuts not a war crime, jury told

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/_Changing_lug_nuts_not_war_0804.html

Reuters
Published: Monday August 4, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden's driver performed vital services that enabled "the world's most dangerous terrorist" to launch attacks, a prosecutor told jurors before they began deliberations on Monday in the first U.S. war crimes trial at Guantanamo.

But defense lawyers for Yemeni captive Salim Hamdan argued he was merely a hired laborer akin to the defense contractors who provide services to U.S. forces. "Changing lug nuts and oil filters" were hardly war crimes, they said..

Hamdan was not even trusted to know where he was driving bin Laden until after a convoy departed, Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, his U.S. military defense lawyer, told the jury of six U.S. military officers.

Hamdan, who is about 38, was captured in November 2001 in Afghanistan, where he had worked in bin Laden's motor pool since 1996. He could face life in prison if convicted of conspiring with al Qaeda and supporting terrorism in the first U.S. war crimes tribunal since World War Two.

Even if he is acquitted, or sentenced to less than the six years he has already spent in captivity, the United States says it still can hold him as an "unlawful enemy combatant" until the end of the war on terrorism declared by President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks.

Hamdan says he drove for bin Laden because he needed the $200 monthly wage but denies joining al Qaeda, pledging loyalty to bin Laden or participating in attacks.

Prosecutors portrayed Hamdan as a key conspirator who enthusiastically drove and protected the al Qaeda leader, knowing that bin Laden's goals included murdering Americans and taking down Western nations.

"He's an al Qaeda warrior. He has wounded - and the people he has worked with - have wounded the world," prosecutor John Murphy said.

The prosecutor said Hamdan ferried al Qaeda weapons and served as bin Laden's bodyguard. He was assigned to drive him to safety if his convoy came under attack, providing the last line of defense for the man at "the top of this terror pyramid," Murphy said.

"These terror attacks could not have been carried out without the ability to transport the leadership before, during and after the attacks and allow them to kill on another day," he said.

The defense recounted testimony that Hamdan was bored by bin Laden's speeches and that when captured at a checkpoint in Afghanistan, he ran and hid in a ditch rather than fire the AK-47 he carried. Afterward, Hamdan led U.S. forces on a tour of Kandahar, pointing out al Qaeda safe houses, Mizer said.

He said Hamdan had cooperated with U.S. interrogators, and alluded to secret testimony that journalists were not allowed to hear, apparently referring to an offer Hamdan had made to help U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

"You know what happened, how we squandered that opportunity," Mizer told the jurors.

Mizer also recounted written testimony from accused September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who described his fellow Guantanamo prisoner as a primitive Bedouin only interested in bin Laden's money and unfit to plan and execute attacks.

Defense lawyers portrayed the prosecution's case as guilt by association and said Hamdan was no more involved in al Qaeda attacks than were bin Laden's cooks, farmers and goatherds.

"Hitler's driver was never charged with a war crime and it doesn't work that way today," defense lawyer Joseph McMillan said.

Hamdan's trial is the first to be conducted by the controversial tribunals the Bush administration create to prosecute non-U.S. citizens outside the civilian and military court system.

An Australian former captive, al Qaeda trainee David Hicks, avoided trial at Guantanamo by pleading guilty to providing material support for terrorism and finished his nine-month sentence in his homeland last year.

At least four of the six military jurors must agree by secret, written ballot in order to return a guilty verdict for Hamdan.

[Gold9472]

Gitmo detainees subject to detention even if acquitted: Pentagon

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Gitmo_detainees_subject_to_detentio_08052008.html

8/5/2008

Some detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will likely never be released because of the danger they pose, and those tried and acquitted will still be subject to continued detention as enemy combatants, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, made the remarks as Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni, awaited a verdict in the first war crimes trial to be held under a special regime created for "war on terror" suspects.

Morrell said Hamdan, a former driver of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, could appeal the verdict in US courts.

"But in the near term, at least, we would consider him an enemy combatant and still a danger and would likely still be detained for some period of time thereafter," he said.

Morrell said there were plans for at least 20 more such trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba but he said a significant portion of the detainees being held there would neither be tried nor released.

He said efforts were being made to reduce the size of the population through transfers of prisoners to their home countries for incarceration or release.

"But I think, you know, there are still a significant population within Guantanamo who will likely never be released because of the threat they pose to the world, for that matter," he said.

[Gold9472]

Military jury convicts bin Laden's driver

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hlkUMaokG6I7flYKGhlBfsW9qP9wD92CRJ300

By MIKE MELIA – 2 hours ago

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — A jury of six military officers at Guantanamo Bay reached a split verdict Wednesday in the war crimes trial of a former driver for Osama bin Laden, clearing him of some charges but convicting him of others that could send him to prison for life.

The Pentagon-selected jury deliberated for about eight hours over three days before convicting Salim Hamdan of supporting terrorism. He was cleared of the conspiracy charge.

Hamdan, who faces a maximum life sentence, held his head in his hands and wept at the defense table after a Navy captain presiding over the jury read the sentence in a hilltop courtroom on this U.S. Navy base.

The judge scheduled a sentencing hearing for later Wednesday.

Defense lawyers had feared a guilty verdict was inevitable, saying the tribunal system's rules seemed designed to achieve convictions, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, Salim Hamdan's Pentagon-appointed attorney.

"I don't know if the panel can render fair what has already happened," Mizer told reporters as the jury deliberated.

Hamdan's attorneys said the judge allowed evidence that would not have been admitted by any civilian or military U.S. court, and that interrogations at the center of the government's case were tainted by coercive tactics, including sleep deprivation and solitary confinement.

Supporters of the tribunals said the Bush administration's system provided extraordinary due process rights for defendants.

"This military judge is to be commended for providing a fair and internationally legally sufficient trial for the accused and the government — regardless of the ultimate verdict," said Charles "Cully" Stimson, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs.

Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in southern Afghanistan in November 2001 and taken to Guantanamo in May 2002.

The military accused him of transporting missiles for al-Qaida and helping bin Laden escape U.S. retribution following the Sept. 11 attacks by driving him around Afghanistan. Defense attorneys said he was merely a low-level bin Laden employee.

[Gold9472]

Bin Laden's Driver Apologizes For 9/11
Salim Hamdan Apologizes for the Innocent Victims of the 9/11 Attacks

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/wireStory?id=5532477

8/7/2008

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden's driver apologized on Thursday in a sentencing hearing in a U.S. war crimes court at Guantanamo for any pain his services to al Qaeda caused its U.S. victims.

"I don't know what could be given or presented to these innocent people who were killed in the U.S.," Salim Hamdan told a jury of six military officers deciding his fate after convicting him of providing material support for terrorism.

"I personally present my apologies to them if anything what I did have caused them pain," he said through an Arabic-English interpreter at the first U.S. war crimes tribunal since the aftermath of World War Two.

A forensic psychiatrist who interviewed the Yemeni captive behind the razor wire at the U.S. naval base in Cuba reported that Hamdan wept when he first saw videotape of planes crashing into the World Trade Towers in the September 11 attacks, and that he prayed for the victims.

[Gold9472]

White House pleased by Bin Laden driver verdict

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/06/white-house-pleased-by-bin-laden-driver-verdict/

ASSOCIATED PRESS
8/7/2008

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House said Wednesday it's pleased with the outcome of the war crimes trial for a former driver for Osama bin Laden, although the jury delivered a split verdict.

The jury of six military officers at Guantanamo Bay cleared Salim Hamdan of conspiracy charges but convicted him of supporting terrorism, which could send him to prison for life.

A White House spokesman defended the process, although critics have questioned the fairness of the military commissions.

"We're pleased that Salim Hamdan received a fair trial," Deputy spokesman Tony Fratto said in a statement.

Fratto said Hamden was presumed innocent and had an opportunity to present a defense against war crimes charges.

"The Military Commission system is a fair and appropriate legal process for prosecuting detainees alleged to have committed crimes against the United States or our interests," Fratto said. "We look forward to other cases moving forward to trial."

[Gold9472]

The Trial of bin Laden’s Driver

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/opinion/l11gitmo.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1218463209-R8izcAzLLNOVnbFqxYYXrQ

8/11/2008

Re “Panel Convicts bin Laden Driver in Split Verdict” (front page, Aug. 7):

Our husbands were killed on Sept. 11, 2001; thus we have a personal interest in the Guantánamo trials and their outcome.

Since neither the promised closed-circuit TV nor the 9/11 family member trip to Cuba has materialized, we must rely on reporters to be kept informed about these proceedings.

We understand that the practices being used by these military commissions, such as allowing hearsay evidence and coerced testimony, are questionable at best and un-American at worst. What we have not been allowed to see could fill an encyclopedia.

But we do know that it has taken almost seven years for our government to convict Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s driver, of material support of terrorism. What about those who allegedly financed the terrorists, like the Saudis? Wouldn’t this be considered material support of terrorism? When will they be tried?

All Americans should sit up and take notice — if only they had access to the information!

Monica Gabrielle
Lorie Van Auken
Baiting Hollow, N.Y., Aug. 7, 2008

•

To the Editor:

Re “Guilty as Ordered” (editorial, Aug. 7):

I’m not surprised at all that Salim Ahmed Hamdan was acquitted on one of the charges. If I were trying to apply a thin veneer of credibility to my kangaroo court, that is precisely the result I would have scripted for its first trial.

Tracy Brooking
Kennesaw, Ga., Aug. 7, 2008

•

To the Editor:

Has anyone asked what would have happened to the careers of the Army officers comprising the jury if they had found Salim Ahmed Hamdan not guilty of a statute written expressly for him well after he was captured?

Gus Nicholas
Pittsburgh, Aug. 7, 2008

•

To the Editor:

Re “Panel Sentences bin Laden Driver to a Short Term” (front page, Aug. 8):

For any person who ever believed that the term “military justice” is an oxymoron, look no further than the results of the sentencing phase of the Hamdan trial.

Because so many uniformed lawyers, including prosecutors and judges, as well as defense lawyers, all insisted that they would not be party to a complete perversion of the military justice system, in spite of what the civilian establishment wanted, Salim Ahmed Hamdan was found guilty, but essentially sentenced to time served.

Capt. Keith J. Allred of the Navy, the military judge, instructed the uniformed jury members that Mr. Hamdan would be given full credit for the time he already served, so they knew full well when they sentenced him to five and a half years that he would be required to serve only another five months.

Clearly the jury members were not to be swayed by hysterics or undue command pressure. That’s the way it worked when I was in the Navy judge advocate general corps more than 25 years ago, and it’s still working that way today.

Stephen David Dix
Marietta, Ga., Aug. 8, 2008

•

To the Editor:

I do not know Salim Ahmed Hamdan, nor do I know much about what he did or did not do. I do know that the military prison at Guantánamo Bay and the military tribunal system put in place there specifically to avoid recognizing the basic rights of prisoners has made me feel shame for my country.

It was heartening then, to see the Hamdan jury of military officers do what they felt was right in the face of significant government pressure not to (“Panel Sentences bin Laden Driver to a Short Term,” front page, Aug. 8). Their courage and commitment to humanity and fairness put our country’s finest core values on display for the world and made me proud to be an American.

Jim Bristow
San Francisco, Aug. 8, 2008

•

To the Editor:

Osama bin Laden’s driver faces prison while Mr. bin Laden goes free.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Ilya Shlyakhter
Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 8, 2008

[Gold9472]

'Spray and pray': Pentagon's Gitmo adviser accused of bullying, rushing trials

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Spray_and_pray_Pentagons_Gitmo_adviser_0813.html

Associated Press
Published: Wednesday August 13, 2008

A Pentagon official who oversees the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals faced new internal criticism Wednesday as a prison commander accused him of bullying subordinates and trying to rush forward with trials.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, whose management of the tribunals prompted the chief prosecutor to resign last year, was "abusive, bullying, unprofessional" when demanding files on prisoners, said Army Brig. Gen. Gregory Zanetti, the second-in-command at the U.S. prison.

Zanetti testified that Hartmann, the legal adviser for the tribunals, pushed for the trials to start amid legal challenges filed by lawyers for the prisoners.

"The strategy seemed to be spray and pray," he said. "Charge everybody. Let's go. Speed, speed speed."

Zanetti's testimony came in a pretrial hearing for Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan accused of wounding two U.S. soldiers with a grenade in 2002. Jawad's lawyer is seeking to have the charges dismissed, arguing that Hartmann improperly interfered with the case.

A judge in the trial of another detainee, Salim Hamdan, previously disqualified Hartmann from participating in that case, saying he aligned himself too closely with prosecutors.

Hamdan was convicted last week and sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison, concluding the first Guantanamo war crimes trial.

The U.S. has said it plans to prosecute about 80 prisoners at Guantanamo and others are expected to file similar challenges against Hartmann.

At an April hearing at Guantanamo, former chief prosecutor Air Force Col. Morris Davis testified that Hartmann meddled in his office and pushed for certain cases to be pursued over others based on political considerations. Davis resigned in October.

Zanetti, a liaison between the detention center and the tribunals, said Hartmann wanted control of the entire process without regard for command structure, but the approach was not considered all bad because it produced results.

"We kind of respected it because the process hadn't been moving," Zanetti said.

Hartmann supervises the chief prosecutor at Guantanamo and has extensive powers over the tribunal system.

The legal adviser has said he believed he was doing his job properly. He was expected to testify Wednesday in a separate courtroom to address a challenge by lawyers for a Canadian detainee who have also accused him of "unlawful influence."

[Gold9472]

Guantanamo trials put generals at odds

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080813/us_nm/guantanamo_hearings_dc_4

By Jane Sutton
Wed Aug 13, 6:50 PM ET

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - The U.S. military was so eager to get the sluggish Guantanamo war crimes trials moving that the legal adviser to the Pentagon overseer adopted a "spray and pray" approach to pursuing charges, a U.S. general testified on Wednesday.

"The strategy seemed to be spray and pray, let's go, speed, speed, speed," Army. Brig. Gen. Gregory Zanetti said. "Charge 'em, charge 'em, charge 'em and let's pray that we can pull this off."

Zanetti, the deputy commander of the military task force that runs the Guantanamo detention operation, testified in a pretrial hearing for Mohammed Jawad.

The Afghan prisoner is accused of throwing a grenade into a U.S. military Jeep at a bazaar in Kabul in December 2002, wounding two U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter.

Jawad's military lawyers said the charges should be dismissed because they were tainted by unlawful influence from Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, the officer appointed to give impartial legal advice to the Pentagon official overseeing the war crimes tribunals at the U.S. military base in Cuba.

Wednesday's testimony pitted one U.S. general against another, exposing some of the internal fractures within the military regarding a tribunal process long condemned by human rights advocates as corrupted by politics.

Testifying by video link from the Pentagon on Wednesday, Hartmann said he viewed it as his mission to get the trials moving but in a fair and transparent manner. He acknowledged telling prosecutors he wanted cases that would "capture the public's imagination."

GENERAL'S CONTROVERSIAL ROLE
Lawyers for Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, succeeded in getting Hartmann banned from further involvement in that case before Hamdan's trial began. Hamdan was convicted last week on charges of providing material support for terrorism and sentenced to 5-1/2 years in prison, most of which he has already served at Guantanamo.

That was the first full trial since the United States began sending suspected al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners to Guantanamo in January 2002. The Pentagon plans to try as many as 80.

The former chief prosecutor, Air Force Col. Moe Davis, testified in that case that Hartmann took over the prosecution office, demanding charges in "sexy" cases in which defendants had "blood on their hands" and dictating who would be charged and when.

Davis testified on Wednesday that Jawad's case "went from the freezer to the frying pan thanks to Gen. Hartmann."

He repeated allegations that prosecutors were pushed to file charges before the November U.S. presidential election against five prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 attacks.

Zanetti characterized Hartmann as "abusive, bullying and unprofessional" and said he regularly delivered profanity-laced tirades that reduced an airborne ranger to "a puddle."

He quoted Hartmann as saying he was "taking over this thing" and that he advised Guantanamo officers during videoconferences "who he was going to charge and when."

Hartmann in his testimony said he did question prosecutors about the strengths and weaknesses of cases under consideration but never directed whom should be charged or with what.

Hartmann's role is also the subject of a defense request to drop the charges against Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr, who is charged with murdering U.S. Army Sgt. Christopher Speer with a hand grenade during a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in 2002.

Pretrial hearings were held simultaneously on Wednesday for Jawad and Khadr, who both face life in prison if convicted on charges stemming from alleged actions as juveniles.

Hartmann acknowledged briefing Canadian government officials about Khadr's case and providing them with copies of legal filings that had been mentioned in news reports.

The hearings continue on Thursday for Khadr who was 15 when captured and is now 21, and Jawad, who was 16 or 17 when captured and is now 23.

[Gold9472]

Pentagon official removed from 2nd Gitmo trial

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/7725421

By MIKE MELIA
Associated Press Writer
8/16/2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - A military judge on Thursday barred a Pentagon official from taking part in a second war crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay, providing more ammunition for detainee lawyers who allege that political interference taints the proceedings.

The ruling will fuel defense challenges in other trials at this U.S. Navy base, where a former chief prosecutor and defense lawyers have accused Air Force Brig Gen. Thomas Hartmann, the legal adviser to the tribunals, of demanding that certain cases be pursued over others based on political considerations.

The judge, Army Col. Steve Hanley, ruled that Hartmann compromised his objectivity in public statements aligning himself with prosecutors and defending the Pentagon's system for prosecuting alleged terrorists.

Hartmann, who was also barred from the first Guantanamo war crimes trial, will not be allowed to provide further advice in the case against an Afghan detainee. But the judge rejected a defense request to dismiss war crimes charges against the prisoner, Mohammed Jawad.

The former chief prosecutor, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, testified that Hartmann pushed for Jawad to be charged because the American public would be gripped by the details of the case - a grenade attack on two U.S. soldiers and their interpreter in Afghanistan.

"The guy who threw the grenade was always at the top of the list,'' Davis said.

Jawad's attorney, Air Force Maj. David Frakt, said the ruling "really affects some of the high-profile cases that Gen. Hartmann has had his hands in.''

Guantanamo's chief prosecutor, Army Col. Lawrence Morris, said he expects further challenges over Hartmann's role in other cases.

"We are going to have to address those in court,'' Morris told The Associated Press.

Among those who have challenged Hartmann's involvement in the preparation of charges are lawyers for five men accused in the Sept. 11 attacks, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Hartmann supervises the chief prosecutor at Guantanamo and has extensive powers over the tribunal system. He testified Wednesday that he believed he was doing his job properly and said he has not offered to resign.

A judge in America's first war-crimes trial since World War II disqualified Hartmann from participating in that case. The defendant, Salim Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, was convicted last week and sentenced to 5 years in prison.

[Gold9472]

9/11 mastermind takes lead role in Gitmo courtroom

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZXxZ9jWlnYZ5G_1_W_-FG8F2vHwD93CJVNG0

By MIKE MELIA – 59 minutes ago

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — Professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed took center stage in a military court Tuesday as he questioned the judge's impartiality and acted as the de facto spokesman for his four co-defendants.

Mohammed, the highest-profile al-Qaida figure in U.S. custody, boasted at a 2007 closed hearing that he was responsible for 31 terrorist plots and the Sept. 11 attacks "from A to Z" — claims that U.S. officials said were exaggerated.

Mohammed's interactions with the judge and his co-defendants on Tuesday underscored his taste for the limelight and sense of authority. The former al-Qaida No. 3 has led his co-defendants in raising challenges to the court and even assisted in getting a boycotting co-defendant to leave his cell.

Glaring at Judge Ralph Kohlmann from beneath bushy eyebrows and a black turban, Mohammed pressed the Marine colonel to explain how he could provide a fair trial as a member of the U.S. Armed Forces that are at war with al-Qaida.

"How can you, as an officer of the U.S. Marine Corps, stand over me in judgment?" Mohammed, who is acting as his own lawyer, asked in English. "How can you be unbiased, given your position?"

Mohammed also questioned the judge about his religion, his Marine training and his knowledge of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics Mohammed experienced in CIA custody before he and his co-defendants were transferred to this U.S. military base in southeast Cuba in September 2006.

Seeking to justify his question about Kohlmann's religious faith, Mohammed declared that "there are some extremist organizations in America that are against us."

"If you for example were part of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson's groups, then you would not at all be impartial toward us," Mohammed continued.

Kohlmann, wearing black judge's robes over his uniform, responded that he doesn't belong to a church now but has attended Lutheran and Episcopalian services.

He said he had seen references to the prisoners' treatment in CIA custody but has not read detailed accounts of their experience. According to the rules set forth for the first U.S. war-crimes trials since the end of World War II, the judge can exclude evidence that he determines was obtained through torture.

But Kohlmann made clear his patience is limited. He scolded Mohammed twice for ignoring his instructions to stick to the topic at hand, and warned he could lose the right to represent himself.

"You are not going to have free rein," Kohlmann intoned from the bench. "I will not allow you to act in a manner that is disrespectful to this court."

During breaks, Mohammed pivoted in his seat at his defense table and chatted amiably in Arabic with his co-defendants who sat at their own tables arrayed behind him, despite complaints that he used a similar opportunity in June to pressure the others to reject their Pentagon-appointed defense lawyers. His co-defendants later denied they were intimidated.

Kohlmann initially proposed beginning Tuesday's pretrial hearing with questions from lesser-known detainees. But the other four defendants agreed one by one that Mohammed, seated at the table closest to the judge, should go first.

All five face the death penalty if convicted of their roles in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Mohammed has also offered himself as a problem solver. With his co-defendant Ramzi Binalshibh refusing to appear in court on Monday, Mohammed raised his hand and volunteered to help persuade him to come. The three others agreed to help as well and all four sent letters to Binalshibh.

Binalshibh, accused of helping the Sept. 11 hijackers enter the United States and find flight schools, agreed to leave his cell and came to court on Tuesday. In court, Binalshibh followed up Mohammed's questions about the judge's religion.

"As far as I know, your last name is Kohlmann, which is a Jewish name, not a Christian name," Binalshibh said

The judge said Binalshibh's statement was inaccurate, told him not to interrupt, and asked Mohammed to resume his questions.

[Gold9472]

Guantanamo war-crime trials advisor is reassigned
Military judges in three separate cases had barred Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann from further participation in various aspects of the military commissions.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gitmo20-2008sep20,0,5785697.story

By Peter Finn, Washington Post
September 20, 2008

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon transferred a controversial senior official involved in overseeing the war-crimes trials at Guantanamo Bay into a new position Friday, a move that was anticipated after military judges in three separate cases barred Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann from further participation in various aspects of the military commissions.

Defense officials, who would discuss the reassignment only on the condition of anonymity, said Hartmann's position became untenable after judges ruled that he had improperly influenced prosecutors by pressing them to move to trial quickly and, over their objections, used evidence obtained from interrogations that involved coercive techniques. Legal disputes over Hartmann's role threatened to delay trials that the Bush administration wants to see up and running.

The Defense Department said in a statement Friday that Hartmann will remain involved as director of operations, planning and development for military commissions. His deputy, Michael Chapman, will become the new legal advisor.

"Gen. Hartmann has driven the commissions process forward since his arrival in July 2007," Daniel J. Dell'Orto, acting general counsel at the Pentagon, said in a statement. "In no small part because of his efforts and his dedication, the commissions are an active, operational legal system."

Hartmann was the legal advisor to the convening authority, Susan J. Crawford, a Pentagon lawyer whose role is to exercise a neutral role in the commissions, overseeing but not dictating the work of prosecutors and allocating resources to both the prosecution and defense.

Military defense lawyers, human rights groups and a former lead prosecutor expressed dismay that Hartmann will remain in a position that they say will allow him to continue influencing cases.

"Elevating his deputy and leaving him in the process, I'm afraid, will be like the Vladimir Putin-Dmitry Medvedev relationship where there's some real doubt over who pulls the strings," said Col. Morris Davis, a former chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, drawing a parallel to the Russian prime minister and the protege he helped elevate to the presidency.

Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, military defense counsel for Canadian defendant Omar Khadr, said in a statement that "Hartmann's reassignment should be seen for what it is -- a thin veneer for what amounts to being fired for his excessive and unlawful interference in the military commissions process."

Human Rights Watch said that "instead of trying to clean up house, the Pentagon has now moved a man accused of bullying prosecutors to bring cases to trial and dismissing concerns about evidence being tainted by torture into a position coordinating all matters relating to the commissions."

Hartmann dismissed the criticism: "We are going to produce fair, open and just trials."

Attorneys for some of the most high-profile defendants at Guantanamo, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is accused of being the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, are still seeking to have the charges against their clients dismissed because of Hartmann's actions.

[Gold9472]

9/11 Defendant Queries Judge on Beliefs
Accused Mastermind Tries to Prove Bias

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/23/AR2008092303341.html

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 24, 2008; Page A16

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Sept. 23 -- Invoking names such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Buchanan, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the admitted organizer of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, probed the private opinions of the military judge who is overseeing his case Tuesday in a series of sometimes testy exchanges during a hearing on the judge's impartiality.

Mohammed, wearing a black turban, began by asking Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann about his religious beliefs and whether he had any association with the religious organizations of Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell.

"If you are in one of those denominations, you are not going to be fair," said Mohammed, who switched between Arabic and English when he spoke to the judge. The judge said he had not belonged to any congregation for some time but had attended Lutheran and Episcopal churches.

The pretrial hearing provided Mohammed and four other defendants facing murder and war crimes charges for their alleged involvement in the terrorist attacks with the opportunity to discover any bias that would suggest Kohlmann should recuse himself. Three of the five, including Mohammed, are representing themselves.

Kohlmann, who will rule on his own impartiality, noted that he had responded to nearly 600 questions in writing. Tuesday's proceeding allowed the defendants and their attorneys to ask follow-up questions.

Ramzi Binalshibh, another defendant, interjected, "Your last name is Kohlmann, which is a Jewish name, not a Christian name." Kohlmann told him he was mistaken.

Binalshibh had previously refused to appear in court but showed up voluntarily Tuesday after Mohammed and the other defendants, with the court's approval, sent notes to his cell asking him to take his seat.

Binalshibh continued to insist that he represents himself and attacked his lawyers for, among other things, raising questions about his mental state. Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, Binalshibh's assigned military defense attorney, noted that Binalshibh was reading a newspaper article and apparently oblivious when the judge was explaining the defendant's need to be in court and his rights.

"She was busy writing," retorted Binalshibh, who said he simply did not want to look at the judge. He added forcefully: "I am not mentally incompetent."

Apart from Binalshibh's interruption, Mohammed was the only defendant to question the judge. He focused for some time on a seminar the judge led at his daughter's high school in 2005. The judge, who revealed the seminar in a previous case held at Guantanamo Bay, held a class on the legal and ethical issues associated with torture or coercive interrogation.

"It appears that you are supportive of torture for the sake of national security. Is that correct?" Mohammed asked.

Kohlmann said he laid out a "ticking-bomb scenario" and then challenged the students to examine their initial responses. But he said he provided no answer to "what would be permissible or ethical or lawful."

Lawyers for the other defendants also probed the judge's attitude toward torture and its definition, but Kohlmann largely sidestepped the issue.

Mohammed's sometimes rambling disquisition even touched on the Marine Corps Rifleman's Creed. "Is that right: Every Marine is a rifleman?" Mohammed asked, wondering aloud how any Marine could judge him and the other defendants when the Corps was fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and "killing our people."

When Kohlmann told Mohammed that some of his questions were irrelevant, the defendant muttered aloud, "You reject to answer."

Kohlmann then warned Mohammed that he will be held to the same standard as any lawyer before the court and that he risked losing his ability to represent himself if he persisted with such asides.

The judge also said Mohammed's questions seemed to be an attempt "to develop a personality profile." The exchange came after Mohammed asked whether the judge read books by Billy Graham or Pat Buchanan, and what movies he watched.

"I decline to provide you with my reading list or my movie list," Kohlmann said.

[Gold9472]

9/11 defendant mounts vigorous defense

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/24/news/CB-Guantanamo-Sept-11-Trial.php

The Associated Press
Published: September 24, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba: The proclaimed architect of the Sept. 11 attacks once declared that he wanted to be executed and become a martyr. But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed mounted a vigorous defense during a pretrial hearing on Wednesday, even asking the military judge to remove himself.

Acting as his own attorney, Mohammed's readiness to raise challenges on behalf of himself and his four co-defendants ensured that their trial won't be short. The case now has little chance of going to trial before the end of the Bush administration.

Charles "Cully" Stimson, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, said Mohammed aims to use the military tribunal to rally al-Qaida supporters.

"KSM will mess with the system to the extent he can, and he will use the trial as a platform to speak to those who look up to him as a hero," Stimson told The Associated Press in an e-mail.

Mohammed on Wednesday asked Judge Ralph Kohlmann, a Marine colonel, to recuse himself, arguing that Kohlmann sees the defendants as "Islamic extremists."

I don't believe you respect Muslims and therefore won't provide me a just ruling," said Mohammed, who wore a black turban above a long gray beard streaked with white, using halting English.

The judge dismissed Mohammed's challenges of his impartiality and refused to recuse himself.

At Mohammed's arraignment in June — his first public appearance since he was captured in Pakistan in 2003 — Kohlmann warned him that he faces the death penalty for his confessed role as mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed 2,973 people. Mohammed said he would welcome becoming a martyr.

The defendants, who all face the death penalty if convicted, have not yet entered a plea.

But in court, Mohammed and his four co-defendants pressed requests for computer equipment, translated court transcripts and telephone access. All five are held with other "high-value" detainees in a secret location on this U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

"This is going to be a long, long, long battle before these accused get sentenced," said Army Maj. Jon Jackson, an attorney for defendant Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi. His client allegedly provided the Sept. 11 hijackers with money and Western-style clothing.

Complaining of botched Arabic translations in the courtroom, the detainees also asked for the proceedings to be suspended until more competent interpreters are appointed. Mohammed filed a handwritten note in support of the motion, saying he has to resort to using "broken English."

Kohlmann did not immediately rule on the defendants' requests, but lead prosecutor Robert Swann said the government is preparing to issue each defendant a laptop computer loaded with 40,782 pages of documents and more than 50 videos.

Swann said they could not safely be provided with requested printers or other equipment with electrical cords, presumably because of the danger of suicide.

Four prisoners at Guantanamo, which currently holds 255 men suspected of links to the Taliban or al-Qaida, have killed themselves since the military offshore prison opened in January 2002.

[Gold9472]

Tribunal misgivings drive Gitmo prosecutor to quit

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-guantanamo-tribunaloct12,0,2724254.story?track=rss

By Josh Meyer | Tribune Newspapers
2:18 AM CDT, October 12, 2008

WASHINGTON — Darrel Vandeveld was in despair. The hard-nosed lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve had lost faith in the Guantanamo Bay war crimes tribunals in which he was one of the prosecutors.

His work was top secret, making it impossible to talk to family or friends. So the devout Catholic — working away from home—contacted a priest via the Internet.

"I am beginning to have grave misgivings about what I am doing, and what we are doing as a country," Vandeveld wrote in an August e-mail. "I no longer want to participate in the system, but I lack the courage to quit. I am married, with children, and not only will they suffer, I'll lose a lot of friends."

He even reached out for advice from his opposing counsel, a military defense lawyer.

"How do I get myself out of this office?" Vandeveld asked Air Force Maj. David Frakt, who was representing the young Afghan Vandeveld had been ordered to prosecute for an attack on U.S. soldiers — despite his doubts about whether Mohammed Jawad would get a fair trial.

Last month, Vandeveld resigned from active duty, becoming at least the fourth prosecutor to quit under protest. Their assertions raise fundamental questions about the fairness of the war crimes tribunals from the very people charged with implementing them, according to legal experts, human-rights observers and some current and former military officials.

In a declaration and subsequent testimony, Vandeveld said the U.S. government is not providing defense lawyers with the evidence that it has against their clients, including exculpatory information—material that is considered helpful to the defense.

Vandeveld testified that he went from being a "true believer to someone who felt truly deceived [by the tribunals]."

Army Col. Lawrence Morris, the chief prosecutor and Vandeveld's boss, said the Office of Military Commissions provides the defense "every scrap of paper and information." Vandeveld, he said, simply was disgruntled because his commanding officers disagreed with some of his legal tactics.

"I care not for myself; our enemies deserve nothing less than what we would expect from them were the situations reversed," Vandeveld said. "More than anything, I hope we can rediscover some of our American values." Some tribunal defense lawyers are preparing to call Vandeveld as a witness, saying his claims of systemic problems at Guantanamo, if true, could alter the outcome of every pending case there.

Vandeveld, now 48, once lived a relatively placid life outside Erie, Pa., with his wife and four children. He worked as a senior deputy state attorney general in charge of consumer protection in the region.

Called to active duty after the Sept. 11 attacks, Vandeveld received outstanding evaluations as a Pentagon legal adviser and judge advocate in Bosnia, the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq.

"One of the Corps' best and brightest," his commanding officer, Gen. Charles Barr, wrote in Vandeveld's June 2006 evaluation. "Save the very toughest jobs in the Corps for him."

From his Iraq assignment, Vandeveld went to Guantanamo, where he began locking horns over the Jawad case with Frakt.

Frakt believed that his client was, at worst, a confused Afghan teen of about 16 who had been brainwashed and drugged by militant extremists who coerced him into participating in a grenade-throwing incident with other older — and guiltier —men.

Vandeveld told the L.A. Times he kept finding information that appeared to bolster Frakt's claims that evidence was being withheld — including some favorable to the defense, such as information suggesting that Jawad was underage, that he was drugged before the incident and abused by U.S. forces afterward.

With Frakt pressing for the charges to be dismissed due to "outrageous government misconduct," Vandeveld proposed a plea agreement in which Jawad, now thought to be 22, could return to Afghanistan and get rehabilitation. But his superiors rejected it, Vandeveld said.

By late August, he had told Frakt that there were other "disquieting" things about Guantanamo and that his superiors were refusing to address them or to let him quietly transfer out, Frakt said.

"Now might be a good time to take a courageous stand and expose some of the 'disquieting' things that you have alluded to, whatever they may be," Frakt replied in a Sept. 2 e-mail.

Morris and other Pentagon officials say Vandeveld is not qualified to speak to systemwide problems at Guantanamo. But Frakt says he is, and that Vandeveld's declaration only scratches the surface of his concerns, according to their extensive conversations and hundreds of e-mail exchanges.

"There is a lot more that he knows," Frakt said.

[Gold9472]

9/11 suspects get laptop, no Net

http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4105

Posted by Richard Koman @ October 13, 2008 @ 10:53 AM

Al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed gets a laptop and 12 hours of battery time a day, but no Internet. That’s what a military judge ruled last week, according to the Miami Herald.

The issue in the 9/11 trail of Mohammed and his coconspirators is what resources they should get to defend themselves from their cells in Gitmo’s Camp Justice. They should have “reasonable access” to legal resources, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann ruled.
”Reasonable access does not equate to a right or an entitlement to be placed on the same footing as a technologically state of the art law office,” Kohlmann wrote in his three-page ruling.

The defendants had asked for a long list of Internet sites and legal databases. Ammar al Baluchi asked for a DVD writer, PowerPoint software, printers, a scanner and a hot line to the Pentagon’s defense counsel’s office.

Prosecutors volunteered to give the Toughbooks loaded with the government’s evidence and eight hours of battery a day. Kohlmann upped the battery time to 12 hours but ruled out phone link or live access to the Web.

The alleged terrorists’ US-based lawyers can download material and deliver via storage devices, providing “a broad range of news and Internet research sources applicable to the defense in this case.”

But first: government censors would review — and blackout material off-limits for ”operational or privacy concerns.”

[Gold9472]

9/11 kin to watch terror trial at Guantánamo, by lottery
Five relatives of Sept. 11 victims will be able to attend a hearing for an alleged al Qaeda kingpin in December.

http://www.miamiherald.com/1218/story/742841.html

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
10/27/2008

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- With the war court's future uncertain, the Pentagon has made plans to bring victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- chosen by lottery -- to watch a hearing of reputed al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed's death penalty trial.

Five will be chosen. In an Oct. 20 letter, the chief war crimes prosecutor invited relatives of those killed on 9/11 to submit names to watch a military commissions hearing Dec. 8, during the closing days of President Bush's administration, which has championed the tribunals.

Scheduled that day is a hearing in the case of Mohammed and four other former CIA-held captives accused of conspiring to train, finance and orchestrate the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people in the 2001 attacks.

Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, who has for years helped steer Bush administration detainee policy, issued an endorsement of the plan to airlift family members of those killed in the attacks to this remote U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

"Soon, some of those victim families will have the opportunity to see firsthand the fair, open and just trials of those alleged to have perpetrated these horrific acts," England said.

A former military prosecutor has testified that England had discussed with Pentagon lawyers the "strategic political value" of charging some prized Guantánamo detainees before the 2006 congressional elections.

But Pentagon officials attributed the Dec. 8 timing to finally implementing a long-promised victims witness program, which will enable thousands of family members of the Sept. 11 dead to watch the eventual trial through satellite feeds to four U.S. military bases.

No trial date has been set.

Meantime, the United States is proceeding this week with its second ever terror trial. Ali Hamza al Bahlul, about 38, is accused of recruiting jihadists while working as an al Qaeda media secretary and propagandist in Afghanistan. He faces a maximum life in prison.

SENTENCE APPEALED
Like the first man tried, Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, 40, Bahlul is from Yemen. Hamdan's military jury sentenced him to spend the rest of the year in prison, a ruling the Pentagon's prosecutor is appealing.

The prosecutor is starting the victims program by permitting five 9/11 family members to observe proceedings as the five alleged terrorists and their legal counsel argue about what law and evidence might be used at trial.

The Defense Department notified kin of the 9/11 dead through letters and postings on electronic message boards offering a chance to visit this outpost for up to a week, at Pentagon expense. Thousands are eligible to apply. They include the parents, children, spouses or siblings of those killed in New York, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.

Yet, the future of the war court itself is uncertain.

Both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have pledged to close the prison camps at Guantánamo.

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain has said through his campaign that he would keep the war court he helped establish through the 2006 Military Commissions Act but might move the trials themselves to U.S. soil.

Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama advocates trying alleged terrorists in traditional U.S. courts, not the special post-9/11 justice system that has been a keystone of the Bush administration's controversial detention policy.

One person who applied to the Guantánamo visitors program is Queens, N.Y., antiwar activist Adele Welty, whose firefighter son, Tim, was killed at the World Trade Center.

He is listed as victim No. 2653 on the conspiracy charge, which lists the names of 2,973 Sept. 11 dead.

Pentagon prosecutors seek the death penalty for the five alleged co-conspirators. But Welty is concerned that her politics might exclude her from eligibility, especially since, she said, Pentagon prosecutors had her fill out a form that asked her position on capital punishment.

She testified against executing alleged 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui during the penalty phase of his 2006 trial. ``I feel that if we're going to kill people, we're no different than the terrorists."

WARNING LETTER
And she took part in a January 2007 protest against Guantánamo detention policies on the Castro side of Cuba, which got her a warning letter from the U.S. government.

But she wants to see a portion of the trial firsthand because she's heard about the secrecy of the military commission system.

"He still needs to have a fair trial," Welty said, ``not because of who he is, but because of what kind of a country we want to be."

The chief war crimes prosecutor, Army Col. Lawrence Morris, said someone's opinion on the death penalty would have no bearing on the lottery. Rather, he said, 9/11 family members were asked to voluntarily fill out "Victim Impact Questionnaires" as an information-gathering tool.

[Gold9472]

9/11 families in Mohammed hearin