Key 9/11 Suspect To Be Tried In New York [Archive]

Gold9472

11-16-2009, 09:17 AM

Mukasey: 'very high' risk of attack over NYC 9/11 trial

http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/1109/Mukasey_very_high_risk_of_attack_on_NYC_911_trial. html

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey said today that it is highly likely that terrorists will attack New York City as a consequence of the Obama administration's decision to send five alleged Sept. 11 plotters there for trial in federal court.

During a question and answer period following a speech to a conservative legal group, Mukasey was asked about the possibility that there might be an escape by one or more prisoners.

"The [Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan] is a very secure place....Is it secure? Of course, itâ€™s secure. Theyâ€™re not going to escape," Mukasey told a conference of the Federalist Society. "The question is not whether they're going to escape. The question is whether, not only that particular facility, but the city [at] large, will then become the focus for mischief in the form of murder by adherents of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed--whether this raises the odds that it will. I would suggest to you that it raises them very high."

Mukasey said the men now to be tried in New York should have been left before military commission proceedings at Guantanamo that were already in progress.

"The plan seems to be to abandon the view that weâ€™re in a war," Mukasey said. "I canâ€™t see anything good coming out of this. I certainly canâ€™t see anything good coming out of it very quickly. And it think it would have been far preferable to try these case in the venue that Congress created for trying and where they were about to be tried."

Mukasey, a former federal judge who oversaw cases relating to the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, warned that a civilian court trial for the Sept. 11 plotters could produce " a cornucopia of information for those still at large and a circus for those still in custody."

However, despite his warnings about a terrorist attack on New York, Mukasey said he thought the legal system could carry out a fair and successful trial. He also said finding impartial jurors would not be much of a problem.

"Understand, I am a partisan of the Southern District of New York. I know of no jurisdiction where you could get people who are better prepared to deal with it, and that includes prosecutors, judges and jurors," he said. "But saying that, if you have to do it any place, that is a place to do it, is not the same as saying and should not be construed by anybody as saying thatâ€™s what I think should be done, because it isnâ€™t."

Mukasey portrayed the idea of civilian trials as a reckless "social experiment" that the nation was likely to regret.

"If I thought that I or my family or my fellow citizens had three lives to live, I suppose I could be persuaded that we should live one of them as a social experiment to see whether the result here is one that we want to live with. But I donâ€™t and they donâ€™t and you donâ€™t," he said. "It would take a whole lot more credulousness than I have available to be optimistic about the outcome of this latest experiment."

At a news conference this morning announcing the administration's decision, Attorney General Eric Holder disputed claims that having a 9/11-related trial in New York would endanger New Yorkers.

" New York has a long history of trying these kinds of cases," Holder said. "New York has a hardened system. We have talked to the Marshal Service there. An analysis was done about the capabilities that exist in New York, and I'm quite confident that we can safely hold people there, that we can protect the people who surround the courthouse area, and bring these cases successfully. So I don't think that that criticism is factually based."

Gold9472

11-16-2009, 09:17 AM

New York trial for 9/11 suspects poses legal, political risks

http://rawstory.com/2009/11/york-trial-911-suspects-raises-complications/

By Muriel Kane
Friday, November 13th, 2009 -- 8:58 pm

The announcement on Friday that the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged September 11 conspirators will be held just blocks from the former site of the Twin Towers has quickly given rise to complications.

One factor is the angry reception they are bound to receive in New York. "Hang them," a construction worker near the "ground zero' site told AFP. "Put them in a bird cage and hang it in the middle of Times Square," another man suggested.

A man who works in the area agreed that "It's the way it should have been from the beginning. This is where the crime happened," but was also concerned about "how they'll handle security."

The trial also poses legal and political risks for the Obama administration. As the Associated Press points out, "The case is likely to force the civilian federal court to confront a host of difficult issues, including rough treatment of detainees, sensitive intelligence gathering and the potential spectacle of defiant terrorists disrupting proceedings. U.S. civilian courts prohibit evidence obtained through coercion, and a number of detainees were questioned using harsh methods some call torture."

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has already objected that holding a trial in the United States "puts Americans unnecessarily at risk," and former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey complained that "the plan seems to be to abandon the view that we are at war" and warned that the trial could turn into a circus.

Attorney General Eric Holder insists, however, that there is enough untainted evidence to provide a solid case against the defendants. In addition, according to the AP, "the Justice Department, where Holder has spent most of his career, has long wanted to reassert the ability of federal courts to handle terrorism cases."

Although Holder appears confident in these five initial cases, evidence to try other Guantanamo detainees may be lacking. According to ProPublica, "Most of the remaining detainees are considered too difficult to prosecute, mostly because the evidence against them is thin or based on statements obtained through coercion." As a result, "federal and military prosecutors are racing each other to strike plea deals with at least a dozen additional Guantanamo detainees whose testimony could be used against some of the most notorious prisoners."

ProPublica describes this competition between the federal and military systems as reaching unseemly levels. "One defense attorney, who represents a high-value detainee held by the CIA in secret detention and then sent to Guantanamo, witnessed days of fighting between military and federal prosecutors over who had control of the case. 'We asked a simple procedural question and ended up bystanders to days of turf battles,' the attorney said."

It appears, for example, that Omar Khadr, the young Canadian who was captured in Afghanistan when he was only 15, will stand trial before a military tribunal. "We thought that the incoming Obama administration signalled a new day with respect to these cases," Khadr's lawyer charged. â€œI had thought this administration was better than that."

Officials told ProPublica that there may be winnable cases against 40 more detainees, but another 30 may never face former charges. "The government is fishing in very shallow water," one defense attorney said with reference to the remaining detainees. As a result, some detainees may eventually be released even without agreement from all intelligence agencies.

Gold9472

11-16-2009, 09:18 AM

Is the Case Against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Strong Enough?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091113/us_time/08599193937400

By MASSIMO CALABRESI / WASHINGTON Massimo Calabresi / Washington â€“ Fri Nov 13, 3:25 pm ET

There are hard legal cases, and there are high-profile legal cases, but the prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed may turn out to be one of the hardest high-profile cases ever. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday that Mohammed, the confessed architect of the Sept. 11 attacks who was waterboarded 183 times in U.S. custody in March 2003, will be put on trial in the Southern District of New York along with four other Sept. 11 plotters. Between the imperative of bringing an alleged mass murderer to justice and the challenge of overcoming evidence tainted by torture, the case will be messy, politically charged - and closely watched by the entire country.

The job of delivering a conviction will fall to the newly appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, Preet Bharara. Previously an assistant attorney in the Southern District prosecuting the Mob, Bharara made his name as the Senate staffer who helped drive Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez from office by uncovering and investigating the Bush Administration's firing of prosecutors for allegedly political purposes. (See pictures of Osama bin Laden.)

Bharara will have to make the case under very unusual circumstances. "The challenge for prosecutors is to try and present a case that is not tainted by evidence that is inadmissible," says Joshua Dratel, a criminal lawyer in New York who has appealed cases against terrorists on the basis of torture allegations. Holder testified at his Senate-confirmation hearings earlier this year that he believes waterboarding is torture, and any evidence obtained after Mohammed's waterboarding will likely be inadmissible.

That means the government will likely have to rely on evidence that predates the 2003 waterboarding, as well as Mohammed's 2002 statement to al-Jazeera in which he took credit for the attack. Holder said at his press conference announcing the trials Friday that he has seen evidence previously unavailable that made him confident the prosecution will be successful. "If the government's going to prosecute Mohammed for 9/11, it will have diligently and thoroughly scrubbed the evidence to obtain certainty" that it can make the case, says David Laufman, a Bush Administration prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, who tried and won cases against al-Qaeda members charged in terrorist plots.

But even if the government can make a strong case without the tainted evidence, Mohammed's treatment could cause problems. It's possible - though not likely - that a court could rule that the government doesn't have the right to prosecute someone who has been severely abused in custody. (Previously, suspects have been released even when their abuse didn't prejudice evidence against them, but there's no clear precedent for terrorism cases.) Other issues likely to be raised by the defense, says Dratel, are finding a jury that can be considered impartial, especially blocks from the World Trade Center site, and whether Mohammed's rights to a speedy trial have been violated. (See pictures of Pakistan's vulnerable North-West Frontier Province.)

Bharara will not be alone on the case. Holder jointly assigned it to him and Neil McBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. The Justice Department says the two men work well together, but not everyone agrees. "That's going to be ugly," says a former prosecutor who knows both men. The former prosecutor predicts that the Southern District will "run the show" because of its knowledge of the judges in New York, the proximity to the trial and the resources the office will be able to bring to bear.

Some Republicans and family members of the victims argue that the spectacle of trying Mohammed in federal court, instead of trying him before military commissions or simply holding the suspects indefinitely, risks endangering New Yorkers, exposing classified material and giving the plotters a platform to make themselves martyrs. "These terrorists planned and executed the mass murder of thousands of innocent Americans," Senator John Cornyn of Texas said Friday. "Treating them like common criminals is unconscionable."

The dispute over whether to try Mohammed in criminal court may not be resolved until a verdict is reached, but the debate is already raging. Says Dratel: "It's a victory for our system of justice and for the rule of law." Others disagree but think Bharara will succeed. "It's a dubious decision to send the case to federal court to be criminally prosecuted," says former top Bush White House lawyer William Burck, who worked with Bharara in the Southern District. "But if there's anyone who can pull it off, it's Preet Bharara."

Gold9472

11-16-2009, 09:18 AM

Families of 9/11 Victims Divided Over Detainee Trial Plan

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575110,00.html

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a New York City courthouse was received by families of Sept. 11 victims with mixed reaction Friday.

Many of the relatives expressed opposition to any civilian trial for terror suspects â€” especially at the federal courthouse 1,000 yards from the spot where nearly 3,000 people died.

Some called the decision a terrible mistake, while others said the trial would give the men a platform to "spew" their anti-American hatred and invective.

Ed Kowalski, of the 9/11 Families for a Secure America Foundation, said: "To allow a terrorist and a war criminal the opportunity of having U.S. constitutional protections is a wrong thing to do and itâ€™s never been done before. President Obama is wrong to do this."

"If we have to bring them to the United States, New York City is not the place to have it, let alone in a courthouse that is in the shadows of the twin towers," Lee Ielpi, whose firefighter son died in the 9/11 attacks, said. The city's wounds, he said, are simply still too raw.

"Ripping that scab open will create a tremendous hardship," he said.

"We have a president who doesn't know we're at war," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles Burlingame, had been the pilot of the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon. She said she was sickened by "the prospect of these barbarians being turned into victims by their attorneys."

But Lorie Van Auken, whose husband Kenneth was killed in the World Trade Center attacks, voiced support for the decision, saying the trials would help to bring closure.

"I'm glad to hear they are going to be brought to New York to the scene of the crime and giving the families that were affected the chance to actually watch the trial," Van Auken told Reuters.

Valerie Lucznikowska, whose nephew died at the World Trade Center, said she would not care if the suspects sounded off in court, so long as the victims' families got to see them put on trial.

"What are words? It was a horrible thing to have 3,000 people killed," she said.

Trying the men in civilian court is a risky move and is likely to confront a host of difficult issues, including rough treatment of detainees, sensitive intelligence gathering and the potential spectacle of defiant terrorists disrupting proceedings.

U.S. civilian courts prohibit evidence obtained through coercion, and a number of detainees were questioned using harsh methods some call torture.

Holder insisted both the court system and the untainted evidence against the five men are strong enough to deliver a guilty verdict and the penalty he expects to seek: a death sentence for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people who were killed when four hijacked jetliners slammed into the towers, the Pentagon, and a field in western Pennsylvania.

Gold9472

11-16-2009, 09:18 AM

What Happens If a 9/11 Terrorist Defendant is Found Not Guilty?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/11/what-happens-if-a-911-terrorist-defendant-is-found-not-guilty.html

November 15, 2009 4:08 AM

"I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice," President Obama said in Tokyo. "The American people will insist on it and my administration will insist on it."

But what happens if KSM or any of the other 9/11 defendants the Obama administration is bringing to New York for criminal prosecutions -- including Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi -- are somehow found not guilty?

Attorney General Eric Holder brushed off the question, saying, "I would not have authorized the bringing of these prosecutions unless I thought that the outcome -- in the outcome we would ultimately be successful. I will say that I have access to information that has not been publicly released that gives me great confidence that we will be successful in the prosecution of these cases in federal court."

Not everyone is so confident, of course. KSM, for instance, was subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques" that many consider torture. This includes being waterboarded 183 times in a one month. Could this undermine the case against him?

Fears of giving KSM the rights afforded defendants in a criminal case have led some to conclude that a military tribunal might be a better venue for him.

In September 2006, debating the Military Commissions Act, then-Sen. Obama said KSM and those like him would get "basically a full military trial with all the bells and whistles. He's going to have counsel, he's going to be able to present evidence, he's going to be able to rebut the government's case. Because the feeling is that he's guilty of a war crime and to do otherwise might violate some of our agreements under the Geneva Conventions."

"I think that's good that we're going to provide him with some procedure and process," then-Sen. Obama said. "I think we will convict him and I think he will be brought to justice. I think justice will be carried out in his case."

But when Holder announced on Friday that five defendants would face military tribunals, KSM was not among them.

In June, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian national, was brought to the Metropolitan Correctional Center to face 286 separate criminal charges stemming from his alleged role in the Aug. 7, 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, including conspiring with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to kill Americans, and a separate charges of murder for each of the 224 people killed embassy bombings.

We asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs what would happen if Ghailani is found not guilty?

Gibbs wouldn't bite but the question is important. If he will be freed, that prompts questions of national security and whether civilian courts are as appropriate as other venues for such trials. If he won't be freed despite being found not guilty that undermines the credibility of the trial.

"We will talk about what happens about a verdict when a verdict comes," Gibbs said.

The following day, the Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, asked â€œif weâ€™re going to treat this terrorist detainee as a common civilian criminal, what will happen to Ghailani if heâ€™s found not guilty? And what will happen to other detainees the administration wants to try in civilian courts if they are found not guilty? Will they be released? If so, where? In New York? In American communities? Or will they be released overseas, where they could return to terror and target American soldiers or innocent civilians?â€

McConnell continued: â€œIf Ghailani isnâ€™t allowed to go free, will he be detained by the government? If so, where will he be detained? Would the administration detain him on U.S. soil, despite the objections of Congress and the American people?â€

McConnell said the questions about Ghailani resemble the questions about Guantanamo in general.

â€œOn the question of Guantanamo, it became increasingly clear over time that the administration announced its plan to close the facility before it actually had a plan,â€ he said. â€œIf the administration has a plan for holding Ghailani if heâ€™s found not guilty, then it needs to share that plan with the Congress. These kinds of questions are not insignificant. They involve the safety of the American people.â€

Gold9472

11-16-2009, 09:18 AM

Navy lawyer: Defending 9/11 suspects a patriotic duty

http://rawstory.com/2009/11/navy-lawyer-defending-911-suspects-patriotic-duty/

By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, November 15th, 2009 -- 8:32 pm

"It's perfectly patriotic," said US Navy Commander Suzanne Lachelier, a military attorney appointed to represent one of the accused September 11 plotters.

She is one of only a handful of Americans who work to defend those who committed the horrific attacks in 2001 that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

"Defending the US Constitution, that's what we do as prosecutors, but also as lawyers for the defense," this young dynamic woman told AFP.

"It's about presenting the rights of the accused -- it's not at all about the facts."

Lachelier was appointed to represent Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni citizen -- and one-time roommate of suspected 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta -- whom she says suffers from severe mental problems.

President Barack Obama's administration announced Friday that Binalshibh and four other alleged co-plotters of the worst ever attacks on US soil, including self-proclaimed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would be tried in US federal court in New York city, just steps away from the scene of their crime.

"It's historic. There are a lot of things that you don't normally deal with in a regular criminal case," said Michael Acuff, who helps Sheikh Mohammed -- known as KSM -- represent himself.

"A regular criminal case isn't affected by new laws that are changing in the middle of the case or by... political concerns at the national level like these cases are, and it is not affected by the types of things that our government has said happened to Mr Mohammed."

As military reservists, the two lawyers joined in early 2008 the defense team set up by the Pentagon to assist Guantanamo Bay detainees facing trial before military commissions -- special tribunals established by Obama's predecessor George W. Bush.

Mohammed and his co-defendants spent years in secret CIA prisons where they were subjected to other interrogation methods, such as sleep deprivation, incessant loud music, and being forced to stand for long hours in uncomfortable positions.

In announcing the administration's decision, Attorney General Eric Holder vowed the co-conspirators would stand trial "before an impartial jury" and said he expected to push for the death penalty.

The five are currently held at Guantanamo, the US naval base in southern Cuba where they have already been charged with murder under the much-criticized military commissions system.

After spending years in secret CIA prisons undergoing harsh interrogation techniques that some say amount to torture, the alleged plotters gave these uniformed lawyers a rather cool reception.

"These cases make you think about your own philosophy about justice. They make you think about your own religious beliefs," noted Acuff.

"There are things in these cases that make you evaluate yourself and your country and obviously a normal case does not often do that."

Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani, was waterboarded -- subjected to simulated drowning -- 183 times during his years in US custody.

The evidence US agents obtained from the accused under coercion has raised serious questions about how they could be convicted in any regular US court of law.

Acuff, a veteran lawyer in his fifties, does not hide how much his client holds him in low esteem. At their very first hearing in June 2008, Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow defendants demanded to be rid of their court-appointed American lawyers.

Two of them, including Binalshibh, were not granted their request. And military commissions rules require that all defendants be assigned a military lawyer; those who represent themselves receive a stand-by counsel.

For Adam Thurschwell, a civilian defense lawyer specializing in death penalty matters, the military commissions system "was so grotesquely unfair" that he could not resist a chance to "make a contribution to the fairness of a capital case."

"Nobody's in favor of terrorism," he stressed.

But "a good defense lawyer wants to get his client a fair trial. That's very difficult to do and harder the more infamous the defendant is."

That position remains true for these attorneys even after long hours and countless pages of legal challenges to the system as a whole, an appearance before the Supreme Court and only three completed trials.

"For a penal lawyer, the most important thing is to personalize, to humanize a client hated by everyone," Lachelier said.

Pointing to her client's legal troubles -- he has been treated with psychotropic drugs at Guantanamo -- she hopes to convince a jury of angry New Yorkers to "not exaggerate his role" in the plot that led to the September 11 attacks.

Gold9472

11-16-2009, 09:28 AM

Giuliani furious about 9/11 trial decision

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/giuliani_furious_about_trial_decision_ZBvaqI7P3KD9 iA7L07y1SI#ixzz0X1qEazBM

By DAPHNE RETTER and CATHY BURKE
Posted: 4:11 AM, November 16, 2009

Stop coddling the 9/11 killers -- the war on terror is far from over, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani fumed yesterday.

The decision by the Obama administration to put the self-proclaimed mastermind of the terror attacks and four accomplices on trial in New York is pure politics, Giuliani charged in interviews yesterday on Fox News and CNN.

The decision, he said, proclaims, "both in substance and reality, the war on terror, in their point of view, is over."

"There seems to be an over-concern with the rights of terrorists and a lack of concern with the rights of the public."

He noted that terror chief Khalid Sheik Mohammed "asked to be brought to New York" when he was first arrested.

"I didn't think we were in the business of granting the requests of terrorists."

The Democratic administration's plan to try Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators in federal criminal trials in New York is a shift from the Republican Bush administration's anti-terror strategy -- which created military tribunals for all suspects held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Obama administration plans to close Guantanamo.

The five suspects have been accused of conspiring to finance, train and direct the 19 hijackers who seized four airliners used in the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Their trial here, Giuliani said, would be a waste of "millions and millions of dollars."

"Anyone that tells you this doesn't create additional security problems, of course, isn't telling you the truth," he said.

Other Republicans echoed similar concerns in interviews on CBS, Fox and CNN.

"They [the terrorists] are going to do everything they can to disrupt it and make it a circus and allow them to use it as a platform to push their ideology," said Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee.

But White House senior adviser David Axelrod shot back, "We believe that these folks should be tried in New York City . . . near where their heinous acts were conducted, in full view, in our court system."

He also reiterated the White House intention to close Guantanamo. "We are going to get it done," he said.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on NBC's "Meet The Press" that "I want to see them brought to justice. The most important thing for me is that, you know, they pay the ultimate price for what they did to us on 9/11."

Mayor Bloomberg applauded the decision.

He said he had "great confidence" that the NYPD and feds would "handle security expertly."

Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, whose district includes Ground Zero, said, "Would I prefer it elsewhere? Probably, but you know at this point it's here, and let's just make sure that we get the security and the resources that we need."

The administration has to give Congress 45 days' notice of its intent to transfer Guantanamo detainees from military to civilian lockups.

As the trial nears -- proceedings aren't expected to start for at least two years -- the detainees will sit it out at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, where a special unit is set aside for terror suspects.

Gold9472

11-16-2009, 09:28 AM

Plans to try 9/11 suspect in NYC draw fire

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-11-15-khalid-sheikh-mohammed_N.htm

By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON â€” Attorney General Eric Holder had just announced that accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged accomplices would stand trial in New York when the blistering critiques erupted.

"Unconscionable," declared Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "Dangerous," said former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. "An unnecessary risk," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. Democrat Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia called Friday's decision to move Mohammed from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, misguided, saying war criminals "do not belong in our courts."

Legal analysts describe the decision to try Mohammed in a civilian federal court as a high-stakes gamble by President Obama. They say the enormous legal challenges will test his administration's counterterrorism strategy and the strength of the U.S. criminal justice system.

"I can't think of another case with so much riding on it," says Ron Woods, a former federal prosecutor who represented convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says the prosecution can demonstrate the "power" of the U.S. justice system. "We have a judicial system that is the envy of the world," Leahy told CBS' Face the Nation. "Let's show the world that we can use that power."

For Obama, the decision marks a crucial step toward fulfilling his campaign pledge to close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, a stark reversal of Bush administration policy.

"The president believes it is important to get it done and to end this chapter in our history," senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union.

Mohammed, the most senior al-Qaeda operative in U.S. custody, now becomes the face of that effort. Although Holder says he is "confident" in the evidence, the path to a successful prosecution is littered with legal challenges:

How will prosecutors win a case that may be damaged by interrogators who subjected Mohammed to waterboarding, which simulates drowning, after his 2003 capture?
Can the U.S. court system stage an open trial in a case based on so much classified evidence?
Will the case stay in New York, where defense lawyers will likely question whether impartial jurors can be found?

"We're plowing new ground here," says University of Wisconsin law professor Frank Tuerkheimer, a former U.S. prosecutor.

'A major problem'

The harsh interrogation methods used against Mohammed are the greatest threat to the prosecution, legal analysts say.

Within a month after his capture in March 2003, CIA officers waterboarded the top al-Qaeda operative 183 times, according to government documents made public this year.

"If I were defense counsel, I would feel fairly confident that I could get a substantial amount of (evidence) excluded," says John Gibbons, a former chief U.S. appeals court judge who supports Holder's decision. "It will likely be a major problem."

Holder suggested last week that he expected defense lawyers to raise the issue of torture. He said he is confident in the strength of the case, which he said features evidence not yet publicly known.

"I can't believe that (prosecutors) would bring a case like this in federal court, if they were relying on evidence that a court might not admit," says Jamie Gorelick, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration and 9/11 Commission member.

The intelligence argument
Among the most compelling arguments against moving Mohammed and the other 9/11 plotters to civilian court, Kyl says, is that the government could be forced to give up valuable intelligence sources and methods used to gather evidence against the al-Qaeda operatives.

Kyl says the 1995 trial of Omar Abdel Rahman, also known as the "Blind Sheik," provided al-Qaeda with "valuable information" about U.S. intelligence operations, "making the job of fighting terrorists tougher." Rahman, convicted in a plot to blow up New York landmarks, was sentenced to life in prison.

Tuerkheimer says any potential loss of intelligence would likely be minimal because of the years that have elapsed between Mohammed's 2003 arrest and any future trial date.

"By the time his case comes to trial, the whole intelligence system will have been rebuilt," Tuerkheimer says.

A trial at Ground Zero
By choosing New York City as the site of the trial, Holder has invited a legal challenge to move it from the shadow of the 9/11 attacks, analysts say.

"I would think that this case would have to be moved out of New York just to give some semblance of a fair trial," Woods says. In 1997, the bombing prosecutions of Timothy McVeigh and Nichols were moved from the federal courthouse in Oklahoma City, which was damaged in the attack, to Denver. McVeigh was convicted and executed. Nichols is serving life in prison.

In New York, the federal courthouse is about 20 blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood.

On ABC's This Week, Giuliani said Sunday the high-profile trial "creates an extra risk" to the city.

Woods says a trial could attract threats from al-Qaeda or its sympathizers. "Are you going to have to guard the judge for the rest of his life?" he asks.

Yet Gorelick says New York has "ample experience" dealing with terrorism cases. "I think it is fitting that these suspects are going to be tried in New York," she says. "We have to be able to try cases someplace, why not New York?"

Gold9472

11-16-2009, 02:44 PM

Giuliani, Clinton Split On Mohammed NYC Trial

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/911.trial.muhammed.2.1313458.html

11/16/2009

The former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, says putting suspected Sept. 11 terrorists on trial in New York City places residents there at unnecessary risk.

Giuliani tells CNN's "State of the Union" that a more appropriate choice would be military tribunals for the terror suspects. He says that option recognizes that the U.S. is at war with Islamic terrorists.

Giuliani was mayor of New York when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Attorney General Eric Holder says he decided to bring the suspects to trial in New York because of the nature of the undisclosed evidence against them, because the 9/11 victims were mostly civilians, and because the attacks took place on U.S. soil.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, however, says she has no problem with Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try in New York City five alleged terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

A former senator from New York, Clinton tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that she understands that trials will be a painful experience for the families of those who died.

Holder says he plans to bring the professed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial in a courtroom near the site of the World Trade Center.

Clinton says she thinks it's important to note that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other officials believe that holding the trials in the city is appropriate.

New Yorkers are taking sides over the terror trial for the accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks. "I think it's a logistical and security nightmare for the American People," Alice Hoagland, mother of a 9/11 victim, said.

Hoagland's son was a passenger on United Flight 93 when terrorists crashed it into a Pennsylvania field on that tragic day. Hoagland worries that bringing the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and his accomplices to New York would make the city an even bigger target â€“ and some security experts agree.

"Keeping the courthouse secure, keeping downtown secure, we've got the manpower to do that, but what we worry about is suicide bombers, something that could attract other terrorists like the ones that are being tried," Robert Strang, of Investigative Management Group, said.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says the NYPD is fully prepared.

"We've handled high profile events, certainly high profile trials in the past, and we'll be able to do it," Kelly said.

"I am pleased that they're moving these trials to New York near the scene of the crime, giving the families that were most affected [the opportunity] to see the trials," Lorie Van Auken, wife of a 9/11 victim, said.

Van Auken lost her husband, Kenneth, on September 11, and she says she'll be in the federal courtroom in New york for the terror trial.

She says the military court proceedings in Guantanamo Bay were not open enough.

"It would be very assuring to me and a lot of others to see the American system of justice work," Van Auken said.

Some relatives fear the suspects could be freed on a technicality, that a defense attorney could challenge Mohammed's confession to planning the attacks. The government admitted to using water-boarding interrogation techniques on him 183 times in 2003.

"But ultimately, the administration would not have put these five individuals into the federal system, I think, if they weren't convinced they could get a conviction," CBS News security consultant Juan Zarate said.

Defense lawyers could argue that Khalid Sheik Mohammed's six years in detention have already violated his right to a fair trial. They could also challenge if it's possible to get an impartial jury in New York, where nearly 3,000 people were killed on September 11.

Gold9472

11-17-2009, 09:29 AM

Obama's error by trial: Civilian justice for 9/11 plotters is profound, dangerous mistake

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/11/17/2009-11-17_obamas_error_by_trial_civilian_justice_for_911_ plotters_is_profound_dangerous_mi.html#ixzz0X7gsy3 QG

Tuesday, November 17th 2009, 4:00 AM

Related NewsBombing at police station in northwestern Pakistan kills fourRadical imam: Fort Hood gunman 'trusted' me, but I didn't insitgate rampageGunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms abduct and kill 13 in BaghdadPaterson: 9/11 mastermind shouldn't be tried in NYC9/11 workers, first responders to rally for help in D.C.The foolhardiness of President Obama's decision to try the mastermind of 9/11 and four cohorts in civilian court grows ever clearer as the outlines of the proceedings take shape.

It is offensive that Obama gave his blessings to designating Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his Al Qaeda crew as common criminals rather than as enemy combatants, perpetrators of the worst attack on American soil from abroad.

But that offense, high as it is, pales in comparison with the serious practical and legal consequences of hauling these avowed enemies of the nation into Manhattan Federal Court with all the rights and protections under the Constitution.

Such as Mohammed's right to rummage through the government's intelligence and investigative files for information that is purportedly useful to his defense - but will be more helpful to Al Qaeda operatives in the field.

(Oh, so that's what the CIA has been up to!)

Such as Mohammed's right to mount a defense that attempts to put the U.S. on trial for supposed human rights violations in the detention and interrogation of prisoners.

Such as Mohammed's right to act as his own lawyer even as he perverts protections he has been granted by making a circus of the trial.

As we have said time and again, Mohammed should rightly stand before the bar of a military commission. That's where he had been, and that's where Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder should have kept him. In fact, almost a year ago, Mohammed & Co. announced that they wanted to plead guilty before such a tribunal and get on with their executions.

Although military commissions have been okayed by Congress and upheld by the courts as providing fair due process, Obama pressed forward with closing the Guantanamo camp and bringing terror suspects into civilian courts.

But Mohammed? The admitted architect of an attack plotted and launched from abroad? A foreign national who had concocted previous such schemes with the connivance and support of Osama Bin Laden?

Mohammed is not just a terror suspect. He's not the guy who wanted to bomb the Herald Square subway station, or the guy who schemed to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge. He is an unrepentant war criminal who is determined to harm the U.S. by any means possible.

A civilian trial needlessly - and thus foolhardily - enhances his ability to accomplish his goals. Critically, for example, a military commission would have the power to limit Mohammed's personal access - as opposed to his lawyer's access - to intelligence and investigative files.

This is no small matter. Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, has said sensitive material went within days from the defendants to Bin Laden.

We take a backseat to no one in craving vengeance for the mass murder of 9/11. And we would join the many New Yorkers who would take pleasure in participating in exacting justice. But we would do so knowing that Obama, in pursuit of misguided ideology and the fanciful notion that the world will think more highly of America, has taken a profoundly wrong step that will undermine the war on terror and increase the threat to New York.

Gold9472

11-17-2009, 09:30 AM

Gov. Paterson Blasts Decision to Hold 9/11 Trials in New York

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Gov-Paterson-Blasts-Decision-to-Holds-911-Trials-in-New-York-70267232.html

By HASANI GITTENS

Governor David Paterson hasn't gotten much support from the Obama administration, so maybe he's only returning the favor.

The gov Monday criticized the White House's decision to hold the September 11 trials in New York, saying it aggrivated a still sore wound for the city.

"This is not a decision that I would have made," Paterson said after a ceremony at a new City Universrity of New York campus in Harlem. "Terrorism isn't just attack, it's anxiety and I think you feel the anxiety and frustration of New Yorkers who took the bullet for the rest of the country.

"Over 2,700 lives were lost. It's very painful, we're still having trouble getting over it, we still have been unable to rebuild that site. And having those terrorists tried so close to the attack is going to be an encumbrance on all New Yorkers," he said. "But that is the decision that the federal government has made.

Paterson said the state has "taken every preparation and we have undergone every amount of research as to what that trial will cause in terms of our emergency preparedness and our homeland security protocol, and we will cooperate to the fullest extent with the federal government and with Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Police Department and hopefully this trial will go without incident."

While Mayor Bloomberg and some other New Yorkers have said that the decision to hold civilian federal trials for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 conspirators in Manhattan was a good one, Paterson is siding with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani in his critique of Attorney General Eric Holder's plan.

Asked if he thought the trial should have been a military tribunal instead of civilian, Paterson joked a little.

â€œI donâ€™t think that Iâ€™ve had a chance -- you know Iâ€™ve been a little busy lately -- and I havenâ€™t had a chance to read the material that would have informed me as to whether or not it would have been better for it to have been e a military tribunal or whether it should have been a civilian trial," said the governor, who has been embroiled in battles over the budget, gay marriage, license plates, state authorities and even the legitimacy of his 2010 campaign.

On Friday, Paterson had been more reserved in his judgement of the decision, saying "I do not understand why the decommissioneed [the terror suspects] from serving or being tried on Guantanamo Bay, but that's a decision that the federal government made and our job is to help them."

Gold9472

11-17-2009, 10:07 AM

Poll: Most Americans want military trial for 9/11 suspects

http://rawstory.com/2009/11/poll-americans-military-trial-911-suspects/

By Agence France-Presse
Monday, November 16th, 2009 -- 9:25 pm

Almost two-thirds of Americans disagree with the decision by President Barack Obama's administration to try the suspected 9/11 mastermind in a civilian court, a poll showed Monday.

Sixty-four percent of those surveyed said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be tried in a military court, while only 34 percent agreed with Obama that the civilian judicial system was the best way forward, the CNN poll said.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Friday that Sheikh Mohammed and four suspected co-plotters of the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people would be tried in New York in a civilian court.

Sixty percent of those questioned in the CNN poll agreed that Sheikh Mohammed should be brought to the United States to stand trial, while 37 percent opposed the move.

There was overwhelming support for Holder's announcement that prosecutors would seek the death penalty for Sheikh Mohammed.

Seventy-eight percent of those polled said they thought he should be executed if found guilty, almost a quarter of whom said they didn't normally support capital punishment.

More than a third of the 1,014 Americans questioned by CNN in the weekend poll, 34 percent, said they didn't think Sheikh Mohammed would receive a fair trial if brought to a US civilian court.

Friday's announcement, key to Obama's attempts to try and shutter Guantanamo Bay by January, was blasted by families of the victims of the September 11 attacks and the president's political opponents.

Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani said it was as an "unnecessary risk" to New York's security that would give an "unnecessary advantage" to the accused.

Gold9472

11-18-2009, 09:18 AM

Snipers, dogs and small army to keep city secure during 9/11 terrorists trial blocks from WTC site

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/11/14/2009-11-14_snipers_dogs_and_small_army_to_keep_city_secure _during_911_terrorists_trial.html#ixzz0XDVfWlMC

BY Patrice O'Shaughnessy, Rocco Parascandola and Alison Gendar
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Saturday, November 14th 2009, 4:00 AM

Security will be at an all-time high for the trial of five accused 9/11 terrorists - just a few blocks and eight years away from the lost twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Rooftop snipers, armored vehicles and lock-down zones around the Pearl Street courthouse are part of the plan to insure safety during the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his cohorts.

"It's highly appropriate that those accused in the deaths of nearly 3,000 human beings in New York City be tried here, and the NYPD is prepared for the security required," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly vowed.

The men are in the Guantanamo Bay terror prison and likely won't be brought here for weeks, but New York's law enforcement leaders are busy planning to keep things safe and secure.

The U.S. marshals will handle courthouse security, and their main mission is to protect those on trial. The job for the FBI and the NYPD is protecting the public from anyone hoping to disrupt the trial or gain international recognition by trying to free the defendants.

Security will include 24-hour fixed canine posts and a counterassault team car - an unmarked bulletproof SUV in the area.

The NYPD's heavily armed Hercules teams will lock down and sweep the area before suspects are moved from the federal lockup to the courtroom via a not-so-secret underground tunnel.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder noted the tunnel means the accused terrorists "never have to see the light of day."

Behind the scenes, the FBI, NYPD and CIA intelligence officers will take the temperature of the Muslim community while monitoring chatter from known terror groups to Internet chat rooms.

Holder said New York, after handling a number of terrorist trials in the past, was the clear choice for the trial of the 9/11 detainees.

"I asked the Marshals Service to look at a number of sites and tell me... 'Which one is going to be the safest to bring these cases?'" Holder said. "They said New York."

The city has handled several high-stakes, high-security terror trials since 1995.

That's when the city mobilized against potential retaliation following the clean-sweep terrorism convictions of radical Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine followers. Their terrorist bombing plot targeted the United Nations, the FBI's New York headquarters, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the George Washington Bridge.

During the 2001 trial of the four men accused of plotting to blow up American embassies for Osama Bin Laden, bomb-sniffing dogs patrolled the court corridors during jury selection.

New Yorkers took the news, and the prospect of additional security measures, in stride.

"I'm not worried. I think it would be symbolic if he was tried and convicted here - a just result," said lawyer James Powers, 37, who witnessed the 9/11 attack from his office window on Broadway. "To the extent we are already a target, I don't think this really makes us more of one."

Gold9472

11-18-2009, 09:23 AM

Holder: Don't fear trial of 'coward' 9/11 plotter

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jJlV_B5LcQyw-ZCD-WbfrTvpXc9gD9C1UG7G1

By DEVLIN BARRETT (AP) â€“ 53 minutes ago

WASHINGTON â€” Attorney General Eric Holder is defending his decision to put the professed Sept. 11 mastermind on trial in New York â€” and urging critics of the plan not to cower in the face of terrorists.

Holder is set to testify Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where lawmakers are likely to spar over the attorney general's decision last week to send Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged henchmen from a detention center at Guantanamo Bay to New York to face a civilian federal trial.

Critics of Holder's decision â€” mostly Republicans â€” have argued the trial will give Mohammed a world stage to spout hateful rhetoric.

In remarks prepared before Wednesday's hearing, Holder says such concerns are misplaced, because judges can control unruly defendants and any pronouncements by Mohammed would only make him look worse.

"I have every confidence the nation and the world will see him for the coward he is," Holder says in written testimony obtained by The Associated Press. "I'm not scared of what (Mohammed) will have to say at trial â€” and no one else needs to be either."

Addressing other concerns about the case, the attorney general says the public and the nation's intelligence secrets can be protected during a public trial in civilian court.

"We need not cower in the face of this enemy," Holder says. "Our institutions are strong, our infrastructure is sturdy, our resolve is firm, and our people are ready."

Holder announced Friday that five accused Sept. 11 conspirators currently held at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be transferred to federal court in Manhattan to face trial â€” just blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center.

Five other suspects, Holder said, will be sent to face justice before military commissions in the United States, though a location for those commissions has not yet been determined.

The actual transfer of the suspects to New York is still many weeks away. The transfers are a key step in President Barack Obama's pledge to close the detention center at Guantanamo, which currently houses some 215 detainees. The administration is not expected to meet its January deadline to shutter the facility.

The president, traveling in China Wednesday, echoed Holder's comments about the New York trial.

"I think this notion that we have to be fearful that these terrorists possess some special powers that prevent us from presenting evidence against them, locking them up and exacting swift justice, I think that has been a fundamental mistake," Obama said in an interview with CNN.

In addition to the ten detainees named Friday, Holder is expected to send others to trials and commissions in the United States.

Another, larger group of detainees is expected to be released to other countries. Some, the president has said, are too dangerous to be released and cannot be put on trial, and those detainees will continue to be imprisoned.

The attorney general says his decisions between trials and commissions were based strictly on which venues he thought would bring the strongest prosecution.

Opponents of the plan, including Holder's predecessor Michael Mukasey, have accused him of adopting a "pre-9/11" approach to terrorism.

Holder emphatically denies that.

"We are at war, and we will use every instrument of national power â€” civilian, military, law enforcement, intelligence, diplomatic and others â€” to win," Holder says.

Separately, a member of the Judiciary Committee, Democrat Charles Schumer of New York, is urging the administration to reimburse the city for what he says could be $75 million in extra security costs related to the terror trials.

Gold9472

11-18-2009, 09:24 AM

Tough job for prosecutors to get death penalty for evil 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/11/18/2009-11-18_the_execution_question_tough_job_for_mohammed_p rosecutors_to_win_death.html#ixzz0XDWYe4Jb

BY James Gordon Meek
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Wednesday, November 18th 2009, 4:31 AM

WASHINGTON - Prosecutors who will try the 9/11 plotters in New York face a "Mission Impossible" task of winning death sentences for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his henchmen.

Many veteran federal prosecutors - including those working in counterterrorism - were shocked by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's decision on a civilian trial in Manhattan for the jihadists.

That's because in the feds' few past tries at the death penalty for foreign terrorists, they lost. And New York juries are seen as among the least likely to agree - unanimously, as the law requires - on execution.

Still, legal experts say the Sept. 11 attacks that killed 2,973 people - most of them just blocks from the Foley Square courthouse - could be the exception.

"If New Yorkers were ever going to do it, this is the case," said Karen Greenberg, director of New York University's Center on Law and Security.

Holder, ruling out military trials, announced last week that KSM and his cohorts would be hauled from Guantanamo Bay to Manhattan to face justice. In calling for death sentences, he set a high bar for the Obama administration to be able to claim success.

The last time a Manhattan federal jury faced such a choice was July 2001. It spared two men convicted in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, which killed 224 people.

Seven of 12 jurors decided that, if executed, one defendant "will be seen as a martyr and his death may be exploited by others to justify future terrorist acts."

That show of mercy did not dissuade the hijackers KSM masterminded from destroying the twin towers two months later.

The feds also sought the death penalty for Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in 2006. But a lone juror in Alexandria, Va., balked, and Moussaoui is serving life at the "Supermax" prison in Florence, Colo.

Frances Townsend, an ex-New York federal prosecutor who was former President George W. Bush's top counterterror adviser, said death verdicts this time aren't out of the question, but the odds are against it.

She also maintained life without parole at "Supermax" could better service justice.

KSM has said he wants to be martyred by execution, she noted, and, "Florence would be much worse for them."

Townsend recalled conversations with legendary FBI agent John O'Neill, a friend of hers, who was killed on 9/11 as the World Trade Center's security chief.

O'Neill had brought many terrorists back to the city to face justice, but agreed with the jury that rejected death sentences in the Africa bombings. He feared death sentences would help Al Qaeda cast the condemned as martyrs.

Gold9472

11-18-2009, 09:24 AM

First US trial of 9/11 case was full of surprises

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gprkQt3FfM1azyUg64fLN0RyxshQD9C1HB002

By MATTHEW BARAKAT and MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN (AP) â€“ 15 hours ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. â€” Zacarias Moussaoui was a clown who could not keep his mouth shut, according to his old al-Qaida boss, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But Moussaoui was surprisingly tame when tried for the 9/11 attacks â€” never turning the courtroom into the circus of anti-U.S. tirades that some fear Mohammed will create at his trial in New York.

And that wasn't the only surprise during Moussaoui's six-week 2006 sentencing trial here â€” a proceeding that might foreshadow how the upcoming 9/11 trial in New York will go.

Skeptics who feared prosecutors would be hamstrung by how much evidence was secret were stunned at the enormous amount of classified data that was scrubbed, under pressure from the judge, into a public version acceptable to both sides.

Prosecutors were surprised when they failed to get the death penalty â€” by the vote of one juror.

No one was more surprised than Moussaoui himself: At the end he concluded an al-Qaida member like him could get a fair trial in a U.S. court.

"I had thought that I would be sentenced to death based on the emotions and anger toward me for the deaths on Sept. 11," Moussaoui said in an appeal deposition taken after he was sentenced to life in prison. "(B)ut after reviewing the jury verdict and reading how the jurors set aside their emotions and disgust for me and focused on the law and the evidence ... I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial."

All that suggests the dire predictions of critics and confident assertions of proponents should be viewed skeptically as prosecutors prepare to put Mohammed, the professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and four of his alleged henchmen on trial in a civilian federal court.

The five had been headed for a military tribunal at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week he would charge them in civilian court and expects to seek the death penalty.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who presided over Moussaoui's trial â€” the first in this country over 9/11 â€” believes it proved federal courts can handle terror cases: "I've reached the conclusion that the system does work," she said in 2008.

The first lesson from Moussaoui's case: Don't expect a speedy trial.

Moussaoui was charged in December 2001 with conspiracy for his role. The case churned through years of pretrial hearings and appeals as judges sought to balance national security with Moussaoui's constitutional rights, often over what evidence could be used.

Documents later introduced at trial showed Moussaoui and Mohammed were well acquainted and Mohammed told interrogators he planned to use Moussaoui as a pilot for a second wave of hijacked jetliner attacks â€” plans that were eventually aborted. But Mohammed considered Moussaoui a problematic operative, who took instructions poorly and recklessly ignored directions to minimize communications.

Eventually, in 2005, Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers. Under the complex rules for federal death penalty cases, a separate sentencing trial was held in 2006 to determine whether Moussaoui would lose his life or spend the rest of it in prison. In the first phase, jurors concluded Moussaoui's actions were eligible for the death penalty, but in the second phase they spared his life â€” thanks to a lone holdout juror.

During the long run-up to trial, Moussaoui's abusive tirades in handwritten motions and outbursts in hearings created concerns the jury trial would devolve into chaos. Brinkema threatened to lock him in a separate room watching by video if he tried that.

Mindful of that threat, Moussaoui sat quietly at his separate table flanked by deputy marshals. On the few occasions he was called upon to speak, Brinkema kept him tightly on topic.

His theatrics were confined to one-liners â€” like "Victory for Moussaoui! God curse you all!" â€” that he tossed off to spectators as he left the courtroom after the jury departed for lunch or the day.

In military tribunal hearings at Guantanamo, Mohammed also showed a propensity for grandstanding. In one letter released by that tribunal, he referred to the attacks as a "noble victory" and urged U.S. authorities to "pass your sentence on me and give me no respite."

One of Moussaoui's lawyers, Edward MacMahon, isn't worried about Mohammed's behavior in court. "Federal judges deal all the time with defendants who try to disrupt cases," he said.

MacMahon, himself the target of some of Moussaoui's epithets, said he thought the trial "was a very dignified process."

Lead prosecutor Rob Spencer, now with Lockheed Martin Corp., said the Moussaoui trial allowed the public to see that Moussaoui took pride in the terror created by the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

"A valuable part of the Moussaoui trial was that we got an unvarnished, public view of this guy ... of what we're up against" in dealing with al-Qaida terrorists, Spencer said.

Sorting through classified evidence should be easier in the upcoming case, experts said. First, the Moussaoui case generated detailed appellate rulings to guide lower courts. Second, much that was highly sensitive in 2003 may be far less so now.

On the other hand, there was no allegation Moussaoui was tortured into confessing, but coerced confessions or statements might be significant at Mohammed's trial. U.S. civilian courts bar evidence obtained under coercion, which could exclude what Mohammed told investigators after, as the Justice Department has acknowledged, he was waterboarded 183 times.

But there are also statements Mohammed made much later bragging about his role, and statements by others subjected to less harsh interrogation methods that fewer people consider to be torture, so there's grist for much legal argument.

Paul McNulty, U.S. attorney here when Moussaoui was prosecuted, said there is a crucial difference in the two cases: Moussaoui pleaded guilty, so the sentencing trial focused only on his punishment and there was no chance he'd go free. No one knows whether any New York defendants will contest their guilt.

McNulty wondered whether the public is willing to accept the chance of an acquittal.

McNulty expects New York judges to be as tough as Brinkema on issues like ensuring defendants access to witnesses. "It could get complicated very quickly," he said.

"It's not supposed to be easy," defense counsel MacMahon said. "The law makes it very difficult to obtain a death sentence. The government basically has to pitch a perfect game to win a death penalty."

Gold9472

11-18-2009, 09:24 AM

9/11 suspects have no response to announcement of trial in New York
The alleged 9/11 plotters were `stoic' and polite upon hearing that they will moved to New York City for a federal trial.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/1338879.html

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- The alleged 9/11 conspirators neither greeted with joy nor trepidation the news that they would be taken to New York City to face a civilian trial for the Sept. 11 attacks.

"They were stoic," detention center commander Rear Adm. Tom Copeman said Tuesday.

"They did not seem surprised," he added. "They basically just said, `Thank you for the information.' There was nothing dramatic one way or the other."

Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Friday that confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four co-defendants, all former CIA captives, would be charged by federal prosecutors "to answer to their alleged crimes in a courtroom just blocks away from where the Twin Towers once stood."

He urged a death penalty trial.

The five men got the notice over the weekend, said Copeman, from the chief Army jailer at GuantÃ¡namo, Col. Bruce Vargo, and the prison camps staff attorney, Navy Capt. Don Martin. They delivered copies of Holder's announcement in English and, for those who needed translation, in Pashto and Arabic.

All five have bragged about their alleged roles in the attacks. They said they welcomed martyrdom.

The five accused -- two Yemenis, a Saudi and the Pakistani Mohammed and his nephew -- are still charged before a military commission with the mass murder of nearly 3,000 people for allegedly directing, financing and providing training to the 19 hijackers who commandeered the aircraft that struck the Twin Towers, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001.

So, they will continue to meet twice monthly to plan a common defense strategy, Copeman said, as well as keep laptop computers the military prosecutor loaded with the evidence against them to help them prepare for their now aborted military tribunals.

Military Commissions spokesman Joe DellaVedova said the prosecution had no immediate plans to ask for the laptops back. They have had them for about a year.

The five alleged plotters had a defense strategy meeting Nov. 9 at the high-security courtroom at Camp Justice, called the Expeditionary Legal Complex. They were slated to meet again Nov. 30.

All five men are segregated on the base in a secret prison, called Camp 7. Unlike other portions of the detention center, the prison camp for former CIA captives has no live satellite television. That means they have not seen the massive TV coverage of the decision of plans to return them to the scene of the crime.

It also was not known if they had yet received newspaper clippings, which in the aftermath of Holder's announcement reported Republican denunciations and domestic security fears.

Gold9472

11-18-2009, 11:07 AM

Obama on terror trials: KSM will die

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29661.html

11/18/2009

Americans who are troubled by the decision to send alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York for trial will feel better about it when heâ€™s put to death, President Barack Obama said Tuesday.

During a round of network television interviews conducted during Obamaâ€™s visit to China, the president was asked about those who find it offensive that Mohammed will receive all the rights normally accorded to U.S. citizens when they are charged with a crime.

â€œI don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him,â€ Obama told NBCâ€™s Chuck Todd.

When Todd asked Obama if he was interfering in the trial process by declaring that Mohammed will be executed, Obama, a former constitutional law professor, insisted that he wasnâ€™t trying to dictate the result.

â€œWhat I said was, people will not be offended if that's the outcome. I'm not pre-judging, I'm not going to be in that courtroom, that's the job of prosecutors, the judge and the jury,â€ Obama said. â€œWhat I'm absolutely clear about is that I have complete confidence in the American people and our legal traditions and the prosecutors, the tough prosecutors from New York who specialize in terrorism.â€

In another interview, Obama said he had not tried to tell Attorney General Eric Holder whether the case involving KSM and four other alleged 9/11 plotters should be heard in federal court or before a military tribunal.

â€œI said to the attorney general, make a decision based on the law,â€ the president told CNNâ€™s Ed Henry. â€œWe have set up now a military commission system that is greatly reformed and so we can try terrorists in the forum. But I also have great confidence in our Article 3 courts, the courts that have tried hundreds of terrorist suspects who are imprisoned right now in the United States.â€

Obama also suggested that critics of the decision are unwisely building the alleged Al Qaeda operatives into larger-than-life figures who require the U.S. to abandon its usual legal processes.

â€œI think this notion that somehow we have to be fearful, that these terrorists are â€“possess some special powers that prevent us from presenting evidence against them, locking them up and, you know, exacting swift justice, I think that has been a fundamental mistake,â€ the president declared.

Also in the interviews:

â€” Obama warned of a double-dip recession â€“ another drop in economic growth that would reverse recent gains â€“ if government spending continues to pile up.

â€œI think it is important to recognize that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, at some point, people would lose confidence in the economy. That could lead to a double-dip recession,â€ he told Fox Newsâ€™ Major Garrett.

â€” He said heâ€™s comfortable with the progress his administration has made so far. â€œA lot of our initiatives have not yet borne fruit, but we knew that something like Iran's nuclear program wasn't going to be solved in a year. The question is are we moving in the right direction? And I think there's no doubt that we are,â€ he said on CNN.

â€” In response to another question, Obama initially claimed that most of the deadlines his administration is reported to have missed were set by the press, though he later seemed to acknowledge that he set an aggressive schedule for passage of health care reform legislation.

On closing Guantanamo Bay prison, â€œwe had a specific deadline that was missed, the rest of these deadlines that you're asserting often times are deadlines imposed by the media,â€ Obama told NBC.

â€” Obama suggested that the White House knew public goals for passing health care bills through both houses before the summer recess were optimistic, perhaps overly so. â€œInternally we understood Congress takes time, it's slow, the Senate is slow, that's how it's structured, those are the rules,â€ he said.

Obama said he expected to sign health care legislation by the time of his State of the Union speech in January, but he kept the pressure on by refusing to acknowledge that it is not likely to pass by yearâ€™s end. â€œYou will not hear that from me,â€ he said.

â€” Obama said he hasnâ€™t read a book by his half-brother who lives in China, who alleges that the father the two men shared abused him. Obama said he stopped by for about five minutes during the trip. â€œI don't know him well. I met him for the first time a couple of years ago,â€ Obama told CNN. â€œBut it's no secret that my father was a troubled person. Anybody who's read my first book, "Dreams of My Father," knows that, you know, he had an alcoholism problem and that he didn't treat his families very well. And, you know, so, obviously, that's just a sad part of my history and my background. But it's not something that I spend a lot of time brooding over.â€

Gold9472

11-19-2009, 09:11 AM

Former N.J. Gov. Thomas Kean opposes trial in N.Y.C. for alleged mastermind of 9/11 attacks

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/former_nj_gov_thomas_kean_says.html

By Brian Donohue/The Star-Ledger
November 17, 2009, 10:59AM

NEW YORK -- Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the commission that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks, today criticized the decision by the Obama administration to try the alleged mastermind of the attacks in federal court in New York.

In what he described as his first interview since the decision by United States Attorney General Eric Holder last week, Kean told WNYC radio he feared an open trial in Manhattan federal court would make the suspect, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a "martyr" and "hero" among al Qaeda sympathizers around the world.

Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesThomas H. Kean, former New Jersey governor and chairman of the 9/11 Commission, and Co-Chair Lee H. Hamilton confer during a news conference in 2005 in Washington, D.C.
Kean's comments came in a radio interview with Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

Kean, a Republican who is also former governor of New Jersey, appeared on the program with fellow 9/11 commission member Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democrat.

Ben-Veniste took an opposing view of the decision, saying he thought a trial in civil court was appropriate and would demonstrate the power of the American justice system.

Gold9472

11-19-2009, 09:15 AM

Trying Sept. 11 Suspects In U.S. A Political Gamble

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120546400

by Liz Halloran
November 18, 2009

Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday stoutly defended his decision to try the Sept. 11 conspirators in U.S. federal court as driven by evidence, not politics.

During his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder as much as promised convictions of professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four alleged associates.

"Failure," Holder said, "is not an option."

But that assertion â€” and the audience laughter it prompted from Sept. 11 victims' family members opposed to his decision â€” suggest that Holder and President Obama are indeed taking a political gamble by deciding to bring the suspected terrorists from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to New York City to stand trial.

After all, said Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl during his questioning of Holder, "you never know what happens when you walk into a court of law" â€” and hand a decision to a jury.

Lines Drawn, But Not Clear
In the five days since Holder announced that the alleged Sept. 11 conspirators would be tried in federal court instead of by military commission in Guantanamo, political forces have arrayed for and against the decision, as expected.

But the partisan dividing lines are not easily drawn.

Some high-profile Republicans, including former New York mayor and failed presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani, have taken to the airwaves to denounce Holder. And Senate Republicans predictably roughed Holder up Wednesday, arguing that a civilian trial will give terrorists an international platform, compromise domestic safety and perhaps lead to the dissemination of classified material.

But Holder's decision has also elicited strong support from some unexpected GOP corners, and opposition from a handful of Democrats, including New York Gov. David Paterson and Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, a former secretary of the Navy.

GOP stalwarts Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform; David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; and former Georgia Republican Sen. Bob Barr signed on to a statement asserting that civilian courts "are the proper forum for terrorism cases," and that federal prisons are "fully capable of safely holding" convicted terrorists.

Civilian trials, in the city where the worst of the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, will move the country toward closing Guantanamo, they said, where military commissions have convicted just three detainees in eight years.

On the other hand, Webb has argued that military commissions are a more appropriate venue.

GOP strategist John Feehery says he would advise Republicans to â€œgo hard afterâ€ Holderâ€™s decision to try the five Sept. 11 suspects in federal court.

â€œThis is a perfect situation where you can make a case that theyâ€™re war prisoners and not common criminals,â€ Feehery said. â€œHolder is so vulnerable on this because heâ€™s very liberal.â€

House Republicans have introduced a discharge petition that would compel Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to allow a vote on legislation that could bar the administration from transferring or releasing Guantanamo prisoners to any state without the approval of the governor or legislature of that state. The petition on the "Keep Terrorists Out of America Act" needs the signatures of 218 members for approval; 169 members have currently signed on. Democrats control the House 258-177.

The intraparty divide on the issue perhaps influenced the largely silent conservative message machine Wednesday during and after Holder's appearance before the Judiciary Committee hearing.

Polls also show a split among Americans over where the Sept. 11 suspects should be tried. A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 48 percent of those surveyed said they should be tried by military tribunals; 47 percent said they should be put on trial in the federal court system.

In a CNN poll that asked specifically whether Mohammed should be tried in a civilian criminal court or in a military court run by the armed forces, 64 percent preferred a military court trial, while 34 percent favored a criminal court. However, 60 percent of those surveyed by CNN said that no matter which court system is used, Mohammed should be brought to the U.S. to stand trial.

Courts Vs. Commissions: Not That Dissimilar?
The issue of civilian federal courts vs. military commissions is not as black and white as it has been portrayed, says former Bush administration official John Bellinger III.

"The trials were not going to be that dissimilar," says Bellinger, who was a legal adviser for the State Department and National Security Council.

"It's not going to be easy to do in New York City, but the idea that this is going to be a disaster is just not there," he said during a conference call Wednesday. "Federal prosecutors are more used to doing these kinds of cases."

In fact, Bellinger said, the Bush administration had begun to shore up the ranks of military prosecutors with federal prosecutors who had more experience trying big terrorism cases.

Holder has also downplayed concerns that a civilian trial could require the release of sensitive evidence that could be kept secret during a military tribunal. The rules of evidence in both venues, he said Wednesday, are largely the same.

During an interview Wednesday with NBC News, Obama was asked about those who had taken offense at the decision to try Mohammed in civilian court. "I don't think it would be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him," the president said.

His confidence, Obama said, came from â€œtoughâ€ New York investigators who â€œspecialize in terrorism.â€

A Bold Move
Holder dismissed the political and public relations aspect of his decision. But there is little doubt that it will have a profound effect at home and abroad.

Steven Simon of the Council of Foreign Relations said there needs to be a focus on the propaganda benefits of the civilian trials, particularly in the Arab world.

"Public relations is an important component of national security," says Simon, author of The Age of Sacred Terror and The Next Attack.

"There's a war for hearts and minds at the center of what the military refers to as 'the long war,' " he said during a conference call. "Whether this will have an effect â€” and how big â€” remains to be seen."

Sept. 11 Victims' Families Divided, Too
David Beamer's son, Todd, died on Sept. 11, 2001, when United Airlines Flight 93, commandeered by terrorists, crashed in Pennsylvania. He calls Holder's decision "unconscionable" and says he views it as an attempt by the Obama administration to exact retribution from the Bush administration.

"We don't need a show trial in the shadow of the terrorists' greatest achievement to further their efforts," said Beamer, who attended Wednesday's hearing. "I've tried to think if there's an American reason for doing this, and I can't come up with one."

He says that those who oppose Holder's decision will try to make it part of the conversation leading up to next year's midterm congressional elections.

But Lorie Van Auken, whose husband was killed in the attack on the World Trade Center's north tower, says she sees a powerful reason to bring the alleged terrorists to justice in New York City.

"The taint at Guantanamo is terrible," says Auken, one of the New Jersey widows who successfully pressed for the formation of the 9/11 Commission.

"The thing for me is that this is not about them; it's about us," she said. "If the evidence shows that these people are guilty and held accountable in civilian court, people will accept that verdict as legitimate."

"It's better than the alternative we've had: putting them in a black hole and torturing them," she said.

But she says she understands where Beamer and other family members who oppose federal trials are coming from.

"I understand wanting revenge, but at the end of the day, just getting revenge won't be sweet," she says. "If you show the people, if you show the rest of the world, 'Here's the evidence, here's the punishment' â€” that's justice."

Uncertain Road Ahead
In a sharp exchange with Holder Wednesday, GOP Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona asked why the attorney general would transfer Mohammed to a civilian court from a from a military system, where the alleged terrorist has said in the past he wants to plead guilty and be executed.

What's the gain? Kyl asked.

Holder's response: "I'm not going to base a determination on where these cases ought to be brought on what a terrorist â€” what a murderer â€” wants to do."

"He will not select the prosecution venue. I will select it,â€ Holder said. â€œAnd I have."

Of that, there's no doubt. But how that plays out politically in Washington, in New York City, and beyond will remain a very large â€”- and debatable â€” issue for years to come.

Gold9472

11-19-2009, 09:24 AM

GOP senators grill Holder on decision to try 9/11 suspects in federal court

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/DN-911trial_19nat.ART.State.Edition2.4b520b5.html

12:00 AM CST on Thursday, November 19, 2009

WASHINGTON â€“ In a series of testy exchanges, Republican senators confronted Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday over his decision to try the Sept. 11 terrorism suspects in civilian court.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, expressed certainty that the suspects would be found guilty and executed.

In his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder didn't go as far as Obama did. But the nation's top prosecutor said he was confident justice would be delivered to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other accused plotters of the 9/11 attacks.

"Failure is not an option," Holder declared.

Opponents of the plan have accused him of adopting a "pre-9/11" approach to terrorism. Holder emphatically denied that.

"We are at war, and we will use every instrument of national power â€“ civilian, military, law enforcement, intelligence, diplomatic and others â€“ to win," Holder said.

But South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a military lawyer who has served active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, called the decision "a perversion of justice" by putting wartime enemies into the civilian criminal justice system.

"You have taken a wartime model that will allow flexibility when it comes to intelligence gathering, and you have compromised this country's ability to deal with people at war with us by interjecting into the system the possibility that they may be given the same constitutional rights as any American citizen," Graham said.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked Holder how he would respond if a federal judge were to rule that Mohammed wasn't read his Miranda rights to remain silent in the absence of a lawyer at the time of his detention, or if a judge decided to release Mohammed on a legal technicality.

"What if the federal judge orders the Justice Department to release him?" Cornyn asked. "Will you defy that order?"

Holder responded: "It's hard for me to imagine a set of circumstances under which, if he were acquitted, he would be released into the United States. ... There are other things that we have the capacity to do."

Holder said he foresaw no judicial obstacles to convicting the terrorism suspects and putting them to death.

"I do not see any legal impediments to our seeking the death penalty," he said. "We will obviously have to convince a jury of 12 people that the death penalty is appropriate."

Obama, in a TV interview during his tour of Asia, suggested that death sentences would vindicate Holder's and his decision to hold a federal trial for Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, which killed almost 3,000 Americans.

When the president was asked whether he understood why some people might take offense at the decision, which Holder announced last week, he told NBC News: "I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's [Mohammed] convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him."

Obama, who is a lawyer, quickly added that he did not mean to suggest he was prejudging the outcome of Mohammed's trial.

Critics of Holder's decision â€“ mostly Republicans â€“ also have argued that the trial will give Mohammed a world stage to spout hateful rhetoric.

Holder said such concerns are misplaced, because judges can control unruly defendants, and any pronouncements by Mohammed would only make him look worse.

"I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is," Holder told the committee. "I'm not scared of what Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has to say at trial â€“ and no one else needs to be, either."

Democrats on the panel were largely supportive of the administration's decision.

"We're the most powerful nation on earth; we have a justice system that is the envy of the world. We will not be afraid," said Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

Among the spectators in the hearing room were relatives of 9/11 victims. Alice Hoagland of Los Gatos, Calif., whose son Mark Bingham died when United Flight 93 crashed in a Pennsylvania field, told Holder that she took "great exception to your decision to give short shrift to military commissions."

Holder sought to reassure her that there was evidence, not yet made public, that makes federal court the best place to try Mohammed.

"I guess what I'm saying is trust me," he said.

"I will trust you. I will defer judgment," Hoagland replied.

Gold9472

11-19-2009, 09:24 AM

Giuliani: 9/11 Trial Part of Left Wing Political Agenda

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/19/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5707770.shtml

11/19/2009

(CBS)Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said the Obama administration's decision to try professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a federal court is a political move to satisfy "left-wing critics" of military tribunals.

Attorney General Eric Holder has drawn heavy fire from Republicans and some Democrats since announcing last week that Mohammed and four alleged henchmen would be prosecuted in a civilian trial instead of a military tribunal. A CBS News poll released earlier this week shows Americans wary of the idea as well, with 54 percent opposed compared to 40 percent in favor.

Giuliani, who was mayor at the time of the World Trade Center attacks, said the move was part of a political agenda "because it makes no sense," during an appearance on CBS' "The Early Show" Thursday.

"The reality is that they could be tried in a military tribunal. There is no reason to try them in a civilian court. Others are going to be tried in the military tribunal. And the reality is we've never done this before. And this is something that was pushed very, very hard by the left wing for President Obama to do and he's been criticized for delaying in doing it."

The Obama administration has defended the decision and predicted a courtroom victory against Mohammed. Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday that "failure is not an option."

And President Obama, speaking during his nine-day trip to Asia, said critics wouldn't be offended "when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him."

"Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith pressed Giuliani on whether his views actually represented a "flip flop" from his position when blind sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was convicted in a New York federal court. At the time, Smith noted, Giuliani called it a "symbol of American justice."

"The reality is of course there was no military tribunal in 1993. It would have been absurd for me to argue for that," Giuliani said. "Now there's a military tribunal. And if there wasn't, I would be the first one to say try [Mohammed] in federal court â€¦ But military courts can provide justice just as well without the same unnecessary risk."

Gold9472

11-19-2009, 09:32 AM

Torture could doom N.Y. trial against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 9/11 terrrorists

http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2009/11/torture_could_doom_ny_trial_ag.html

By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist
November 19, 2009, 5:24AM

The governmentâ€™s decision to prosecute alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-conspirators as criminals puts the issue of torture squarely before the federal courts.

Given the governmentâ€™s acknowledgment that Mohammed and his co-defendants were subject to harsh interrogation techniques that included repeated waterboarding, it cannot avoid the issue, no matter what evidence it chooses to use.

To understand why, one needs to know something about a rare and somewhat forgotten "outrageous government misconduct" defense in criminal law.

As a former federal prosecutor and a participant in some of the Department of Justiceâ€™s conventional investigative efforts in the days after 9/11, I am sure the governmentâ€™s case at trial will be overwhelming. Therefore, I doubt that Mohammedâ€™s viable defenses include a claim that he did not conspire in the 9/11 attacks.

Nor is Mohammed likely to accomplish much in arguing that evidence should be excluded because it is tainted by his treatment in U.S. custody. The prosecutors would never have pursued this case without confidence they can win solely with evidence gathered prior to Mohammedâ€™s capture. His treatment at GuantÃ¡namo Bay and elsewhere gives him no legal basis to suppress evidence gathered before he was in custody.

The prosecutorsâ€™ problem is to avoid outright dismissal of this case before trial when Mohammed asserts the "outrageous government misconduct" defense.

This defense is based on the theory that, regardless of evidence of guilt, the Constitution prohibits prosecution of a person after government agents engage in behavior that "shocks the conscience." The Supreme Court has not considered this defense for a long time, but neither has the court rejected it. The argument stems from a 1952 decision authored by Justice Felix Frankfurter. In that case, the court ruled that the state of California violated the Constitution when it arrested a drug suspect, took him to the hospital and directed a doctor to pump his stomach. The state then seized drugs the man vomited and used them to prosecute him.

This was not an illegal search under the Fourth Amendment. It was outrageous conduct that violated the guarantee of due process because, Frankfurter wrote, the governmentâ€™s methods were "too close to the rack and the screw" for the Constitution to tolerate. Prosecution dismissed.

In the years since this decision, the federal appellate courts have divided over the continued viability of the "outrageous government misconduct" defense. But several have squarely said it exists, including the influential District of Columbia circuitcourt, which has said such an outright dismissal of a case should be reserved for instances of "coercion, violence or brutality to the person."

The application of this defense to the prosecution of Mohammed is obvious following repeated waterboarding, among other official acts. Given that the government used methods "close to the rack and screw," it would seem that a court could avoid dismissing the prosecution only by ruling that the defense of "outrageous government misconduct" no longer exists. The Supreme Court has never said this, the appellate courts are divided on the question, and the current Supreme Court has been anything but reluctant to address major legal questions flowing from the governmentâ€™s war with al Qaeda.

Mohammedâ€™s case would seem bound for the Supreme Court, maybe before he can be tried. On its way there, the federal courts will be forced to confront the central questions in the debate about torture. The unavoidable issues include whether what was done to Mohammed "shocks the conscience" because it was indeed, by anyoneâ€™s sensible definition, torture, and whether the government thereby forfeited its right to call him to account for his role in the murders of the victims of 9/11.

Gold9472

11-19-2009, 09:35 AM

KSM and the MSM

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/111809a.html

By David Swanson
November 18, 2009

Editorâ€™s Note: As the U.S. Justice Department finally prepares to bring the alleged 9/11 mastermind and four accomplices to trial for killing nearly 3,000 people, the American mainstream media continues to frame the issue in the most bizarre ways.

Rather than assessing issues like motive, evidence and government misconduct that has delayed this trial for six years, the MSM has obsessed over Republican complaints that a trial is being held at all, as David Swanson notes in this guest essay:

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the corporate "mainstream" media make quite a pair.

We're hearing a very "balanced" debate over whether KSM should be tried in New York City, and whether the most insane objections to that proposal are really insane or not. But what are we not hearing?

We're not hearing that trying criminals for the crime of 9-11 ought to have been what we did years ago, rather than waging wars in response to a crime.

We're not discussing the possibility that had alleged 9-11 criminals been tried years ago rather than being imprisoned and tortured together with hundreds of innocents depicted as subhuman monsters, the "war on terror" might have been replaced with simply the wars on Iraqis and Afghans and Pakistanis.
What effect might that have had on Americans' willingness to surrender their Bill of Rights? We aren't hearing about that.

Aside from a column by my friend Ray McGovern, not of course published by the corporate media, what are we hearing or seeing about KSM's motive?
Isn't motive a traditionally important element in a criminal investigation? We're told that putting KSM on trial would give him a platform for propaganda, but we're not told what that propaganda might be.

If it were really so pernicious, why not expose it and refute it? Isn't that what societies that believe in free speech do with misguided speech? Don't they defeat it with more and better speech? Or is that only when it can be done without using the word "Israel"?

Outside of progressive blogs, we're not hearing that giving a somewhat fair, if less than speedy, trial to those most likely to plead guilty or be convicted, and a less fair military trial to others, and no trial at all to others still, reveals this show of justice to be a sham.

If KSM were acquitted, President Obama would order him imprisoned outside the rule of law until he dies. If he is found guilty, as everyone universally expects, he may be officially murdered by the United States, motivating others to take up arms against a nation that wages and funds illegal wars, imprisons people without charge, tortures, kidnaps, renditions, and executes.

If the justice system is bent to ensure that KSM is convicted or permitted little opportunity to speak, will that bending have any permanent repercussions for our justice system? Or, to move in the other direction, having determined that "military justice" is not good enough for alleged mass murders, must we continue to pretend that it is good enough for members of the military?

Can we not admit everyone into a single and improved justice system? We're not hearing that discussion.

An improved justice system would require the admission into court of videos of all confessions and interrogations. This would not include admissions made to a journalist prior to imprisonment, as in the case of KSM and Al Jazeera, but would include all interrogations since that time.

And in KSM's case it might include video of the "interrogation" of his children. Years ago, allegations were made that the United States had tortured his children, including in little-heard-of manners, such as locking a child in a box with a supposedly deadly insect.

More recently, secret memos emerged showing the United States to have authorized just those techniques. If this were a story about missing sex tapes, the media would be all over it. A story about the possible torture of children is far less interesting.

It might open up difficult questions, such as whether someone who has been endlessly tortured, and whose children may have been tortured, can -- while still in the custody of the torturers -- give an un-coerced confession.

Questions might even have to be asked about leniency in sentencing for someone who has already served time and been horribly tortured.

If this were a story about a singer or actor or athlete, we'd see investigations of the time KSM spent attending college in North Carolina. Why didn't the Americans he lived among persuade him of how horrible it would be to murder people in this country?

Our media pundits are completely incapable of asking such a question without either blaming KSM's American acquaintances for his crimes or declaring KSM to be an inscrutable monster whose thinking is of absolutely no interest.

Other questions might be asked as well, such as why Dick Cheney and his supporters never talk about the two memos anymore. Remember the two memos that Cheney claimed would show that the torture of KSM and others revealed important information that saved lives.

The memos are now public and show nothing of the sort.

Nor was torture needed in order to prosecute KSM himself. In fact, as Marcy Wheeler has pointed out, the ability of the government to prosecute him without using evidence obtained through torture demonstrates that torture was not needed for that purpose.

But why are we not talking about the two purposes torture actually serves? We know it does not produce useful information, but we also know that it produces desired lies, such as agreement to false rationales for war. And we know that it scares people, both people who fear they might be tortured and people who fear the wild beasts depicted as reachable only through torture.

As Glenn Greenwald has touched on, behaving as though terrorized, irrationally unable to believe an alleged terrorist can be held in a cell and tried in a court, is to give in to the terrorism. Worse, it is to advance it.

More Americans are more terrorized following TV discussions of KSM's possible prosecution than were beforehand, because the voices on the TV promote the terror rather than the prosecution.

We are hearing about the need to avoid evidence obtained through torture. But at the same time we are hearing absolutely nothing about the need to prosecute the torturers and the creators of the torture program, at least one of whom, John Yoo, is given a platform as one of the disinterested media commentators in the MSM.

This failure is an ideal way to create more KSMs. Why don't we talk about it?

Gold9472

11-19-2009, 03:06 PM

Statement Of September 11th Advocates Regarding Reaction To AG Eric Holder's Announcement On Moving 9/11 Trials To NYC

For Immediate Release
11/19/2009

We are encouraged by Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that the trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four additional detainees, Walid Muhammed Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Al Hawsawi, would be moved to our Federal Court system in New York City.

Unfortunately, this has evoked a knee-jerk reaction that has been brought to an almost feverish pitch by the media pundits and the politicians. This response seems to be agenda driven rhetoric unsupported by facts.

Fear mongering is a tactic that is often used by those in power to hide wrongdoing. Perhaps those responsible for ordering torture have something to hide. Could those people be creating this frenzy?

With the apparent desire to try these suspects in the military commission system, one would think that the success rate of prosecutions would be higher than that of the Federal Courts', but that is not the case. To date, the military commissions system has had a very low success rate and has only brought one 9/11 terrorist case to completion. On the other hand, the American Justice System has been used to try terrorists 214 times since September 2001, with a success rate of 91% - 195 people were convicted.

The one 9/11 related case that was brought to completion in the military commissions system, U.S. v. Hamdan (Bin Laden's driver), brought Hamdan only a 66 month sentence. He was sent back to Yemen in January 2009. Where was the outrage then?

In fact, having accused September 11th alleged terrorists on American soil, in Federal Court, is not precedent setting. The alleged 20th hijacker, Zacharias Moussaoui, was held in a Virginia detention center and was later sentenced in Federal Court, also located in Virginia. Where was the outcry at that time?

During the course of that hearing, we fortunately did not experience a terrorist incident. Admittedly, an attempted attack could occur whether we try these suspects in America or Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Does that mean we should not try them at all?

It should also be noted that the military commissions system allows for secret proceedings where tainted evidence and hearsay could be used. Thus, any resulting verdict could lack credibility. For those who fear an attack because trials are being held on American soil, isn't it just as likely that a verdict lacking credibility could provoke an attack?

Additionally, we believe the decision to try these men in our Federal Courts is less about giving detainees the same privileges as American citizens and more about America being a nation that conducts itself according to the rule of law. As a matter of practicality, in order to protect our citizens and soldiers around the world, it is best that we not devolve into barbarians seeking revenge. Retaliation then becomes an even greater risk.

It is time that we actually look at the facts and stop reacting from a place of fear.

###

Patty Casazza
Monica Gabrielle
Mindy Kleinberg
Lorie Van Auken

Gold9472

11-21-2009, 10:26 AM

New Yorkers Resist 9/11 Scare Tactics

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/112109a.html

By Michael Winship
November 21, 2009

Editorâ€™s Note: Many Americans view New Yorkers as abrasive and arrogant (The Big Apple, the New York Yankees, â€œif you can make it hereâ€¦â€, etc.) but there is also a grudging admiration for the cityâ€™s toughness and grit. NYC is not a place for wimps and worriers.

Which is why New Yorkers seem pretty nonchalant about Attorney General Eric Holderâ€™s decision to try five 9/11 defendants in Manhattan just blocks from Ground Zero, while Americans elsewhere seem more susceptible to Republican fear-mongering, as Michael Winship notes in this guest essay:

If you want to royally tick off New Yorkers, try telling us what to do.

That's probably why the police stopped trying to enforce the jaywalking laws here years ago (as opposed to Washington, DC, where I once got one too many tickets and was sent to pedestrian school).

And that's why in the weeks after 9/11, my favorite sign was the one that appeared in the windows of Italian-American neighborhoods near where I live downtown. In bright red, white and blue, it read: "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You got a problem with that?"

So imagine how pleased many of us were when told by conservatives - most of them from out-of-town -- that we should be very afraid that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and some of his Al Qaeda henchmen will be put on trial here in New York City, just blocks from the scene of their horrific crime, the World Trade Center.

My own unscientific survey indicates that most of us who live not far from Ground Zero and who were here on 9/11 see it as an appropriate and just venue and aren't afraid that the trial will result in terrorist retribution.

And if for some reason it should, we will stand up in righteous, rational indignation, the way we New Yorkers do on an almost daily basis, whether the source of vexation is slight or extreme.

I immediately thought of the moment in Casablanca, when the supercilious Nazi, Major Strasser, asks Humphrey Bogart if he's one of those who can't imagine Germans occupying New York. Bogart replies, "There are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade."
The response of Arizona Republican Congressman John Shadegg was especially offensive.

After noting that Mayor Mike Bloomberg had said that New Yorkers are tough and could handle the trial and its attendant commotion, Rep. Shadegg declared on the floor of the House, "Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it's your daughter that's kidnapped at school by a terrorist? How are you going to feel when it's some clerk -- some innocent clerk of the court -- whose daughter or son is kidnapped? Or the judge's wife? Or the jailer's little brother or little sister?"

Rep. Shadegg wound up apologizing, although he insisted the point survived his insensitivity - "I think it is important to note that this decision involves potential risk to innocent people," he said.

But even Rupert Murdoch's right-wing New York Post took offense, describing Shadegg's remarks as "the outrageously shameless use of Bloomberg's children as debating points."

Two local politicians who should know better did speak out in opposition to a federal trial here in Manhattan, but to a large degree their motives can be perceived as mercenary. Both men are or may be running for statewide office, and polling outside the city indicates that when it comes to a civilian trial, a sizable majority has bought into the fear-mongering.

Former Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who became such a hero in New York as he walked the rubble-strewn streets on 9/11, and who has been bandied about the media as a potential candidate for governor or the US Senate, fell into conservative lockstep and told CBS News, "There is no reason to try them in a civilian court. Others are going to be tried in the military tribunal. And the reality is we've never done this before. And this is something that was pushed very, very hard by the left wing for President Obama to do."

Which is odd, because back in 2006, when a civilian jury sentenced 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui to life without parole, Giuliani told Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball" that while he would have preferred the death penalty, the verdict "does show that we have a legal system, that we follow it, that we respect it. And it is exactly what is missing in the parts of the world or a lot of the parts of the world that are breeding terrorism... it does say something pretty remarkable about us, doesn't it?"

What's more, when blind sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahmanm, the architect of the first Trade Center bombing in 1993, was convicted in New York federal court, Giuliani said, "It does demonstrate that we can give people a fair trial, that we are exactly what we say we are. We are a nation of law... I think he's going to be a symbol of American justice."

More baffling was New York's Democratic Governor David Paterson, who told The New York Times, "This is not a decision I would have made... We still have been unable to rebuild that site, and having those terrorists tried so close to the attack is going to be an encumbrance on all New Yorkers."

But the governor's popularity is so low and election chances next year so slim he is desperate for the slightest grit of traction. A Siena College poll this week had 69% saying they would vote for someone else. At this point, he probably would allow himself to be pulled between two farm tractors if he thought it might help him carry upstate.

Paterson's position also seemed to puzzle U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder - a New Yorker, by the way - who last week announced the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow conspirator here in the city. When told of Paterson's comments, he said to the New York Daily News, "It's a little inconsistent with what he told me last week."

Attorney General Holder, in this instance at least, has been the consistent one, unwavering over the rightness of his decision while admitting that it was a "tough call, and reasonable people can disagree with my conclusion."

On Wednesday he handled four hours of often harshly critical questioning from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and then met with families of 9/11 victims. He countered the opposition's main objections.

"We know that we can prosecute terrorists in our federal courts safely and securely because we have been doing it for years," Holder said, and the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) "establishes strict rules for the use of classified information at trial."

As for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - often identified simply as KSM -- and his track record of rabid histrionics, Holder said that the terrorist "will have no more of a platform to spew his hateful ideology in federal court than he would have in military commissions...

"Judges in federal court have firm control over the conduct of defendants and other participants in their courtrooms, and when the 9/11 conspirators are brought to trial, I have every confidence that the presiding judge will ensure appropriate decorum.

â€œAnd if KSM makes the same statements he made in his military commission proceedings, I have every confidence the nation and the world will see him for the coward he is. I'm not scared of what KSM will have to say at trial -- and no one else needs to be either."

Which seems right to me and my friends who stood on our neighborhood streets and watched those towers burn and fall. You got a problem with that?

Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program â€œBill Moyers Journal,â€ which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.

Gold9472

11-21-2009, 10:26 AM

Top US House Democrat questions 9/11 criminal trials

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN20247124

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Representative Ike Skelton, cast doubt on Friday about the Obama administration's decision to try the Sept. 11, 2001, conspirators in a U.S. criminal court.

Skelton, a fellow Democrat of President Barack Obama, asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to brief the committee about the decision to use the criminal courts instead of the revamped military commissions.

"As a former prosecutor, I am not yet convinced that the right decision was made in these cases, nor that the presumption in favor of federal criminal trials over military tribunals for these detainees should continue," Skelton said in a letter to the two officials.

Holder this week defended his decision to move the trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other alleged conspirators to a federal criminal court in New York from military commissions.

It has been mostly Republicans who have been critical of Holder's decision, questioning whether it will be easier to get a conviction in a criminal court rather than a military one because some of the evidence was obtained through coercive interrogations and probably cannot be used.

Holder has said he is aware of evidence that has not been made public that will help convict the five accused men. He expressed confidence that the trials would be successful.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said they would review Skelton's letter. A Defense Department spokesman declined comment.

Gold9472

11-21-2009, 10:27 AM

Ashcroft opposed to civilian 9/11 trials

http://www.kansas.com/225/story/1065473.html

By DAVID TWIDDY
Associated Press

OVERLAND PARK _ Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who on Friday endorsed fellow Republican Todd Tiahrt's U.S. Senate campaign, condemned the Obama administration for moving the trial of Sept. 11 terrorism suspects to civilian rather than military court.

Ashcroft, who served as attorney general at the time of the attacks, said the trials could endanger the public and give anti-U.S. elements a public stage to voice their rhetoric.

He also said prosecutors will have to publicly disclose evidence, which could compromise efforts to monitor and break up future attacks.

"If your top priority is the liberty and life of American citizens and the security of their lives and liberty, then this decision is less than optimal," he told reporters before a fundraiser for Tiahrt. "I believe we are still in a very significant war on terror. The administration doesn't appear to believe that we are in a war on terror."

Attorney General Eric Holder decided last week to send professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged henchmen from a detention center at Guantanamo Bay to New York to face a civilian federal trial instead of facing a military tribunal.

He and President Obama have defended the decision, saying prosecutors have enough evidence to find the men guilty and that the nation's intelligence secrets can be protected in a public trial. Holder also told lawmakers judges can prevent defendants from grandstanding and being disruptive during their trials.

Tiahrt, a congressman, said he filed legislation this week seeking a House vote on whether to keep the trials under military jurisdiction.

Tiahrt, who has represented the 4th District of south-central Kansas since 1995, is locked in a tough race for the Republican Senate nomination with fellow Rep. Jerry Moran, who has represented the 1st District of western and central Kansas since 1997.

Moran, who has been endorsed by such GOP luminaries as Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, also opposes moving the terrorism suspects from Cuba to New York, said campaign manager Aaron Trost.

Gold9472

11-21-2009, 10:27 AM

Fox News Poll: 52 Percent Think 9/11 Trial Should be in Military Tribunal

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/19/fox-news-poll-percent-think-trial-military-tribunal/

by Dana Blanton

A slim majority of Americans think five accused Sept. 11 plotters should be tried by a military tribunal rather than a civilian court -- and nearly half are concerned that their federal trial will "turn into a circus," a Fox News poll finds.

As Attorney General Eric Holder moves forward with his decision to try accused Sept. 11 terrorists in a U.S. civilian court, a slim majority of the public thinks the detainees should be tried by a military tribunal instead. Half of Americans are very concerned key evidence will be thrown out on a technicality, and roughly equal numbers think the government's interrogation techniques will be the focus of the trials as think the terrorist attacks will be.

The latest Fox News national poll finds 52 percent of Americans think the appropriate place to try the five detainees is in a military tribunal, while 40 percent think they should be tried in the U.S. system. Democrats are more likely to favor having the trial in a U.S. court (55-37 percent). For Republicans, it's just the opposite, as a majority thinks a tribunal is the right way to go (64 percent tribunal/29 percent court). Among independents, 60 percent say a tribunal and 33 percent U.S. court.

Click here to see the poll.

When the question is framed as Attorney General Holder's decision to transfer the detainees to New York City to stand trial in a civilian court, more voters say it was a bad idea than a good idea by 49-42 percent. Republicans (60 percent) and independents (60 percent) are much more likely than Democrats (32 percent) to view this action as a bad idea.

A 28 percent minority sees political motives behind Holder's decision and believes the Obama administration wants the trial to be held in U.S. court to put the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies and the practices of the CIA on trial. The largest number though -- 50 percent -- think the administration truly believes the U.S. trial is better than the military tribunal.

Americans are fairly evenly divided on whether the Sept. 11 detainees can get a fair trial in New York City -- 46 percent say yes and 43 percent no. And while 41 percent say they could truly be an impartial juror at the trial of an accused terrorist, over half -- 54 percent -- say they couldn't.

Several issues have been raised surrounding the trials being held in the civilian court system. The largest concern for Americans is that key evidence in the trial will be thrown out on a technicality (50 percent are very concerned). Related to that, many are "very concerned" that for some reason, one or more of the defendants could be set free (48 percent) and secrets about how the government protects the country will be disclosed (45 percent).

There is also concern that the trial will "turn into a circus" (48 percent very concerned) and New York City will become a target (43 percent very concerned).

Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for Fox News from Nov. 17 to Nov. 18. For the total sample, the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Almost all Americans -- 78 percent -- view the Sept. 11 attacks as an "act of terrorism" rather than a "violent crime" (6 percent). A month after the attacks the U.S. military took action in Afghanistan. All in all, 33 percent of Americans think the U.S. and its allies are winning the war against terrorism, down from 41 percent in 2006 and a high of 67 percent in the month after the military action in Afghanistan began (November 2001).

President Obama is currently considering next steps in Afghanistan, including the option of sending additional U.S. troops as requested by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The American public remains divided on this issue: 42 percent support sending more troops and 45 percent oppose it. Last month, 46 percent of Americans supported and 46 percent opposed sending additional troops (October 2009).

Gold9472

11-21-2009, 10:27 AM

Report: Fearing death penalty, Berlin to send team to 9-11 trial

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1514616.php/Report-Fearing-death-penalty-Berlin-to-send-team-to-9-11-trial

Europe News
Nov 21, 2009, 10:32 GMT

Berlin - The German government is to send observers to New York to ensure that evidence it provided in the case against five men accused of masterminding the September 11, 2001 attacks does not lead to them receiving the death penalty, news magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday.

On November 13, the US Justice Department announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men would be tried in a federal court - and that the government was seeking the death penalty should they be convicted.

Members of the al-Qaeda cell including Mohamed Atta that led the suicide attacks on New York and Washington were based in the northern German city of Hamburg in the period leading up to the event.

Germany, which does not have a death penalty, has provided items of evidence for the trial on the condition that a possible death sentence would not be based on their materials.

'In this case we will observe very closely that the given assurances (by the US government) are kept,' Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said.

However, it was not clear how a distinction would, or could, be drawn between German and other evidence leading to a conviction and death penalty.

In the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen serving a life sentence in the US for his failed part in the September 11 attacks, German-provided evidence was only admitted in the first phase of the trial, and not in the preparation of the sentencing.

The defence lawyer for Sheikh Mohammed's co-accused Ramzi Binalshibh said that a conviction of his client would 'scarcely be possible without evidence from Germany.'

A trial based on the Moussaoui example, where German evidence was not admitted in the sentencing phase was an 'artificial distinction, which does not exist in reality,' Speigel quoted Thomas Durkin as saying.

Gold9472

11-21-2009, 10:27 AM

Our view on prosecuting terror suspects: Unsettling choice for 9/11 trial has one big plus
Defendants are getting more than they deserve, but it wonâ€™t likely help them.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/11/debate-on-prosecuting-terror-suspects-our-view-unsettling-choice-for-911-trial-has-one-big-plus.html

11/21/2009

For eight years now, the government has struggled unsuccessfully for a perfect way to try and punish terrorists â€” a task for which neither the civilian courts nor the military justice system was designed. So it's hardly a surprise that the decision to try accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants in federal court in New York â€” and five other terror suspects before military commissions â€” produced a week of acrimonious debate. That was inevitable. The good news, perhaps too little noted, is that years of impotent wrangling are over. The terrorists accused of the 2001 atrocities will be tried and, barring some spectacular failure, suitably punished.

To be sure, the decision to split jurisdiction is discomforting, particularly on the civilian side. Terrorists caught abroad after plotting acts of war are not inherently entitled to all the rights accorded U.S. citizens, and treating them as such is unsettling, both on a gut level and as precedent. Attorney General Eric Holder stumbled repeatedly when pressed at a hearing Wednesday by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on whether Osama bin Laden, if captured, would have to be read Miranda rights, provided a lawyer and tried in a court. "That all depends," Holder said at one point. A convincing "no" would have been better.

The military commissions, meanwhile, will be messy in other ways. They've been overhauled twice for constitutional reasons, and even with protections built in to protect intelligence and such, the government is not comfortable trying all the prisoners it holds before them, or anywhere else.

As we said, it's all messy and uncomfortable. But some of the angst over Holder's decision is also overdone, particularly the hand-wringing from critics who seem to think we should cower in fear at the prospect of publicly trying the self-described 9/11 ringleader. Previous experience suggests advantages.

The accused plotters will be tried within blocks of the World Trade Center by a jury of New Yorkers. That is totally appropriate.

Yes, there is a prospect of endless legal motions for changes of venue or excluding coerced evidence. There's slight potential to reveal classified information. The jurors and judge will have to be guarded. And there will surely be rounds of appeals.

But none of that is new. And why would anyone fear the storyline?

Would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid, 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui and Ramzi Yousef, the perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, are all in prison after federal trials that made them look like exactly what they are: soulless killers. Should Mohammed try to exploit the legal protections of the system he claims to despise, he'll look like a fool.

Nor should anyone fear that he will walk. Holder says he has an airtight case, and it's hard to believe the Justice Department would go forward if it didn't. If by some far-fetched chance Mohammed were acquitted, he could be tried on other charges or held as an enemy combatant.

As for Mohammed using the trial to inspire hatred, he might well try. But among civilized people, his rantings are no match for the prosecution's story of 3,000 innocent people who woke up one clear September morning, went to work or boarded planes and were sent to horrible deaths by his hand.

Ideally, Congress would have devised a third way â€” a national security court to prosecute terrorism cases that don't fit in military or federal court. Former federal judge and attorney general Michael Mukasey has been suggesting that since 2007.

Instead we're left with two systems, both valuable, each somewhat wanting. Holder said he will use both. That's what he's got.

It's fair to ask whether any other country would go through so much angst, so many debates, so much soul-searching to put on trial its most heinous enemies. But in doing so and then trying the accused mastermind of 9/11 in open court, America leaves no doubt that above all, it values the rule of law.

Gold9472

11-21-2009, 10:27 AM

The Washington Postâ€™s Dueling 9/11-Trial Op-eds, Condensed

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/11/the_washington_posts_dueling_9.html

11/20/2009

Today the Washington Post runs two opposing op-eds on the topic of whether Eric Holder is making a wise decision in bringing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to New York to stand trial. In the interest of your precious time and energy, we've boiled the arguments of columnist Charles Krauthammer and former Bush administration Justice Department officials Jim Comey and Jack Goldsmith into their five most salient points. Memorize them for when the argument inevitably breaks out during Thanksgiving dinner!

Charles Krauthammer (not a fan of the decision):

KSM has "been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable."
Holder's certainty that KSM will be convicted makes the trial a farce.
A conviction was guaranteed in a military tribunal.
The trial will be a security nightmare â€” both in terms of protecting the city and the exposure of intelligence secrets.
It creates an incentive for killing Americans on American soil, by prosecuting such acts in a federal court, as opposed to a military tribunal.

Jim Comey and Jack Goldsmith (they like it):

New York won't be any more of a target for terrorists than it already is.
Unlike federal courts, military commissions are fraught with legal uncertainty.
Federal courts were used to put away "dozens of terrorists," many for life, under the Bush administration.
Defendants won't be able to make an argument about their legal rights being infringed upon.
"The potential procedural advantages of military commission trials are relatively unimportant with obviously guilty defendants such as Mohammed."

Gold9472

11-22-2009, 04:53 PM

Lawyer: 9/11 defendants want platform for views

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091122/ap_on_re_us/us_sept11_trial_defendants

By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer Karen Matthews, Associated Press Writer â€“ 47 mins ago

NEW YORK â€“ The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.

Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but "would explain what happened and why they did it."

The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier this month that Ali and four other men accused of murdering nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. will face a civilian federal trial just blocks from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.

Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, is a nephew of professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Mohammed, Ali and the others will explain "their assessment of American foreign policy," Fenstermaker said.

"Their assessment is negative," he said.

Fenstermaker met with Ali last week at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He has not spoken with the others but said the men have discussed the trial among themselves.

Fenstermaker was first quoted in The New York Times in Sunday's editions.

Critics of Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try the men in a New York City civilian courthouse have warned that the trial would provide the defendants with a propaganda platform.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said Sunday that while the men may attempt to use the trial to express their views, "we have full confidence in the ability of the courts and in particular the federal judge who may preside over the trial to ensure that the proceeding is conducted appropriately and with minimal disruption, as federal courts have done in the past."

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Holder for hours about his decision to send the five 9/11 suspects to New York for trial.

Critics of Holder's decision â€” mostly Republicans â€” argued the trial will give Mohammed and his co-defendants a world stage to spout hateful rhetoric. Holder said such concerns are misplaced, and any pronouncements by the suspects would only make them look worse.

"I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is," Holder told the committee. "I'm not scared of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say at trial â€” and no one else needs to be, either."

The attorney general said he does not believe holding the trial in New York â€” at a federal courthouse that has seen a number of high-profile terrorism trials in recent decades â€” will increase the risk of terror attacks there.

Gold9472

11-22-2009, 04:54 PM

If there is a God, please let them say, "we did what the Americans wanted us to..."

Gold9472

11-22-2009, 04:59 PM

Brown: Giuliani 'wants to keep 9/11 alive'

http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/1109/Brown_Giuliani_wants_to_keep_911_alive.html?showal l

11/22/2009

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) ripped Rudy Giuliani Sunday, saying that the former New York City mayor "wants to keep 9/11 alive" in order to further his political ambitions.

Speaking on TV One's "Washington Watch," Brown said Giuliani plans to "quietly" announce a bid for the Senate soon and could use the terrorist attacks eight years ago as a key issue in his campaign.

Brown also took Giuliani to task for his disapproval of the Obama administration's decision to move supposed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial to New York.

"The big difference is that Rudy Giuliani is talking about Barack Obama rather than George Bush," Brown said.

"This is the right way to do it," Brown said of the civilian trial. "Heâ€™ll get a fair trial. Let him go in front of the American legal system, and I think justice will be done."

Gold9472

11-22-2009, 05:02 PM

Germans weasel in on 9/11 trial

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/germans_weasel_in_on_trial_pogG29ROLzHomP3ehgkHpO

By ADAM NICHOLS
Last Updated: 10:50 AM, November 22, 2009

Fearing for the lives of the 9/11 fiends, the German government will send a team of observers to the New York terror trials to make sure evidence by its agents doesn't lead to the death penalty.

Germany, which bans the death penalty, will have a team at the trial of admitted atrocity mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed (right) and four of his al Qaeda henchmen. The evidence gathered by German investigators could lead to death sentences.

In fact, it's unlikely US prosecutors have any chance of convicting the 9/11 monsters without the Germans' proof, an attorney for one of the suspects said yesterday.

A conviction "would scarcely be possible without evidence from Germany," the lawyer, who represents Ramzi Binalshibh, told the German broadcast network Deutsche Welle. The network did not identify the lawyer.

Three of the four pilots who carried out the 9/11 attacks had formed a cell while living in Hamburg, Germany.

German investigators handed over evidence for the trial on the condition that it could not be used to support a death sentence -- which the US government has said it intends to seek if the five are found guilty.

President Obama last week said that he expects Mohammed will be put to death.

But Germany's Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger told Deutsche Welle, "In this case, we will observe very closely that the given assurances are kept."

It's unclear how evidence gathered in Germany could be distinguished from that gathered elsewhere.

No trial date has been set for the five terror thugs, who are to be shipped from Guantanamo Bay to New York.

Gold9472

11-23-2009, 09:32 AM

Poll finds broad support among New Yorkers for death penalty in Khalid Shaikh Mohammed terror case

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/11/22/2009-11-22_kill_all_five_sez_ny_poll_finds_broad_support_f or_death_penalty_in_terror_case.html

BY Robert Johnson and David Saltonstall
daily news writers
Sunday, November 22nd 2009, 4:00 AM

An overwhelming majority of New Yorkers believe the terrorist thugs who planned the 9/11 attacks should and will be sentenced to death - and two-thirds of city residents say they'd be unafraid to serve on the jury.

An exclusive Daily News/Marist poll found that 77% of New Yorkers agree with President Obama that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his four cowardly cohorts will be found guilty in a Manhattan federal courtroom.

"If I'm on that jury, there's no doubt they get a conviction - no doubt," said Larry Amandola, 48, an electrician from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and one of a dozen regular New Yorkers interviewed separately by The News. "I had a few friends who died on Sept. 11 and I worked [at Ground Zero] immediately after. The people that suffered through this have a right to judge them."

The poll of 811 city residents, conducted Wednesday and Thursday by The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion for The News, did find New Yorkers more evenly split on some underlying policy issues.

For instance, 47% of New Yorkers said they agreed with Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try the 9/11 plotters in a civilian court here rather than a military court. Nearly as many - 41% - disagreed with Holder, and 12% said they were unsure. The poll's margin of error was 3.5 percentage points.

Critics - chief among them former Mayor Rudy Giuliani - have argued that a civilian court trial is needlessly risky and expensive for the city and grants the accused too many rights.

But with the decision made, most New Yorkers seem eager to send their own message to the thugs who brought down the Twin Towers:

It's payback time.

"Those guys don't stand a chance," said Henry Romer, 51, a construction manager in midtown Manhattan. "There's no question they'll get the death penalty here."

"New York will get it done, because the families of the people that died won't let them do anything else," added Calvin Seibert, 51, an artist who lives in Chelsea. "It's just what you have to do. We can't let them down."

The poll found some apprehension about an Al Qaeda trial here. Fifty-two percent said they were concerned it will increase the city's risk of a terror attack, while 45% said they were not worried.

"This is going to bring more problems and more terrorists and more threats," said Cecilio Rodriguez, 30, an engineer from Flatbush.

Despite those fears, a solid 69% expressed confidence that a city jury would return the unanimous verdict required to sentence the accused terrorists to death.

And New Yorkers are equally ready to stand up and be counted: More than two-thirds said they would not be afraid to serve as a juror in the case.

"I'd be eager to sit on the jury and hear the whole story, to see history happen," said Louisa Alsen, 19, a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

An even larger 73% of those polled said ringleader Mohammed should be put to death for his crimes if convicted, and 67% said his four co-defendants should also pay the ultimate price.

And though a minority still doubt a jury in left-leaning New York would ever return a sentence of death, there is overwhelming agreement that justice would be served - one way or another.

"I don't think they're gonna get the death penalty in New York, and that's okay," said William Nieves, 27, a bakery driver from Hell's Kitchen. "They should serve life sentences because it's a worse punishment ...[Jail] will be worse than Hell. Guards, prisoners, everyone will be after them."

Steven Stegman, 67, an attorney who worked on Liberty Street when the towers came down, has no doubt New Yorkers will rise to the task of delivering justice.

"I would love to see them convicted in New York," Stegman said. "It's poetic justice ...New York can do this."

Gold9472

11-23-2009, 09:32 AM

Gold9472

11-23-2009, 09:33 AM

Lawyer: 9/11 defendants want platform for views

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091122/ap_on_re_us/us_sept11_trial_defendants

By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer Karen Matthews, Associated Press Writer â€“ Sun Nov 22, 5:28 pm ET

NEW YORK â€“ The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.

Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but "would explain what happened and why they did it."

The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier this month that Ali and four other men accused of murdering nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. will face a civilian federal trial just blocks from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.

Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, is a nephew of professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Mohammed, Ali and the others will explain "their assessment of American foreign policy," Fenstermaker said.

"Their assessment is negative," he said.

Fenstermaker met with Ali last week at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He has not spoken with the others but said the men have discussed the trial among themselves.

Fenstermaker was first quoted in The New York Times in Sunday's editions.

Critics of Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try the men in a New York City civilian courthouse have warned that the trial would provide the defendants with a propaganda platform.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said Sunday that while the men may attempt to use the trial to express their views, "we have full confidence in the ability of the courts and in particular the federal judge who may preside over the trial to ensure that the proceeding is conducted appropriately and with minimal disruption, as federal courts have done in the past."

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Holder for hours about his decision to send the five 9/11 suspects to New York for trial.

Critics of Holder's decision â€” mostly Republicans â€” argued the trial will give Mohammed and his co-defendants a world stage to spout hateful rhetoric. Holder said such concerns are misplaced, and any pronouncements by the suspects would only make them look worse.

"I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is," Holder told the committee. "I'm not scared of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say at trial â€” and no one else needs to be, either."

The attorney general said he does not believe holding the trial in New York â€” at a federal courthouse that has seen a number of high-profile terrorism trials in recent decades â€” will increase the risk of terror attacks there.

Gold9472

11-23-2009, 09:40 AM

The Death Penalty Problem
9/11 Trial Puts German-US Relations Under Strain

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,662814,00.html

By John Goetz and Marcel Rosenbach
11/22/2009

The prosecutors in the forthcoming 9/11 trials in New York will be seeking the death penalty if the five defendants are found guilty. That could pose a problem for Germany, which is supplying vital evidence for the prosecution.

The US government could have hardly picked a more symbolic venue for the trial of its worst enemies. With its colonnade of Corinthian pillars, the 27-story US Courthouse in Lower Manhattan is a daunting fortress of justice. On Sept. 11, 2001, judges and court clerks gathered on the upper floors of the building were able to observe the impact of the second jet that crashed into the World Trade Center, just a few blocks away.

The men accused of orchestrating the 9/11 attacks will soon be put on trial here, not far from the scene of the crime. Next year federal prosecutors in New York are expected to read indictments against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh and three other alleged conspirators. They will be transferred from the detention facility at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to a courtroom less than a mile from Ground Zero, where they will receive a fair trial instead of facing a military tribunal. US Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try the suspects in a civilian court has made international headlines and prompted sighs of relief in many parts of the world.

No Capital Punishment in Germany
But it looks like the upcoming trial will cause headaches for Germany. Holder and US President Barack Obama have announced that they intend to seek the death penalty if the five defendants are found guilty. German law prohibits capital punishment, yet evidence provided by German investigators will play a key role in the trial.

This presents the German government with a dilemma. Berlin can either oppose the use of German evidence in a bid to protect the defendants from execution -- and risk alienating a NATO ally in the process -- or it can approve the use of the incriminating documents, which would contravene Germany's position on the death penalty.

According to the current mutual legal assistance agreement between the two countries, should the information furnished by German investigators be used to impose the death penalty, Germany can insist that this evidence be considered inadmissible in court. This would not be the first time that the Germans have demanded such assurances for criminal proceedings.

The trial in New York is threatening to put a strain on German-American relations. Washington already feels that Germany has let it down by refusing to take in former detainees after the Obama administration decided to close Guantanamo. What's more, when it comes to bringing the terrorists behind 9/11 to justice, there is currently very little understanding in the US for any legal concerns that Berlin might have.

Tug-of-War over Moussaoui Documents
It's not the first time the two countries have locked horns over this issue. Shortly after the attacks, a heated debate flared up, followed by months of tug-of-war over German bank transfer documents, which played a key role in the trial of would-be French suicide pilot Zacarias Moussaoui.

At first the German government demanded that the US court could not seek the death penalty for Moussaoui. But Berlin later relinquished and allowed the German documents to be entered as evidence in the trial in exchange for a binding assurance that this information could not be used to justify the death penalty -- a concept built on shaky legal ground.

The problems facing Germany in the upcoming New York trial are considerably more serious. Moussaoui had never lived in Germany and the dispute over evidence in his trial concerned only very few documents. But it is another story altogether with Ramzi Binalshibh, who was allegedly the main logistics man behind the attacks. He lived in Germany for six years and shared an apartment in Hamburg with two of the 9/11 suicide pilots, including Mohammed Atta, who crashed the first plane into the Twin Towers.

Working out of Germany, Binalshibh gathered information about flight training schools in the US and regularly transferred large sums of money to the future 9/11 hijackers. There were, therefore, a large number of references to the results of the German investigation in the old indictment against Binalshibh, which the Bush administration had hoped would be used in a trial heard before a military commission.

Justice Ministry Alarmed
Aside from that, federal prosecutors in New York will find it difficult to use confessions coerced using highly controversial interrogation methods such as waterboarding. "It is hard to imagine how the government could present a case against Ramzi Binalshibh where a significant portion of the government case would not be based on evidence gathered in Germany," says Thomas Durkin, who is a member of the ACLU John Adams Project and a member of Binalshibh's defense team.

This explains why Holder's announcement of the trial has alarmed the German Justice Ministry in Berlin and its subordinate agency in Bonn, the Federal Office of Justice, which is responsible for mutual legal assistance.

Germany's new Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger intends to maintain the course set by her predecessor: "In this case, we will also watch very closely to ensure that the assurances given are adhered to," she said. In order to verify that the US government keeps its word, the German Justice Ministry will team up with the Foreign Ministry to send German observers to monitor the trial in New York.

But the defense flatly rejects the idea of proceeding according to the example set during the Moussaoui trial. At the time, it was decided that German evidence could only be admitted during the main proceedings, but not during the sentencing phase. This is "a distinction without a difference," says Binalshibh's lawyer Durkin, who is a Chicago-based former federal prosecutor.

Ultimately, Moussaoui did not need to rely on help from German legal experts who questioned the admissibility of the evidence. He managed to escape the death penalty without their aid. One of the twelve jurors voted against death by lethal injection and Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison.

Gold9472

11-23-2009, 09:18 PM

Cheney Accuses Holder of Wanting 'Show Trial' for 9/11 Plotters

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/23/cheney-accuses-holder-wanting-trial-plotters/

11/23/2009

Former Vice President Dick Cheney suggested Monday that Attorney General Eric Holder wants a "show trial" for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11 conspirators who are to be tried in a civilian court just blocks away from where the World Trade Center once stood.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney suggested Monday that Attorney General Eric Holder wants a "show trial" for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11 conspirators who are to be tried in a civilian court just blocks away from where the World Trade Center once stood.

In an interview with conservative talk radio host Scott Hennen on Monday, Cheney called it a "big mistake" to try Mohammed in a civilian court rather than before a military tribunal.

Cheney said the Obama administration has reverted back to a pre-Sept. 11 mindset, in which acts of terror are treated as criminal offenses or "law enforcement problems."

"We had 3,000 dead Americans that day. That is not a law enforcement problem. That's an act of war. And you need to treat it as an act of war," Cheney said in the interview.

The former vice president went on to question the administration's motives in making its decision, saying, "I can't for the life of me figure out what Holder's intent [is] here, in terms of having Khalid Sheikh Mohammed tried in a civilian court, other than to, to have some kind of show trial here."
"They'll simply use it as a platform to argue their case," Cheney said of the 9/11 conspirators.

Cheney also took issue with Obama for not yet announcing a decision on whether to send 30,000 to 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. The former vice president had previously criticized Obama for "dithering" on U.S. military strategy in the eight-year-old war.

"The delay is not cost-free," he said. "Every day that goes by raises doubts in the minds of our friends in the region about what you're going to do. Raises doubts in the minds of the troops -- I worry that the delay and that time that it's taken to come to the decision will be very costly."

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded to suggestions that Americans may perceive the president as indecisive or uncertain on a troop surge in Afghanistan.

"This is a complicated decision," Gibbs said during an afternoon briefing with reporters.

"I'm not going to re-litigate what we litigated when the former vice president offered his advice previously," he added. "There are a series of decisions that have to be made, and the president is working through many of those decisions in order to come to what he believes is the best way forward for our national security."

Obama called his national security team together Monday as he moves toward a decision on whether to send more forces -- the council's ninth meeting on the issue. Obama's announcement is expected as early as next week, according to administration officials.

Gold9472

11-24-2009, 07:06 PM

9/11 Widows Hit Cheney for Fighting KSM Trial

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2009/11/911-widows-hit-cheney-for-figh.html

By Michael McAuliff
11/24/2009

Some 9/11 widows who want to see a terror trial in New York today questioned why a group strongly linked to Liz Cheney is leading the charge in opposition to the trial.

Her father, after all, is the man many Democrats and liberals think broke the law in pushing for interrogation techniques now deemed torture by the Obama administration, and which were used on Al Qaeda plotter Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

The anti-trial group is led by Debra Burlingame â€” whose brother piloted one of the doomed planes â€” and who is a guiding light at 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America.

The 9/11 Families group had as a springboard Keep America Safe, a Liz Cheney vehicle where Burlingame serves on the board.

â€œPerhaps theyâ€™re trying to protect her fatherâ€™s role in torturing these detainees,â€ said Lorie Van Auken, who lost her husband on 9/11. â€œAnd thatâ€™s actually what could keep us from seeing justice, is this torture that was done to these people because that evidence is not really evidence. It wonâ€™t be admissible anywhere.â€

Auken was speaking on a conference call organized by the liberal Human Rights First.

Later, she declined to back off her statement. â€œYou start to wonder why Liz Cheney would be organizing the 9/11 families,â€ she said. â€œItâ€™s just a funny connection.â€

Below is the press conference Burlingame did today with Rep. Pete King and others, posted online by Keep America Safe, in which they call for the trial to be canceled and announce a Dec. 5 rally.

Gold9472

11-24-2009, 11:14 PM

9/11 Widows, National Security Experts, Federal Prosecutors Say Fearmongering Must Stop

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/11/24-6

NEW YORK - November 24 - National security experts, a former federal prosecutor, and 9/11 widows are calling for cooler heads to prevail as those opposed to New York-based federal trials for the five Guantanamo detainees accused in the 9/11 conspiracy ramp up their campaign of "fear and fables."

"Those opposed to federal court trials for these men have speculated about a lot of things â€“ our safety, procedural problems, time. I don't want speculation. I want results. Since the 9/11 attacks, the only forum that has given victims' families results in the war on terror is our federal courts," said Lorie Van Auken, a 9/11 widow.

Monica Gabrielle, also a 9/11 widow, added, "Holding these trials in New York City guarantees victims' families and New Yorkers a front row seat to the justice we deserve and have waited for, for eight long years. It will allow us to watch our Constitution fulfill its promise of protecting our society, and it will mark another chapter in this painful journey to justice."

In a recent study of 119 terrorism cases with 289 defendants filed since 2001 in the normal federal court system, Human Rights First found that of the 214 defendants whose cases were resolved as of June 2, 2009, 195 were convicted either by verdict or by a guilty plea. By contrast, the military commissions are a failed system that has secured only 3 convictions and their continued use threatens to perpetuate the legacy of failed trial and detention policies at Guantanamo.

Van Auken is not alone is her support for bringing the federal trials to New York City. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Senator Charles Schumer, and New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly have all voiced support for Attorney General Holder's decision to try the 9/11 defendants in federal court.

Retired Brigadier General James P. Cullen, a New Yorker and former member of the United States Army Reserve Judge Advocate General's Corps, agrees, stating, "I lost a good friend at the World Trade Center, and I lost a good friend in Baghdad, but I think that the symbolism of bringing these guys to trial in New York is as equally important as assuring the world that when they are tried, they are going to get a full and fair trial. Bringing them to New York, which was the scene of the crime and the terrible incidents of September 11th, is particularly appropriate. When we convened the Nuremberg Trials, we deliberately chose Nuremberg as the site where we were going to convict those people who had formulated, and the symbol of the formulation had occurred in the city where so much of the horrendous work of the Nazis carried out was first imagined. I think we are going to do the same when we bring these people to New York and conduct their trials here."

A chief concern among experts who support federal trials for those accused in the 9/11 conspiracy is ending the misconception that these men deserve "warrior status" â€“ a distinction that has been one of Al Qaeda's most effective recruiting tools.

From the organization's New York City office, Human Rights First President and Chief Executive Officer Elisa Massimino concluded, "The victims of 9/11 and the American public deserve to see justice done, and the best way to achieve that is by prosecuting these men in a credible criminal justice system where the focus will be on their culpability, not on the legitimacy or fairness of the proceedings. Moving these cases out of military commissions and into the federal courts is smart counter-terrorism strategy. It treats the perpetrators as the criminals they are and deprives them of the warrior status they crave. This is an important distinction and will help thwart their ability to recruit others to their cause."

Gold9472

11-25-2009, 08:00 AM

Rally Against Terrorist Trial in NYC

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/25606/

11/25/2009

NEW YORKâ€”A rally to protest the upcoming trial of 9/11 conspirators in New York City was announced in Battery Park on Tuesday morning by members of the 9/11 Never Forget Coalition. The decision to hold the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other co-conspirators in New York City was announced by President Barrack Obama and NY State Attorney General Eric Holder earlier this month.

The coalition will hold the rally at noon on Dec. 5 in Foley Square with members of the 9/11 Never Forget Coalition, 9/11 victims, family members, first responders, members of the military, and veterans.

Debra Burlingame, founder of the 911 Families for a Safe and Strong America said, â€œOur Rally on Dec. 5 will tell Attorney General Eric Holder, President Barack Obama, and their supporters in Congress: We will fight you all the way!â€ Ms. Burlingame is the sister of Charles F. Burlingame III, pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

The group sent a letter two weeks ago signed by 300 family members of 9/11 victims to President Obama, AG Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates asking them to reverse their decision to hold the trial in New York. The letter has since been signed by 120,000 Americans and is posted online at www.keepamericasafe.com/?page_id=1822

The group is protesting the plan to hold the trial that will give enemy combatants of the U.S. constitutional protections by holding the trial in U.S federal court.

Speakers at the press conference included Rep. Pete King (R- NY) Peter Regen, an active FDNY firefighter who has served two tours in Iraq and whose father, Donald J. Regen, died at the World Trade Center, and Andrew McCarthy, former assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and prosecutor in the trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Members of the group Human Rights First also appeared at the press conference Tuesday morning. They claim that the 9/11 Never Forget Coalition is â€œfear mongeringâ€ and should allow the trial move forward.

â€œThose opposed to federal court trials for these men have speculated about a lot of thingsâ€”our safety, procedural problems, time. I donâ€™t want speculation. I want results. Since the 9/11 attacks, the only forum that has given victims families results in the war on terror is our federal courts,â€ Stated Lorie Van Auken, a 9/11 widow in a press release.

According to Human Rights First, a recent study states that of 119 terrorism cases with 289 defendants filed since 2001 in the normal federal court system, 214 of the cases have been resolved as of June 2, 2009, with 195 convictions either by verdict or by a guilty plea. By contrast, military commissions have secured three convictions.

Mayor Bloomberg has voiced his support for the decision to hold the trial in federal court. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) has asked that an estimated $75 million security costs to hold the trial in Manhattan be covered by the federal government.

Gold9472

11-25-2009, 08:46 AM

New York rally planned to protest 9/11 trial

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5AN4XN20091125

11/25/2009

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A group against bringing the self-professed mastermind of the September 11 attacks to trial in a U.S. civilian court will hold a rally in New York demanding Washington reconsider its decision, the group said on Tuesday.

The 9/11 Never Forget Coalition said it will hold a rally on December 5 at a park adjacent to the Manhattan federal courthouse where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others will be tried just blocks from Ground Zero.

No date has been announced for the suspects' transfer to New York or their first appearance in court.

Debra Burlingame, a co-founder of the group, said the trial gives Mohammed the opportunity to wage "jihad in the courtroom." The group supports trying the men before a military tribunal.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has defended his decision to move the trials from the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba to a federal criminal court in New York, saying the men can be tried fairly and successfully in New York.

The decision has divided the families of victims. Some say the trial is an opportunity to face the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks and help bring closure while others say the men should be treated like war criminals.

"We are giving them the biggest stage that they could possibly want," said Tim Brown, a retired New York City firefighter who said he lost dozens of friends in the attack. "We are in a pre-9/11 mentality."

Burlingame declined to estimate how many people she expected to attend the rally.

Gold9472

11-26-2009, 01:55 AM

9/11 families split on civilian court trials
'Tea party' affiliate to join rally

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/26/911-families-split-on-civilian-court-trials/

By Ben Conery
11/26/2009

Nearly two weeks after the Obama administration announced its intention to prosecute professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his fellow defendants in civilian court, family members of the terrorist attack's victims remain sharply divided on the issue.

On Dec. 5, a group including Sept. 11 victims and family members plans to hold a rally protesting the administration's decision. The rally is being joined by a "tea party" movement affiliate, a sign that the conservative protest network is expanding its scope of issues.

The rally is scheduled in Foley Square, the Lower Manhattan site of the federal courthouse chosen to hold the trials of the purported Sept. 11 conspirators.

The 9/11 Never Forget Coalition, the group organizing the rally, said an online petition to stop the trials has already garnered 120,000 signers, and a letter signed by 300 Sept. 11 families protesting the decision has been sent to President Obama and other top administration officials.

"This trial will be lawyer-assisted jihad in the courtroom," Debra Burlingame, whose brother was a pilot killed in the attacks, said during a news conference Tuesday. "When we grant a confessed war criminal access to due process so that he can use it to rally his fellow terrorists to kill more of our citizens and to target our military, that's jihad."

A group called Tea Party 365, whose co-founder organized the first tea party protest in New York, said it also plans to participate in the rally. Kellen Giuda also sits on the board of directors of Tea Party Patriots.

But Ms. Burlingame's opinion is not shared by all Sept. 11 families.

With the terrorist attack claiming nearly 3,000 victims, it would be impossible to reach a consensus among all the families involved, said Monica Gabrielle, whose husband was killed in the attack. Ms. Gabrielle and other family members have been outspoken in their support for the administration's decision.

"I don't understand what the frenzy is. We've done it before, and we've done it successfully," she said of prosecuting terrorism suspects in federal courts.

Despite their differing opinions, Ms. Gabrielle said she supports the rights of Ms. Burlingame and others to protest the administration's decision.

"What I have a problem with is the fear they are basing it on," Ms. Gabrielle told The Washington Times on Wednesday. "You've got to speak from a voice of reason."

Ms. Burlingame and other opponents of the trial say bringing terrorism suspects to New York City is ill-advised and dangerous. They worry the trials will be costly, could make New York City susceptible to an attack and give Mohammed and his four fellow defendants a forum to spout jihadist rhetoric.

It's a concern shared by many Republican members of Congress. And various recent polls, including from Fox News and CNN, show more Americans would prefer Mohammed be tried in a military tribunal than in a civilian court.

But in an appearance on Capitol Hill last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. remained resolute. Mr. Holder, who made the decision to hold prosecutions in federal court, said the move is in line with American legal values, and he is certain Mohammed and the others will be convicted.

"I have every confidence the world will see him for the coward he is," Mr. Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I'm not scared of what [Mohammed] will have to say at trial - and no one else needs to be, either."

Gold9472

11-29-2009, 11:24 AM

Mental State Cited in 9/11 Case

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125928395078865773.html

11/27/2009

WASHINGTON -- When five defendants are brought before a New York federal judge to face charges for the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the first question may be whether some of them are competent to stand trial at all.

Military lawyers for Ramzi Binalshibh, an accused organizer of the 9/11 plot, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, the conspiracy's alleged paymaster, say their clients have mental disorders that make them unfit for trial, likely caused or exacerbated by years of harsh confinement in Central Intelligence Agency custody.

The issue already has arisen in military-commission proceedings at the military's detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. According to an August ruling by a military judge, prosecutors have made an "apparent concession" that Mr. Binalshibh "suffers from a delusional disorder-persecutory type" disorder. Mr. Binalshibh has been prescribed "a variety of psychotropic medications used to treat schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder, including Haldol, Abilify, risperidone and Ativan," according to commission records.

In October 2008, a military medical board reported Mr. Binalshibh may suffer from "severe mental disease" that could "impair his ability to conduct or cooperate intelligently in his defense."

A military attorney for Mr. Hawsawi, Lt. Cmdr. Gretchen Sosbee, said the military judge ordered a mental evaluation of her client, but its results haven't yet been entered into the record.

It long has been unconstitutional to prosecute people who are unable to understand proceedings against them or assist in their defense, whether in federal court, court-martial or military commission.

However, Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, a lawyer for Mr. Binalshibh, said a military judge has refused to allow a full examination into her client's condition, in particular by denying access to any information regarding his treatment in CIA custody between 2002 and 2006. An order by the judge, Col. Stephen Henley, said that information was "not relevant" to Mr. Binalshibh's condition.

In court papers, Cmdr. Lachelier cited Bush administration memorandums endorsing the use of sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and other harsh techniques intended to induce a prisoner's cooperation.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not the only accused terrorist set to go on trial in New York. But WSJ's Jess Bravin says two of KSM's co-accused have mental competency issues that may jeopardize a trial.

Military records cited by the defense say Mr. Binalshibh "was seen 'acting out' in various manners, including breaking cameras placed in his cell" and covering cameras "with toilet paper...and with feces." At a June 2008 hearing, Mr. Binalshibh said "we're still in the black site" -- the term for CIA secret prisons. Mr. Binalshibh said he couldn't sleep because, among other reasons, his bunk is "always shaking automatically."

Much remains unknown about the prisoners' mental state, and prosecutors may have evidence to demonstrate their fitness that isn't currently public.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd declined to comment specifically on the mental-capacity issue but said the government expects "a host of motions" to be filed. "It's the job of prosecutors to anticipate these challenges and plan their cases accordingly, and that is certainly being done in this case," he said.

A strong defense case for mental unfitness may force prosecutors to choose between unappealing options. They could sever Messrs. Binalshibh and Hawsawi from the joint conspiracy trial, allowing the case against the defendants whose capacity isn't at issue to proceed.

That would deprive prosecutors of a favored tool in conspiracy cases, because a joint trial allows the alleged guilt of one defendant to be imputed to the others. In this case, where the notoriety of alleged 9/11 organizer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed far exceeds that of his co-defendants, the separation could be beneficial to Messrs. Binalshibh or Hawsawi should they contest the charges.

If federal prosecutors decide to pursue a joint trial, proceedings will have to wait until each defendant's fitness is established.

In determining competence, "the key issue is the capacity to assist counsel," said Norman Poythress, a University of South Florida specialist in mental-health law.

Last year, the Supreme Court established a two-tier system of mental capacity, allowing judges to find defendants able to stand trial yet unfit to represent themselves. Mr. Mohammed and two co-defendants -- Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali -- have been acting as their own attorneys before the military commission. Mr. Binalshibh asked to do so, but was denied until his mental competence has been determined.

Gold9472

11-29-2009, 11:26 AM

Spin of Wheel May Determine Judge in 9/11 Case

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/nyregion/28judge.html

By BENJAMIN WEISER
Published: November 27, 2009

At first glance, the wooden wheel looks as if it might have been used to call out bingo numbers in a church fund-raiser. But sometime soon, a federal magistrate judge in Manhattan could be spinning the wheel in open court, unlocking a small door on one of its sides, and pulling out a sealed envelope containing the name of a judge.

The tumbler that may be used to determine which judge is charged with overseeing the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others accused in the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

That judge could well be charged with overseeing the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others accused in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. And that judge will have to consider questions as procedural as trial dates and as controversial and delicate as evidence gained through torture.

The case could last years, and the judge who gets it will most likely be assigned security around the clock â€” for his or her lifetime.

When Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced this month that the Obama administration would seek to have Mr. Mohammed and the others tried in civilian court in New York, he said that he was confident that â€œwhatever judge is assigned to this case will maintain the dignity of the proceedingsâ€ and that the defendants would get a fair trial.

For the moment, it is unclear whether the wheel will even be spun. Prosecutors could seek an indictment that would result in the case going to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who is presiding in the case of another suspected terrorist that is raising issues similar to those that could arise in the Sept. 11 matter.

The question of who will preside over the case has become the subject of speculation in the chambers of judges and in the corridors of federal court on Pearl Street.

â€œThis entire case coming to New York is to demonstrate to the world that the system works â€” and part of that system is the wheel,â€ said Donna R. Newman, a lawyer whose clients have included Jose Padilla, the Brooklyn-born convert to Islam who was once designated as an enemy combatant (and was later convicted of conspiracy in federal court).

Ronald L. Kuby, another lawyer whose clients have included terrorism defendants over the years, said: â€œAs corny as it was watching that wooden bingo drum be spun, it did create a sense of impartiality. It would be a good thing in this case.â€

There are actually three wheels â€” labeled A, B, and C â€” that are used to assign most criminal cases. They sit in a row by the magistrate judge on the fifth floor of the courthouse.

Wheel A is used for short trials; B for trials that are expected to last 6 to 20 days, and C for trials estimated to exceed 20 days.

A judge who receives the Sept. 11 case may recuse him- or herself for a variety of reasons. The case would then be reassigned. In a recent case in Brooklyn federal court, for example, which uses a computer to assign cases randomly, it took four tries to assign a case involving a man charged in a Qaeda plot to set off bombs in the United States.

The courtâ€™s chief judge, Raymond J. Dearie, who finally got the case, said that one judge assigned to the case was on senior status and was not supposed to be on the list of judges taking cases. A second judge had an irreconcilable conflict of interest that prevented her from sitting. And a third judge recused herself without explanation.

â€œTake my word for it,â€ Judge Dearie said, â€œevery judge in the courthouse would have liked to have had this case, fully realizing itâ€™s going to be a real burden.â€

In Manhattan federal court, there are more than 20 active judges, along with a few on senior status (a sort of semiretirement), who appear to be eligible to receive the Sept. 11 case.

Some have raised the question of whether a judge could volunteer for the Sept. 11 case. Under the courtâ€™s rules, a judge could offer to take the case only after it was randomly assigned to another judge. Mr. Kuby believes that would be inadvisable, saying, â€œAny judge who wants it should not have it.â€

â€œThe only judge who would want this case is a judge who wants to stamp his or her mark on history,â€ he said, adding, â€œAnd the desire to do that tends not to make for the best judging.â€

If the wheel is not used, the Sept. 11 case could end up going before Judge Kaplan.

Lawyers who have been mulling over this possibility presented the following premise: the judge has been handling the case of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a suspected terrorist charged with conspiring in the 1998 bombings of American Embassies in Africa. Like the Sept. 11 defendants, Mr. Ghailani spent time in the C.I.A.â€™s secret prisons and at GuantÃ¡namo.

But it is less well known that Mr. Ghailani is also one of nearly two dozen defendants, including Osama bin Laden, who were charged in a broad indictment with conspiring to kill Americans â€œanywhere in the world, including in the United States.â€

That indictment is also before Judge Kaplan.

Prosecutors could bring a superseding version of that indictment, in which they charge the Sept. 11 plot as part of Mr. bin Ladenâ€™s global conspiracy to kill Americans.

â€œThe government certainly has arguments that a superseding indictment and assignment to Judge Kaplan is appropriate,â€ said Michael G. McGovern, a former terrorism prosecutor in Manhattan.

He added that prosecutors could validly say: â€œWe indicted bin Laden. Heâ€™s the leader of this conspiracy. K. S. M. is the field general who carried it out.â€

Prosecutors had no comment.

In yet another possibility, prosecutors would try Mr. Mohammed on a 1990s-era indictment in the so-called Bojinka plot to bomb American jetliners as they crossed the Pacific. Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy presided in a 1996 trial in which three others were convicted.

But Mr. Holderâ€™s recent comments make that seem unlikely. The attorney general said the Sept. 11 defendants would be â€œcharged for what we believe they did, and that is to mastermind and carry out the 9/11 attacks.â€

Gold9472

11-29-2009, 11:27 AM

Bolton: Bringing Sept. 11 Trial to NYC Endangers Innocent Lives Unnecessarily

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,577168,00.html

Thursday, November 26, 2009

This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," November 25, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, like it or not, they are coming here. Five 9/11 co-conspirators, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, are coming to New York City for a trial in a federal civilian court. Opposition is loud and fierce.

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton joins us live. Good evening, Ambassador. And Ambassador, you're not wild about this idea, are you, sir.

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: No, I think it's a major strategic mistake by the administration. I think it reflects a pre- 9/11 mentality that you can treat terrorism like it's a law enforcement matter, rather than what it is, a war on the country. And I think the signal that it sends to the terrorists overseas is very, very dangerous for the country down the road.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, there are a couple of issues that I see. One is why a civilian court and not a military? And even if -- you know, even if it had -- even if the person makes the decision that it should be in a civilian federal court -- of course, is Eric Holder here, the attorney general is -- why New York City? Why not Montana or Gitmo, much like they did in the Oklahoma City bombing case was tried in Denver? You know, why New York?

BOLTON: Well, I think on the first question, it really -- there's a lot more than just, Do you try them in a civilian court, or do you try them in a military court? In the first place, as a -- as a matter of looking at it through the war paradigm, the first thing you want to do capturing somebody like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed or many of these other people at Guantanamo is not worry about the trial for the terrorist acts they've committed but getting information from them that we can use in the continuing war. And I think the trial is really almost secondary to the larger strategic objectives.

In terms of putting it in New York, you know, it is -- it -- one of the reasons it's attractive to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is it's the center of media attention for him to make his case to the world. He's not a traditional defendant. He's not trying to prove his innocence. He's not trying to get an acquittal from the jury. He's there, as his lawyer has already said, to conduct a show trial. And I think the risk is it will draw other terrorists to New York to make their point, as well.

VAN SUSTEREN: And of course, you made the comment you wouldn't bring your family there during the trial or something. I don't know if I read that wrong, but...

BOLTON: Well, my -- my -- my daughter lives and works in New York, and I don't expect she'll pay any attention to that. But my point was that you are endangering innocent people's lives unnecessarily. I don't think there's any question the risk of terrorist attack goes up. We all hope federal, state and local authorities will be able to defend against it, but why give the terrorists the opportunity to begin with?

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, taking it one step further to the whole issue of the trial, with the recognition that, you know, that's a decision that has been made and it's going to happen, the thing that strikes me is that guilty people are found not guilty every single day of the week. Not guilty people are convicted every day -- every day of the week, so it's an -- it's our best system we can do, but it's imperfect. We've got a guy who was waterboarded 183 times. The attorney general himself has testified that he says that's torture, so it's unlike anything that comes out there could be used against him. So the whole trial procedure is -- is at high risk, from the prosecution standpoint. Even though Attorney General Holder says, you know, that he's got a strong case, there is a risk.

BOLTON: Look, Greta, I was a litigator, like you were, for many years, and you know, you can prepare as hard as you want for a trial. I never went into any trial absolutely convinced what the outcome was going to be. And I think the points you've made show why the law enforcement paradigm simply doesn't work here. A terrorist in this context is not just a bank robber on steroids. And the circumstances under which Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was apprehended, much of the evidence gathered, isn't in the context of a civil, constitutional society where you can have appropriate due process for criminal defendants.

In a war, you don't have police tape marking off crime scenes. You don't have infantry soldiers carrying little glassine bags to put evidence in. People don't get Miranda warnings because it's not a criminal environment.

VAN SUSTEREN: But I -- I don't -- I have never tried a case in a criminal -- I mean, in a military forum, but people who work within the military framework have an enormous amount of respect. I've seen juries where I never thought in a million years someone would be found not guilty because the jury's made up of the military people. So is there something fundamentally wrong in terms of -- of these military panels? Is -- you know, what's wrong -- why -- why not put them there? What's the argument against putting them there?

BOLTON: Well, ultimately, I don't have any trouble when you have somebody who commits an act of terrorism like this, but I don't think it's an issue that you want to rush them into trial in a military tribunal. I want to make sure...

VAN SUSTEREN: But in any tribunal -- I mean, I -- do you just want to hold them indefinitely or do you want to give them some sort of, you know, finality that we should, you know, figure out what to do with these people?

BOLTON: Well, I'd hold them indefinitely in any case. I mean, even if you believe in the Geneva convention's applicability, which -- which is incorrect, but even if you did, you hold prisoners of war for the duration of the conflict, and I think this conflict is going to go on for a long time. The fact is military tribunals do give a considerable amount of justice. They are not show trials. The show trial we're going to see here is going to be put on by the defense.

VAN SUSTEREN: What I don't understand, though, is if -- I mean, if we -- if the government insists on putting them on trial in a federal civilian -- a civil trial -- or a civilian trial, why not just send the judge down to Gitmo and do that there instead of bringing the whole the show and all the expense up to New York and all the risk to New York? Is there anything to stop them from moving the judge to the trial?

BOLTON: Well, I think you've got a jury problem, although, you know, you've got another...

VAN SUSTEREN: They're going to be sequestered anyway. They're going to be sequestered anyway, so sequester them at Gitmo. I mean, if -- if -- we're going to do that anyway to them.

BOLTON: Yes. I mean, you've already got the president of the United States tainting the jury pool by saying that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is guilty and should get the death penalty. I can't wait to see the arguments before the judge on that issue.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, it'll be -- it'll be interesting to see what happens. And there a lot of people who are unhappy about this. And of course, we're going to watch it unfold. Ambassador Bolton, thank you, as always. Thank you, sir.

BOLTON: Thank you.

Gold9472

11-30-2009, 09:20 AM

9/11 attacks still haunt potential jurors
Wrenching questions of bias as New Yorkers contemplate trial duty

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/29/AR2009112902668.html?hpid=moreheadlines

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 30, 2009

NEW YORK -- It was Sept. 12 before Michael Curatola remembered Pablo Ortiz. Watching the people leap from the windows, feeling the earth shudder, Curatola was so immersed in the horror of 9/11 that he failed to register that on the 88th floor of one of the towers was a neighbor -- a friend who, eight years later, would be his reason for wanting a seat on the jury assaying the guilt of the men charged with planning it all.

"Just to get vengeance for my dead friend who's not here anymore," said Curatola, cleaning the lobby of the building next door to the hole where the twin towers once stood, a wound cleaned and tended but still open.

"But that word 'vengeance' sounds too much like a personal vendetta," Curatola added. "I mean justice."

The distinction can be elusive in this city as it tries those accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In announcing this month that five accused plotters, including self-described mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, would be brought from Guantanamo to federal district court in Manhattan, the Obama administration declared that the trials would display not only the crimes, but also the resolute fairness of America's system of justice.

Which was what gnawed at Curatola the longer he thought about it.

"Do you seriously think they can get a fair trial blocks from that hole in the ground?" he asked. "Who are they going to pick for the jury? Everyone was involved, when you really think about it."

Most New Yorkers don't have to think very long.

"Oh, no. No. I have no impartiality," said Laura Stein, 45 and an artist, when asked if she saw herself as a 9/11 juror. "It was the worst day of my life. And I didn't lose anybody. I wasn't even in the area. And still the most fearful day of my life."

"We took it personally," said Sara Martinez, 52, an associate at a Verizon location near Ground Zero. "We don't feel safe anymore, secure anymore. It took away our peace of mind. It took away a lot of things."

In New York, 2,752 people lost their lives. An additional 184 perished at the Pentagon, and 40 more in the Shanksville, Pa., crash of United Airlines Flight 93.

"One of my children is named for someone who was killed in the World Trade Center," said Albert Gregory III, a construction worker from Staten Island. He wore a T-shirt decorated with the names of his six children -- Kristen, now 6, is named after Kristen Montanaro, a friend since childhood who worked in one of the towers. As he spoke, Gregory held a copy of the New York Post rolled in his fist. The day after Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s announcement that the accused plotters would be tried in New York, the front page featured a mock postcard.

"Welcome to New York," it said. "Now Die!"

"It's a real liberal town, New York," said Gregory, 40. "A lot of people might not want them executed." He called over his mother-in-law, "a real liberal, see what she says."

"I say hang 'em," said Georgianna Neller, a state Health Department investigator, smiling grimly and gesturing toward the hole in the ground. "Hang 'em right over there. Put the girder up.

"It's just a heartbreaking thing," she said. "And I don't see who could be on the jury and not be emotional."

Legal experts say it can be done.

"Anybody who was in New York on 9/11, or D.C., was touched personally by it," said Anthony S. Barkow, a former federal prosecutor who runs the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at New York University. "But there are different levels of that, and there are different levels of how people have subsequently dealt with that."

He added: "I was in D.C. on September 11 and I remember fighter jets flying overhead. And we evacuated the U.S. attorney's office. But that's different from somebody who saw it out their window, for instance."

Previous terrorism trials have established a culling process, and potential jurors have been called in by the hundreds. Those with obvious links to the events were excused. The others were rigorously interviewed for bias, under oath.

Philippe Rousseau, who spent three days and four nights clearing the wreckage, would be out in the first round.

"I almost died myself that day," said Rousseau, now retired as a New York firefighter. "I'd say hang 'em. Burn 'em. Electrocute 'em. Kill 'em. I am not open-minded on the subject."

Others, however, insist they could be.

Nelson Melendez, now 20, was in sixth grade the day the towers fell.

"I feel like I could make a just decision," said Melendez, now a college student. "Mostly for the reason that I didn't personally have anyone in the tower. I could have the distance from it."

"Absolutely, I could be on the jury," said Robert Hill, 35, who once worked in the towers but was on the subway that morning. He found proximity compelling. "It happened here, and we were the ones most affected by it. I could be fair."

Dan Jordan, 58, folded a morning paper in the drizzle opposite Ground Zero.

"I don't know the answer," he said. As a lawyer, he knows about impartiality: "It's the whole basis of our judicial system." But as a native New Yorker, he lost 10 high school classmates that day, plus a cousin.

"I think I could do it. It'd be troubling," he said. "I try to be a fair person."

Some New Yorkers said they would be reluctant to give up months of their lives for a trial so likely to end in conviction.

"We have to process them through the system right, that's how America works," said Elvin Singh, a cellphone salesman. "But I wouldn't want to be on that jury. It's a waste of time."

Others admit to apprehension, both for the city and for themselves, whatever precautions are taken to shield jurors' identities.

"Fear is fear," said Hubert Findlay, 59, drawing a finger across his neck. "Plain-spoken, it's a possibility. That's always in the back of your mind. If it's not, you'd be a fool."

In his tiny shop off Queens Avenue, however, Jasbir Kukreja could not see the problem.

"Why should we be fearful?" he said. "We should be strong enough to do what we have to do."

The Indian immigrant demurred on the question of jury duty, moot anyway because Queens stands outside the Southern District of New York. "I'm too small bird for this all," he said. "These are complicated questions."

But in the quarter-century since arriving, Kukreja has grown to admire the character of the place.

"Because America is a land of immigrants, people are very open-minded," he said, alone at rush hour, sipping milky tea amid the shelves of batteries and gloves. "Unfortunately, I did not make any money in New York. But the people are very gentle, very respectful toward each other. This is not a lesson I would learn in India. New York City has given me that lesson."

Gold9472

11-30-2009, 09:20 AM

Death penalty in 9/11 trials may be difficult
Legal experts say Obama was overly confident when he said that critics of the New York trial would be silenced 'when the death penalty is applied to' suspect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-terror-trials30-2009nov30,0,6855010.story

By David G. Savage
November 30, 2009

Reporting from Washington - After Zacarias Moussaoui -- the accused "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 attacks -- was sentenced to life in prison in 2006 because one juror in Virginia refused to agree to the death penalty, Moussaoui clapped his hands and called out, "America, you lost and I won." Now the Obama administration plans to seek a death sentence for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind.

Some legal experts say President Obama was overly confident when he predicted that critics of trying Mohammed in a federal courtroom in Manhattan would be silenced "when the death penalty is applied to him." The only modern-day terrorist sentenced to death in federal court was Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh.

"It will be an uphill battle to get a death penalty in these cases," said Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor in New York. He helped win convictions for four acolytes of Osama bin Laden who plotted the 1998 simultaneous bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people. Jurors in 2001 found the men guilty, but they were divided on the punishment. As a result, all four were sentenced to life in prison.

Some jurors said afterward that they opposed a death sentence because the defendants had said they wished to die as martyrs.

"Obviously, the 9/11 crimes are as serious as you can get," Butler said. "But it is difficult to get 12 people in Manhattan to agree on a death penalty."

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr.'s decision this month to try Mohammed and other alleged Sept. 11 plotters in federal court rather than under the military commission system set up at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, set off a fierce legal and political fight that shows no sign of subsiding.

Critics say a Manhattan trial poses a grave security threat to New York. They also worry that the defendants will be acquitted or escape the death penalty, or that the suspects will use the trial to spew terrorist propaganda.

But defenders of the decision say the nation's courts have shown themselves fully capable of trying and convicting the worst of criminals. And, they say, trying the suspects as ordinary murderers is more fitting than treating them as warriors.

"The best thing Obama is doing here is saying these people are not terrorists with superhuman qualities. They need to be brought to justice and tried as criminals," said Karen J. Greenberg, a law professor at New York University. "We should have brought them to trial a long time ago."

She and others noted that a long list of terrorists have been tried and convicted in federal courts in Manhattan, including World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef.

Despite the disagreements, it's not certain that the different legal systems would produce different outcomes.

Lawyers on both sides have said that they fully expect Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators to be found guilty. And though 12 military officers at Guantanamo might be more likely to impose the ultimate sanction than 12 civilians in New York, the limited experience with such commissions does not make that a foregone conclusion.

So far, the military commissions have surprised civil libertarians and the Pentagon by dismissing charges against some terrorism suspects and giving relatively lenient sentences to others.

The Pentagon's lawyers had sought a 30-year prison term for Salim Hamdan, Bin Laden's former driver, but last year a military judge sentenced him to serve just six more months in prison. Hamdan subsequently was released and sent home to Yemen.

It also is hard to assess the commissions' fairness or effectiveness.

Earlier this year, Congress adopted revised rules for the military trials that largely parallel those of the federal courts. The obvious difference is that the judge, the prosecutor, the defense lawyer and the jurors are military officers.

The rules of evidence differ in a few areas as well. For example, the military judge may permit hearsay -- out-of-court statements -- if the judge considers the testimony reliable. This would allow prosecutors to use statements from witnesses who are overseas.

By contrast, the Supreme Court has barred the use of nearly all such statements in civilian courts if the witness cannot or will not appear at the trial to be cross-examined.

Critics of trying the alleged Sept. 11 plotters at Guantanamo have said that uncertainty over the commission rules could have led to delays or lengthy appeals.

"These prosecutions could have been delayed for years while the courts resolved questions about hearsay or secret evidence," said Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"A federal court trial should go more smoothly," he said, because the rules are well established.

Meanwhile, critics of Holder's decision have focused on the difficulties of trying international terrorism suspects in a civilian court in the heart of Manhattan.

"I suspect KSM is absolutely delighted by this decision," said Brad Berenson, a former White House lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, referring to Mohammed by his initials. "This means a return to the scene of his greatest triumph. And it gives him a megaphone 100 times greater than he would otherwise have."

Earlier this year, Mohammed said at a Guantanamo hearing that he wished to plead guilty. But Duke University law professor Scott Silliman said the government should not count on him and his four alleged co-conspirators to plead guilty now.

"I think it's likely KSM will want to use the trial as a forum for himself and to put the government on trial. I will be very surprised if he pleads guilty," said Silliman, a former military lawyer. "We should expect a long, convoluted trial full of difficulties for the government."

Before trial, the five defendants' attorneys are likely to ask for a change of venue and to ask for the charges to be dismissed because the long-held defendants were denied a "speedy trial."

"There also will be a mountain of discovery motions," said Charles "Cully" Stimson, a former Pentagon lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. Defense lawyers will demand to see files and cables that contain evidence involving the alleged 9/11 plotters.

Supporters of Holder's decision say convictions in an open federal court will be a triumph for American justice.

"This trial is going to be fair," said Stephen Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University. "It will show that we Americans play by a set of rules. And that the truth comes out in court for all to see."

Gold9472

12-05-2009, 07:37 PM

Protesters rally against 9/11 trial set for New York

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/05/AR2009120502318.html

Reuters
Saturday, December 5, 2009; 5:25 PM

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Demonstrators angered by the Obama administration's move to prosecute the self-professed mastermind of the September 11 attacks in civilian court on U.S. soil called on Saturday for the trial to be moved to a military tribunal.

More than 1,000 people braved cold and rain to rally outside the Manhattan federal courthouse where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others will be tried.

Speakers blasted U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for his decision to hold the trials in a court just blocks from the World Trade Center site, where thousands of people were killed in the 2001 attacks with hijacked planes.

Demonstrators -- among them family members of victims and rescuers-- held U.S. flags and signs reading "no constitutional rights for enemy combatants," and booed and jeered as speakers invoked Holder's name and that of President Barack Obama.
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"They were murdered ... by the terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," Edie Lutnick, executive director of The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, said of the victims.

Lutnick's brother Howard Lutnick is chief executive of the Cantor Fitzgerald brokerage firm that lost two-thirds of its staff -- more than 600 people. A brother of theirs died in the attack.

"We will be victims no more," Lutnick said drawing cheers from the rally organized by the 9/11 Never Forget Coalition. She called on the U.S. Congress to block the trial.

Other speakers, including people who were badly injured on September 11, blasted the trial as "a multimillion-dollar charade" and an "exercise in global Jihadist recruitment" which would only give terrorists a platform.

Sixteen years ago "they attacked and we indicted," said former assistant U.S. attorney Andy McCarthy, who prosecuted the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case, tried at the same federal courthouse in lower Manhattan.

"We know it's a war ... You don't bring your enemies to a courthouse," said McCarthy, a contributor to the conservative periodical National Review who criticized Obama during the 2008 election campaign for his "collaboration with radical, America-hating leftists."

Holder has defended his decision to move the trials from the prison camp at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to a federal criminal court in Manhattan, saying the men can be tried fairly and successfully in New York.

But the decision has divided the families of victims. Some say the trial is an opportunity to face the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks and help bring closure, but others say the men should be treated like war criminals.

No date has been announced for the suspects' transfer to New York or their first appearance in court.

Gold9472

12-05-2009, 07:37 PM

Protesters Slam Holding 9/11 Trial in N.Y.
Organizers Say Trial Would Make City Terror Target, But Some 9/11 Family Members Want Case Heard Near Ground Zero

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/05/national/main5903851.shtml

Several hundred people rallied in the rain near Manhattan's federal courthouse complex to protest the plan to put major terrorism suspects on trial in New York.

The demonstrators, including 9/11 families and their supporters, gathered in Foley Square, just blocks from the site of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. They say a New York trial could again make the city a terrorism target.

Last month Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the U.S. would put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison on trial in a federal civilian court in New York City.

Anger at the Obama administration ran hot in the crowd. One person held up a sign calling Holder "disgraceful and despicable." Another sign said "Obama/Holder ... Jihad from within."

Supporters of the 9/11 Never Forget Coalition say the five defendants should face a military tribunal instead.

A "statement of support" for the rally, posted on the coalition's Web site and signed by actors Robert Duvall, Brian Dennehy, Jon Voight, Danny Aiello, Robert Davi, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Ben Stein, states that Holder's decision to try key figures in the September 11 attacks in a civilian court in New York City is "a travesty of our justice system" that puts the national security of the United States of America at risk.

The signers said the trial would give the defendants a platform "to spew their propaganda and hatred to the world from a courthouse just blocks from Ground Zero.

"We stand with 9/11 families, New York City's first responders and the U.S. military who will be forced to cope with the consequences of this dangerous decision if it is not reversed," the statement said.

Addressing the crowd, Dennehy said he didn't believe the men deserved "normal constitutional protections."

Lee Ielpi, a retired firefighter whose son, also a firefighter, died on 9/11, said he believed the U.S. has been in a state of war since the attacks, and that a military tribunal was therefore the appropriate venue for justice.

"They deserve a fair trial in a military tribunal, not on our soil," he said. "Guantanamo is where it should be."

But other victims of the 9/11 attacks disagreed.

Lorie Van Auken lost her husband at the World Trade Center. She said in an interview before the rally it was fitting that the accused answer charges a short walk from where the twin towers once stood.

John Feal lost half his foot at Ground Zero. He told the N.Y. Daily News, "If youâ€™re afraid of terrorists, then theyâ€™ve already won." He said trying the defendants in New York was "poetic justice."

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., says military commissions have a poor track record when it comes to trying terrorism suspects. He expressed confidence that U.S. prosecutors can win a conviction in a regular, civilian court.

Gold9472

12-05-2009, 07:38 PM

Hundreds protest New York 9/11 trial

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5if-ZzlhBYrn9E3EAnAKmDSeCJR9g

By Sebastian Smith (AFP) â€“ 4 hours ago

NEW YORK â€” Hundreds rallied Saturday in New York against plans to give the alleged 9/11 mastermind a civilian trial in the city, saying the court will be turned into an Al-Qaeda propaganda platform.

"They are war criminals," one of the speakers, firefighter and US Marine Peter Regan, said to cheers. "The terrorists should be tried in a military court."

The small crowd huddled under umbrellas in chilly rain outside Manhattan's federal courthouse where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 suspects are to be tried after transferring from the controversial US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The courthouse is a few blocks from Ground Zero, site of the former World Trade Center, which was destroyed on September 11, 2001, when hijacked airplanes slammed into the Twin Towers and into the Pentagon outside Washington, killing nearly 3,000 people.

President Barack Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, have made bringing Mohammed to a fair trial a centerpiece of a broader plan to end what they see as serious abuses of law under the previous administration of George W. Bush.

But the 9/11 Never Forget Coalition, which organized the rally, argues that those behind the attacks do not deserve the same legal rights provided to US citizens.

Many protestors waved the US flag, chanting: "USA, USA!" while others displayed slogans supporting Bush and the secretive Guantanamo facility, or voicing criticism of Obama.

"This is treason!" one man shouted repeatedly.

One of the most common complaints was fear that a public trial would enable Mohammed and his co-accused to make incendiary speeches.

"America has given these people an even louder megaphone in the best theater in the world," actor Brian Dennehy told the crowd. "I am worried that millions of angry young people watching Al Jazeera will come to the conclusion that America has caved in."

Protestor Sue Vaccaro, an elegantly dressed, elderly woman trying to shelter with a friend under a flimsy umbrella, echoed that warning.

"Holder is giving a megaphone to the terrorists to spout their hatred of this country," she said.

The same message is being aired in Washington, where Obama's decision last month to move the 9/11 suspects into the civilian justice system -- after years of secret detention and abusive interrogation -- caused an uproar.

"A civilian trial gives these conspirators a national platform from which to spew their propaganda and access to sensitive information regarding American intelligence," said Republican congressman Trent Franks.

Holder responds that America will take the moral high ground by giving its enemies a proper trial.

"I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is," Holder said. "I'm not scared of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say at trial and no one else needs to be afraid either."

While many speakers at the New York rally Saturday lost relatives on 9/11, or themselves narrowly survived, not all 9/11 victims' organizations oppose Obama's policy.

Experts say many factors will determine the extent to which the five accused could mount a public spectacle.

If they plead guilty, the judge would move straight to sentencing, offering the men only limited opportunity to speak.

If they plead not guilty and dismiss their attorneys, as they did in military tribunals at Guantanamo, then they would mount their own defense and be able to address the jury at length.

However, judges have wide powers to cut short testimony deemed irrelevant or time-wasting.

"It's all going to depend on the judge in the end. They'll be dealing with a court of people experienced with these things," said Edward MacMahon, who represented convicted Al-Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui.

Moussaoui insulted both the judge overseeing his case and his lawyers in legal documents. As a result, he lost the right to represent himself.

"If they are their own lawyers, they have to conduct themselves as lawyers. If they don't, they'll just have to sit there," MacMahon said of the 9/11 suspects.

But a determined defendant can always make headlines simply by blurting out statements, MacMahon said.

"What would often happen was that... all the reporters would pull out their notebooks and he (Moussaoui) would say 'God bless Osama Bin Laden!' and they'd all write that down."

Gold9472

12-05-2009, 09:26 PM

9/11 families, supporters, rally against NY trial

http://www.lohud.com/article/20091205/NEWS05/912050372/-1/newsfront/9/11-families--supporters--rally-against-NY-trial

By Verena Dobnik â€¢ The Associated Press â€¢ December 5, 2009

NEW YORK (AP) â€” Several hundred people rallied in the rain near Manhattan's federal courthouse complex Saturday to protest the plan to put major terrorism suspects on trial in New York City.

Demonstrators at the Saturday event included the actor Brian Dennehy and a number of people who lost friends and relatives in the 9/11 attacks.

Anger at the Obama administration ran hot in the crowd. One person held up a sign calling Attorney General Eric Holder "disgraceful and despicable." Another sign said "Obama/Holder ... Jihad from within."

Opponents of the plan say that a New York trial could again make the city a terrorism target, and that the five suspects should instead face a military tribunal.

Addressing the crowd, Dennehy passed along a message from the father of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who is opposed to a public trial for reputed terror mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

The actor said he also believed the trial would be "an uncalled-for ordeal that could be used for political purposes."

"This will provide the radicals with a huge forum," said Dennehy, a Marine Corps veteran. "Why should they have the normal constitutional protections?"

Lee Ielpi, a retired firefighter whose son, also a firefighter, died on 9/11, said he believed the U.S. has been in a state of war since the attacks, and that a military tribunal was therefore the appropriate venue for justice.

"They deserve a fair trial in a military tribunal, not on our soil," he said. "Guantanamo is where it should be."

Other victims of the attacks disagreed.

Lorie Van Auken, who lost her husband at the World Trade Center, said in an interview before the rally that it was fitting the accused answer charges a short walk from ground zero.

"Opponents of the trial don't represent all families," she said in a telephone interview on Friday.

Another supporter of the trial plan, U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, said military commissions have a poor track record when it comes to convicting terrorism suspects. The New York Democrat expressed confidence that U.S. prosecutors can win a conviction in a regular, civilian court.

On Saturday, the protesters included 9/11 families, ground zero rescue workers and former World Trade Center executives.

Greg Manning was a senior vice president at Euro Brokers, whose life was spared because he was on business outside the trade center. He said the decision to stage the trial in New York shows the government's "casual attitude towards security."

He said Mohammed, who is accused of being the mastermind of the attacks, "is not the same as any defendant." Manning said that if Mohammed decides to defend himself, "he will exploit every right in the Constitution and use the trial as a platform."

Gold9472

12-08-2009, 05:50 PM

The short list of lawyers to defend 9/11 suspects

http://www.starbulletin.com/news/nyt/20091208_The_short_list_of_lawyers_to_defend_911_s uspects.html

By Benjamin Weiser / New York Times
12/8/2009

NEW YORK Â» One lawyer calls it the "death list" -- a cadre of about 20 veteran defense lawyers in New York who have broad experience in death penalty and other complex criminal cases. They have represented defendants in terrorist bombings in East Africa, drug-related killings in Manhattan and the Bronx, police killings in Brooklyn and on Staten Island.
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They are not all household names, and the list is closely held. But every day in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, a lawyer from the list is on call, ready to be appointed in a capital case.

And it is from this short list that lawyers are expected to be initially chosen to defend Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others accused in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when they arrive at the courthouse early next year.

Of course, there is uncertainty about whether Mohammed and his co-defendants will even want lawyers or a trial. But if the court follows its own practice, the list, or "capital panel," as it is called, will be the source of lawyers as the defendants begin their journey through the civilian system.

"I would imagine this is the hour of truth for the panel," said Isabelle A. Kirshner, a former panel member.

The list includes lawyers like Frederick H. Cohn, 70, a 6-foot-2 graduate of Antioch and Brooklyn Law School, who is known for his Fu Manchu-style mustache and acid wit in the courtroom. Cohn, one of the lawyers consulted, said the public should want a system that ensures the best lawyers are opposing the death penalty -- "even where there seems to be unanimity of opinion that it ought to be imposed."

There, too, is Avraham C. Moskowitz, a 52-year-old Columbia Law graduate and former federal prosecutor who describes himself as a committed Zionist, who has family in Israel, and whose brother was in the World Trade Center when it was attacked in 1993. Joshua L. Dratel, 52, is also on the list -- a Harvard Law graduate who lived a block from ground zero and had to relocate for three months after his apartment building was damaged.

Today, the list has evolved into a kind of ad hoc terrorism bar as well, with a majority of those on it experienced in such cases. For any lawyer on the list who gets a Sept. 11 case, said Kirshner, "there's going to be an enormous personal, professional and emotional commitment that's going to have to be made." And that, she added, is "going to translate into their friends and relatives saying, 'How can you represent these guys?"'

Some lawyers on the list are undertaking their own searching review of whether they should participate.

"I could not take that case," Moskowitz said. He said that although he felt confident that he could vigorously defend an accused Sept. 11 terrorist, "my background, my politics, my very essence would create the appearance of a conflict."

But some lawyers said they would have no problem taking a case of one of the men held for years at Guantanamo. "I'm not campaigning for one," said Edward D. Wilford, a lawyer on the list whose last high-profile case involved his representation of a man convicted last year in the murder of a New York police officer, Russel Timoshenko, during a traffic stop in Brooklyn.

"But if I'm privileged enough to be asked," he said, "I'll step to the front and gladly represent one of these human beings with the same zest and zeal I would any other human being who is facing the death penalty."

The list of lawyers to be turned to for capital cases was developed after use of the federal death penalty was expanded in the 1990s, and judges and lawyers realized that New York City needed a seasoned bar.

Leonard F. Joy, the city's federal public defender, consulting with other lawyers, recommended an initial group of names from the larger pool of lawyers appointed to represent defendants. (His office may end up taking one of the 9/11 cases.)

Mohammed and four other men detained at Guantanamo have not been publicly charged, and it is not known precisely when they might arrive in New York.

Lawyers on the capital panel are eligible to be paid up to $175 an hour. Some said they would not be intimidated by the strong criticism, some of it directed at lawyers, that followed the decision to send the cases to New York.

"I believe that you approach this case the same way you would approach any other case," said Anthony L. Ricco, a veteran of high-profile trials. "You cannot allow the public sentiment to dictate what you do," he added.

The judges in the federal court in Manhattan were sent a memo this summer detailing the practice. "The lead attorney should be chosen from the capital panel," it said.

The lawyers on the list over the years have developed wide expertise in terrorism cases. A majority have represented terrorism defendants in New York, including in the trial stemming from al-Qaida's 1998 bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa. At least two of those lawyers -- Dratel and Ricco -- have gone on to represent terrorism defendants in other major cases.

The terrorism-case backgrounds of many lawyers on the list, though, could produce conflicts that would prevent them from participating in the Sept. 11 cases, making that shortlist even shorter.

In Brooklyn, the federal court is reviewing its own list of experienced lawyers in an effort to identify those with the willingness and ability to take on terrorism cases, and so far has confirmed interest from about two dozen lawyers, said Chief Judge Raymond J. Dearie.

Because Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has said he intends to seek the death penalty, each Sept. 11 defendant will be entitled to the appointment of a second lawyer who is considered a "learned" specialist in death penalty law. This selection can come from appropriate lawyers on the list or from a group of such lawyers around the country.

There has also been talk of trying to bolster each of the five legal teams by adding lawyers who helped defend the men while they were at Guantanamo. These lawyers received security clearances, may already have investigated their client's cases, and developed relationships with them.

"There'd be a great advantage in the court here making an exception and allowing such people even if they are not normally on the panel," said Don D. Buchwald, another lawyer on the list.

Gold9472

12-09-2009, 09:28 AM

Cheney: Trying 9/11 suspects in NYC 'huge mistake'

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hmVI9luu8fou0ScQkkFQggOx8rvwD9CFGVR00

(AP) â€“ 10 hours ago

NEW YORK â€” Former Vice President Dick Cheney says trying suspected Sept. 11 terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (HAH'-leed shayk moh-HAH'-med) in New York City will make him "as important or more important than Osama bin Laden."

In an interview with Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity, Cheney said holding the trial in a lower Manhattan courtroom near ground zero will make Mohammed "a hero in certain circles, especially in the radical regions of Islam around the world."

Cheney said the trial will put Mohammed "on the map."

The Republican called Attorney General Eric Holder's decision in November to try Mohammed and four other 9/11 suspects in a civilian federal court near ground zero "a huge mistake."

The interview, for which Fox News provided a partial transcript, aired Tuesday.

Gold9472

12-09-2009, 09:28 AM

Dick Cheney hits out at Obama again by calling 9/11 trial in New York 'a huge mistake'

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/12/08/2009-12-08_dick_cheney_hits_out_at_obama_again_.html

By Thomas M. Defrank
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF
Tuesday, December 8th 2009, 8:32 PM

WASHINGTON - Dick Cheney has ratcheted up his criticism of President Obama again, calling the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in New York a "huge mistake."

In an interview with Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity, the former vice president said the trial, which isn't expected to begin for at least a year in Manhattan's federal district court, will allow KSM an ill-advised showcase to spew his anti-American venom.

"He'll be able to go in whenever he's up on the stand and proselytize, if you will, millions of people out there around the world including some of his radical Muslim friends and generate a whole new generation of terrorists," Cheney said.

"I think it will make Khalid Sheikh Mohammed something of a hero in certain circles, especially in the radical regions of Islam around the world. It will put him on the map. He'll be as important or more important than Osama Bin Laden, and we will have made it possible."

The Obama administration has previously rejected Cheney's argument, saying Mohammed won't be allowed to grandstand by the trial judge and that his conviction and possible execution will show the world the U.S. isn't afraid of putting terrorists on trial in civilian courts.

Cheney also zapped Obama for telegraphing a 2011 exit date for some of the 30,000 surge troops the President has just ordered into Afghanistan.

"When (Al Qaeda) see him announce in advance that there's going to be a withdrawal 18 months down the road, they come to the point where they feel like their strategy, their world view has been validated and in the meantime, your task of trying to control the situation, trying to put down the Taliban and so forth, has simply gotten harder because you're weak and indecisive when you made the decision to do it."

Cheney ducked when served up the chance to label Obama a Socialist, seeming to settle for card-carrying liberal instead.

"I don't want to use that kind of a label," he said. "I think on his part he does not have the kind of commitment to the private sector that most of us have and have lived with in the past."

He also was more judicious than friends say he really feels about his successor, Vice President Biden.

"Joe and I have a different approach to the job and to politics in general," he said.

Gold9472

12-09-2009, 09:28 AM

New York City is the right venue for the 9/11 murder trials

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/12/09/2009-12-09_911_murderers_must_face_justice_in_new_york_cit y.html

By Jim Riches
Wednesday, December 9th 2009, 4:00 AM

Last week, a group of family members who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks protested against putting the terror suspects on trial in New York.

They do not speak for all the 9/11 families.

My son, Firefighter Jimmy Riches, was killed in the north tower. He was responding to the call with Engine 4 from lower Manhattan. Jimmy was a firefighter for just 18 months, joining the FDNY after spending seven years as a narcotics police officer with the NYPD. After his murder, I spent months leading search-and-recovery efforts at Ground Zero. I witnessed the aftermath of the devastation.

Jimmy was found on March 25, 2002. I, along with my three other sons, carried his body, smashed and broken, from the bottom of the north tower. He was buried April 12, 2002.

No one wants to see the 9/11 terrorists face justice more than I do.

The men who orchestrated the murders of nearly 3,000 people must be put on trial in New York. New York is where they perpetrated their crimes; New York is where they must face justice.

Those who want a military trial must remember that more than 300 terrorists are now behind bars after federal courts convicted them of offenses that include the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Military commissions, by contrast, convicted only three.

I attended the military trials in Guantanamo and saw the terrorists declare their guilt and say that they were proud they had killed innocent Americans. They were happy they killed my son.

The terrorists made a mockery of the military courtroom with frequent outbursts. They asked to have their foot shackles removed, requested softer seat cushions and wanted chairs and computers in their cells. They got everything they asked for. Yet, eight years later, there is still no accountability for their heinous crimes. Osama Bin Laden's driver, caught with a rocket launcher in his car, was tried in military court in Guantanamo and given time served. He was released to Yemen.

My son deserves better than that. And I deserve to be able to attend the trial, near the place where my child was murdered.

The federal courts have a superior record in prosecuting high-profile terrorist cases without compromising national security. In Guantanamo, the military prosecutors assured me that there is much evidence that does not rely on any information obtained through torture or by confessions. I take them at their word.

At the weekend rally protesting a New York trial, a man held up a sign calling Attorney General Eric Holder disgraceful and despicable.

That vitriol is better directed at the terrorists who murdered thousands of innocent people.

I have met President Obama and Holder. They are not despicable. They have assured swift and certain justice. They have answered all the questions being asked. Obama told me he would be accountable for the outcome of the trials. He promised to keep America safe and said he would be judged in four years by America and by the 9/11 families. These trials are about justice for the 3,000 murdered Americans who went to work on a sunny September morning. This is not about politics.

In four years, America can hold Obama accountable. But right now is the time for all Americans to unite, like we did after 9/11, and support the President in his effort to hold the terrorists accountable for their heinous crimes. Anything less would be a great injustice.

Gold9472

12-09-2009, 11:31 AM

Exclusive: 9/11 Grand Jury Now Hearing Evidence in NYC
Regular New Yorkers hearing evidence against accused Sept. 11 plotters

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Exclusive-9-11-Grand-Jury-Meets-78818382.html

By JONATHAN DIENST
Updated 8:49 AM EST, Wed, Dec 9, 2009

AP A federal grand jury in New York is now hearing evidence and testimony in the 9-11 terror case, NBCNewYork.com has learned. The Justice Deparment is moving forward in seeking an indictment against self-proclaimed 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other terror suspects.

The panel of everyday New Yorkers was convened after Attorney General Eric Holder announced the alleged 9-11 plotters would face civilian trial in New York instead of a military tribunal. If the alleged plotters are convicted, prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty.

Justice Department spokesmen in New York and Washington declined to comment. Spokesmen for the U.S. District Court and the FBI also would not comment.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other suspects are currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mohammed had been indicted in New York back in 1996 for his alleged role in an al Qaeda plot to blow up U.S. airliners over the Pacific.

It is unclear if prosecutors will only seek 9-11 related charges from this grand jury. Some experts say prosecutors could also include terror charges for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and other past al Qaeda attacks overseas.

Other terror suspects to be sent to New York include:

Walid bin Attash who is accused of being selected as a hijacker but never made it to the United States. Officials said he took test runs on U.S. airliners overseas and also played a role in the USS Cole attack as well as the U.S. embassy bomings in Kenya and Tanzania.

Ramzi Binalhibh allegedly applied for flight training in Florida but also failed to enter the U.S. Investigators said he too played a key role in providing logistical support to the hijackers.

Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi is accused of providing funding to the hijackers. And Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali is a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who is accused of also providing support to the hijackers.

Nearly 3,000 people were killing in the 9-11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

The Obama administration has said it hopes to close Guantanamo Bay and moving several key suspects to New York for trial is a step towards closing the detention facility.

It is unclear when the suspects will be sent to New York. The Justice Department has to notify Congress 45 days in advance before moving the suspects to U.S. soil. Congressional sources said notification has not yet happened so the 45 day clock has not yet started ticking.

Critics have complained a civilian trial is a mistake claiming it makes New York an increased target for a terror attack. Others have said terrorists should face a military tribunal because the 9-11 attacks were an act of war, not a crime.

But supporters of a civilian trial have said the courts are the right place to try the suspects and a trial serves as a victory for the rule of law.

As for the grand jury, it is unclear when it might vote on the terror charges and any indictment could be weeks away.

Gold9472

12-10-2009, 09:01 AM

Accused 9/11 plotters may face NY "Guantanamo"

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B851920091209

12/10/2009

NEW YORK (Reuters) - If the men accused of plotting the September 11 attacks wonder what conditions they might face when they are moved to New York from Guantanamo Bay for trial, they can expect solitary confinement, 23-hour-a-day lockdowns, constant video surveillance and almost no visitors.

That has been the experience in New York of one American student, Syed Fahad Hashmi, accused of minor acts of aiding al Qaeda. Those conditions have drawn criticism from human rights advocates who protest outside the Manhattan jail where Hashmi has spent 2-1/2 years in solitary confinement awaiting trial.

Outside the jail housing Hashmi, just a hew hundred yards (meters) from the site of the 9/11 attacks known as Ground Zero, protesters carry banners reading "No Guantanamos at Home or Abroad" and say the case shows a lack of rights for terrorism defendants.

Such confinement for some suspects charged under anti-terrorism laws are called special administrative measures, or SAMs. The U.S. Justice Department says SAMs -- which need approval of the U.S. Attorney General -- are needed to prevent violence and that Hashmi was threatening British authorities when he was arrested.

The U.S. Justice Department is considering moving dozens of cases from Guantanamo Bay military prison to the United States for trials in civilian courts. They may also face SAMs, designed to block communications from dangerous inmates.

NBC reported on Tuesday that a grand jury in New York is hearing evidence against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the September 11 attacks in 2001, and four accused accomplices. A grand jury decides whether the evidence presented is strong enough to bring charges.

"I would not be surprised if there are SAMs isolating these guys as they are much higher profile cases than the Hashmi case," said Karen Greenberg, executive director for the Center on Law and Security. "There are real (due process) concerns about the Hashmi case."

SOCKS, PONCHOS, RAINCOATS
The past 2-1/2 years in solitary confinement for Hashmi, a Pakistani-born American student, is one of the longest periods in America that a suspect has ever been held in isolation before trial. Hashmi is accused of storing waterproof socks, ponchos and raincoats for two weeks in his London flat.

At trial, set to start in January, the main witness, Junaid Babar, is expected to say Hashmi held the military clothing for him, knowing they would be passed to al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Prosecutors say Hashmi also gave his phone to Babar to call a convicted bombing conspirator and lent Babar money for a plane ticket to Pakistan to transport the gear. Babar has testified at terrorism trials in Britain and Canada since pleading guilty in 2004 to supporting al Qaeda.

"We are seeing Muslims accused of terrorism who are experiencing a much harsher brand of due process," said Hashmi's lawyer, Sean Maher. "These measures ... lead to a situation of complete sensory deprivation."

Hashmi is the first terrorism suspect extradited to the United States from Britain, making his a test case for U.S.-British cooperation. He has pleaded not guilty and faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted.

The SAMs include a 23-hour-a-day lockdown, constant video surveillance of his cell and a limit of two visits per month from one family member. Hashmi's lawyer says that means his client is not in a state to defend himself properly.

Hashmi is one of only five defendants held under SAMs before trial; four of the five are terrorism suspects. Usually such prisoners face the special measures after conviction.

Of more than 200,000 federal inmates, 42 are held under SAMs and of those, 28 are imprisoned on terrorism-related convictions, the Justice Department said.

Gold9472

12-10-2009, 09:02 AM

U.S. Attorney General Goes to N.Y. for Meetings on 9/11 Trials

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/nyregion/10security.html

By AL BAKER
Published: December 9, 2009

Amid significant concern about security arrangements for the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. made an unannounced visit on Wednesday to federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials in New York.

Mr. Holder went to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the United States attorneyâ€™s office and the adjacent federal court in Lower Manhattan, where Mr. Mohammed, who is accused of being the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other 9/11 detainees will be tried, just blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood.

He met with security officials, including Raymond W. Kelly, the cityâ€™s police commissioner, and Joseph M. Demarest Jr., the assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.â€™s New York office, â€œto discuss coordination, cooperation and security for the potential upcoming trials of the 9/11 terrorists,â€ said Special Agent Richard Kolko, an F.B.I. spokesman in New York.

Mr. Holderâ€™s visit, and the range of people he huddled with, reflected the governmentâ€™s seriousness in approaching the as-yet-unscheduled trials and their potential to wreak havoc on a city battered by terrorism plots, successful and not.

Once the Justice Department announced on Nov. 13 that it was bringing its case to Manhattan, the Police Department began formulating plans for â€œsecurity around the venue itself, and protection of the city,â€ including its bridges, transit system and landmarks, said Paul J. Browne, the Police Departmentâ€™s chief spokesman.

William T. Morris, a deputy chief in the departmentâ€™s Criminal Justice Bureau, is collecting information for Mr. Kelly from sectors like the Intelligence Division and the Counterterrorism Bureau, which oversees the more than 100 detectives assigned to work with the F.B.I. on the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

There will be the usual physical security elements, including roadway checkpoints, patrol officers in the streets and snipers on rooftops. There will be unseen elements, too: plainclothes officers mingling with crowds. Protection for the prosecutors, witnesses and the judge will also be factored in, officials said.

While the entire operation will be similar to the deployment for a New Yearâ€™s Eve celebration, the difference this time is it will have to be sustained over months or more, officials said.

Mr. Kelly has told the Justice Department that the costs for security operations, including paying officersâ€™ overtime, are expected to exceed the initial minimum estimate of $75 million.

When Senator Charles S. Schumer asked Mr. Holder in a Nov. 18 hearing in Washington if he would recommend that the president include money in the federal budget for the cityâ€™s extra security costs, the attorney general said, â€œNew York should not bear the burden alone.â€

On Wednesday, Mr. Holder also met with officials from the federal Bureau of Prisons, the United States Marshals Service and federal prosecutors from Virginia, where Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison in 2006 for his role in the Qaeda conspiracy.

â€œHe was in New York to meet with the prosecution team working on the 9/11 case,â€ Matthew A. Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Holder, said after the meetings. â€œThere is broad agreement that we can safely and securely hold these trials.â€

Gold9472

12-11-2009, 01:10 PM

Bachmann laments that foreign citizens have rights

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/bachmann-laments-foreign-citizens-rights/

By Sahil Kapur
Friday, December 11th, 2009 -- 9:58 am

WASHINGTON - Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann, never one to miss an opportunity to promote conservative boilerplate, is now claiming that offering a federal court trial to the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks is a "slap in the face" to not only victims of the tragedy -- but all Americans everywhere.

The right to a fair trial, Bachmann said in a press release Wednesday, is one of the "benefits and perks reserved for American citizens."

Bachmann's words echo the claims made by a number of others at a recent rally in New York, where protesters lamented that 9/11 perpetrators had "the same rights as U.S. citizens" and argued that due process was "reserved for U.S. citizens."

The Washington Independent counters:

In fact, the â€œrightâ€ to be prosecuted in a U.S. federal court has never been â€œreservedâ€ for U.S. citizens at all. Itâ€™s historically been a â€œrightâ€ accorded to anyone who commits a crime on U.S. soil. Thus everyone from a U.S.-born citizen to an illegal alien who commits a federal crime in the United States gets tried in federal court. Although the government has just recently created special military commissions to try some crimes against U.S. military targets abroad, we donâ€™t normally create new courts or legal systems to try non-citizens who commit mass murder, mail fraud, or any other crimes that might land them in federal court.

As New York City courts prepare to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for his admitted role in masterminding the September 11 attacks more than eight years ago, Bachmann and other conservatives say they're worried he might try something fishy that would "place our national security at risk."

"It only takes a moment to realize that KSM will use a public trial to access sensitive intelligence information, plan more attacks and mock the families he tore apart on 9/11," said Bachmann, advocating for "swift and conclusive" justice.

How Mohammed might in a court trial have access to "sensitive intelligence information," as she claims, is unclear. It is also uncertain what her notion of "swift and conclusive" justice entails, or how Mohammed might acquire the resources while handcuffed and detained to threaten the U.S. homeland.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has routinely and aggressively slammed Obama all year, made similar assertions, calling the decision by President Obama and Attorney General Holder's to try Mohammed in courts a "huge mistake" that would make him "a hero in certain circles." He also said this is evidence that Obama is "more radical" than he previously thought.

But even Cheney stopped short of saying the right to a fair trial was exclusive to American citizens.

Various others have praised the decision to put Mohammed on trial, arguing that it reflects the United States' best principles, including the rule of law, due process and fair justice.

Gold9472

12-11-2009, 08:33 PM

Former AG Mukasey, Giuliani Blast 9/11 Trial Decision
It's "at best a mistake, at worst a disaster in the making," said the former AG

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/Giuliani-and-Mukasey-Blast-9-11-Trial-Decision-79069852.html

By JONATHAN DIENST
Updated 3:52 PM EST, Fri, Dec 11, 2009

Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani last night both blasted the Obama administration's decision to put Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other 9/11 terror suspects on trial in New York.

"On every possible ground, it is a terrible mistake," Giuliani said in an interview with NBCNewYork.com Thursday night. "It would be very wise if the President and the attorney general would change their mind and not try them in a civilian court in New York. Try them in a military court."

Giuliani said moving the trial here will increase the already high terror threat to the city and cause enormous resources to spent on security.

"Do you say 'New York is already a target so let's do another thing to make it a target?'" Giuliani asked. "It will certainly add to the tremendous burdens of protecting" the city.

Mukasey, who served in the last Bush administration, also took shots at the decision, calling it "at best a mistake, at worst a disaster in the making."

The former top lawman in the nation questioned why some terror suspects accused of bombing the U.S.S. Cole will face military tribunals while the suspects accused of killing nearly 3,000 Americans go to New York for trial.

"It is a mistake from a security standpoint both for the security of the city and national security," Mukasey said. "National security secrets can be revealed much more easily in a public proceeding like much more easily than in a military commission."

Mukasey was the federal judge during the blind sheik terror trial in the mid-1990's. He had private security assigned to him for the next 11 years.

The NYPD has said it can help make the trial safe although officials say security costs in and around the courthouse could far exceed the initial $75 million dollar estimate.

Mukasey predicts it could take years before any 9/11 trial actually starts.

Meanwhile Attorney General Eric Holder was in New York earlier this week to meet with prosecutors and security officials. Holder has said it is past time for the suspects to face trial.

"By holding these terrorists responsible for their actions, we are finally taking ultimate steps towards justice. That is why I made the decision," Holder said during a hearing on Capitol Hill last month. "I am not scared at what Khalid Sheik Mohammed has to say at trial and no one else has to be afraid either."

President Obama has said he strongly backs the decision for the trial for the self-proclaimed mastermind of 9/11. "I don't think it will be offensive when he is convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him," Obama said.

Senator Schumer (D-NY) has said he believes the trial is the best and fastest route for the 9-11 suspects to face justice and a possible death sentence. Schumer has said families of the victims have waited far too long.

Some democrats have derided Giuliani's criticisms, pointing out he supported the trial and later conviction of 9/11-linked suspect Zacarias Moussaoui.

NBCNewYork.com first reported that a grand jury in New York is now meeting to consider what charges to hand up against the accused 9-11 terrorists. Officials said it could take weeks before any charges are made public. New York and federal officials are making security plans that could include additional street closings, rooftop snipers, emergency response units, bomb sniffing dogs and security teams to escort the judge, prosecutors and jurors.

Republicans Giuliani and Mukasey said they will continue to press to try to get the decision to hold a trial in New York reversed.

"If you had to have the trial here, fine the city is ready, willing and able to do it. But the worst part of this is we don't have to have the trial here ... it could be in a military tribunal," Giuliani said

Gold9472

12-14-2009, 09:28 PM

American Justice System Too Weak For Terrorists, GOPers Say

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/american-justice-system-too-weak-for-terrorists-gopers-say.php

Evan McMorris-Santoro | December 10, 2009, 1:33PM

Standing in front of the Supreme Court this morning, a group of Republican lawmakers railed against the court system run out of the building behind them. A sign affixed to the plexiglas podium each spoke at in turn spelled out the reason for their concern. "Protect our homeland," it read. "Keep terrorists out of America."

The justice system laid out in the Constitution, they said, is just too weak to protect American citizens from wiley terror suspects. From "activist judges" to courtroom sketch artists, the group reeled off a list of reasons the Obama administration decision to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to the U.S. for trial could quite possibly end in, as Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) suggested, a nuclear attack on the United States.

The group of conservative lawmakers have been arguing against bringing the Gitmo suspects to the U.S. ever since the decision was announced. They suggest, as do most Republicans and some Democrats, that the best way to try terror suspects is through military tribunals on the Guantanamo Bay base itself. Today, they repeated that argument. But they added new focus to their claim that the Constitution and bringing terrorists to justice can't mix.

Gitmo is "the best place to have [trials], it's the best place to house them. It's the safest place," Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told reporters. "More importantly, it's the place that keeps activist federal judges from making activist decisions that could end up turning [terror suspects] loose on the streets of America."

After the press conference, King elaborated on his worries about U.S. judges. "We wouldn't even be thinking about trying these detainees on U.S. soil if it hadn't been for activist judges who decided they were going to confer constitutional rights on people that have never seen the United States of America," he said, referring to the 2006 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld Supreme Court decision that said military commissions as set up by the Bush administration violated the Geneva conventions.

King suggested that "activist" judges could be inclined to release terror suspects over some liberal legal principle or another. "A judge can rationalize most anything," he said. "If you're a living, breathing -- how should I say it? -- 'evolving' constitutionalist than you can write anything you want to justify your own rationale."

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) was troubled by what might happen when waterboarding and the American right to a fair trial met in a U.S. courtroom. She worried what might happen if terror suspects argued they'd been given "cruel and unusual" punishment at Gitmo.

"This is what scares me because they're in a U.S. court now and the rights are different," she said. "What will they say [about their detention] and what could happen and could they be out among the people again? It's very frightening."

How frightening? Mushroom cloud frightening, according to Franks. He said that a federal trial would give the suspects "a megaphone to speak to the planet," which he said "only hastens the danger" of, literally, a nuclear terrorist attack.

When a reporter pointed out that federal trials aren't televised, perhaps making the "megaphone" a little less likely, Republicans said there were other ways for terror suspects to peddle their propoganda from a U.S. courtroom -- for example, sketch artists.

"What we've seen happen is artists draw pictures and this will be written up and there are interviews outside the courtroom everyday and there will be defense attorneys taking the global stage," King said. "We are in an electronic era where they Internet and all these other media that we have will create a real time look at what's going on in New York."

Gold9472

12-14-2009, 09:41 PM

As the September Eleventh Advocates said (http://www.911blogger.com/node/21903) recently, "the American Justice System has been used to try terrorists 214 times since September 2001, with a success rate of 91% - 195 people were convicted." In my opinion, they don't want 9/11 in the court room because like in the Moussaoui Trial (read Fact #47 (http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20090104025547844)), things may be revealed that they don't want revealed. Since we already know about the torture (http://www.newsweek.com/id/189251), I wonder what else they are trying to hide?

Gold9472

12-16-2009, 09:26 AM

Fed task force for 9/11 trial

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/fed_task_force_for_trial_iMOpmfK8IJ7G0acEa3egwK

Last Updated: 6:01 AM, December 16, 2009

The FBI is forming a squad to assist prosecutors in the upcoming New York trials of Sept. 11 terror suspects.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said yesterday the squad will include agents, analysts and other professional support staff with experience working on major trials and investigations.

He says the squad will function as a task force with members from the NYPD, Port Authority Police, FDNY and several other agencies.

Last month, Attorney General Eric Holder announced self-declared 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four accused henchmen will be tried in a court near Ground Zero.

Gold9472

12-16-2009, 09:26 AM

Downtown Brooklyn workers, residents have mixed feelings on 9/11 terror trial in New York courthouse

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2009/12/16/2009-12-16_split_over_terror_trial_at_brooklyn_federal_cou rthouse.html

BY Ben Chapman
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Wednesday, December 16th 2009, 4:00 AM

Downtown Brooklyn workers and residents were divided Tuesday over whether a suspected Al Qaeda operative should stand trial in the Cadman Plaza federal courthouse.

"Everyone deserves a fair trial," said Andrea Demetropoulos, 57, a business owner from Brooklyn Heights. "I'm just not sure I want it happening here downtown."

Guantanamo Bay detainee Majid Khan may face a federal civilian trial in Brooklyn, a source familiar with Justice Department discussions told the Associated Press.

Khan, 29, is linked to terror plots in New York and worked closely with Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

"People are definitely talking about the possibility of a terror trial in the building," said an attorney at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse at 225 Cadman Plaza East.

"It would be a big logistical and security issue, but I think we're up for it. It's our job to handle important trials like this."

An court spokesman said the venue for Khan's trial hasn't been decided and charges against him haven't been announced.

Workers and residents are split over whether Downtown Brooklyn is a good spot for the trial.

"It might be emotional but I think we're ready for it," said Brooke Allen, 53, a writer who lives in Brooklyn Heights. "We're always talking about fair trials. This is a chance to put our money where our mouth is."

Trial spectators and workers could boost neighborhood businesses, said Harry Likourentzos, 35, manager at Park Plaza Restaurant, where about a quarter of diners come from the nearby district courthouse. "We always get a bump from big trials. This could double our lunch rush."

But others are worried for Downtown's security.

"I'm scared this could make Brooklyn a target," said Michael Carlin, a Brooklyn Heights attorney. "I hope they'll hold the trial somewhere else."

In any case, Borough President Marty Markowitz said his office would have little to do with it, adding: "This issue is in the hands of the NYPD and law enforcement."

Gold9472

12-24-2009, 08:42 AM

9/11 suspects are meeting to lay out strategy for New York trial

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/23/AR2009122303164.html

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 24, 2009

Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four co-defendants accused of organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks are meeting to plot legal strategy in advance of their transfer to New York and are learning as much as possible about criminal procedure in U.S. federal court, according to sources familiar with the detainees' deliberations.

While the five men wanted to plead guilty in a military commission earlier this year to hasten their executions, sources now say that the detainees favor participating in a full-scale federal trial to air their grievances and expose their treatment while held by the CIA at secret prisons. The sources, who cautioned that the detainees' final decision remains uncertain, spoke on the condition of anonymity because all communications with high-value detainees are presumptively classified.

The detainees' "brothers' meetings" were set up to allow them to prepare for a trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The military has allowed the gatherings to continue because charges have not been formally withdrawn in the commission process, despite the announcement last month that Mohammed and the others would face trial in Manhattan.

The five accused have held two all-day meetings at Guantanamo Bay since Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said they would face federal criminal prosecution, according to Joseph DellaVedova, a spokesman for the Office of Military Commissions. DellaVedova said they break only for meals and prayers during the get-togethers. The military has also provided the men with computers in their cells at Guantanamo Bay to work on their defense.

It is unclear when the men will be transferred to New York. The Obama administration has yet to file a 45-day classified notice with Congress that it intends to move the prisoners into the United States, according to Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman. That suggests that their initial appearance in court in Manhattan will not come before February; the trial isn't expected to begin until late 2011.

A federal grand jury in New York is hearing evidence and testimony, according to a report by NBCNewYork.com, the Web site of a local station. Both the Justice Department and the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan declined to comment on the report.

Courtroom as pulpit?
In hearings at Guantanamo Bay, the five detainees have trumpeted their role in the 9/11 attacks and broadcast their fealty to Osama bin Laden, causing some consternation among observers that the men will use their federal trial as a pulpit of sorts. Federal officials, though, say they are confident that some of the rhetorical flourishes that Mohammed, in particular, offered at Guantanamo Bay will be kept firmly in check in U.S. District Court.

"Judges in federal court have firm control over the conduct of defendants and other participants in their courtrooms, and when the 9/11 conspirators are brought to trial, I have every confidence that the presiding judge will ensure appropriate decorum," Holder said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month.

Facing trial with Mohammed are four other alleged key players in the Sept. 11 conspiracy: Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni; Walid bin Attash, a Yemeni better known as Khallad; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Mohammed's nephew and a Pakistani also known as Ammar al-Baluchi; and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a Saudi.

Among other issues being raised at Guantanamo, Mohammed and the others are discussing defense counsel, sources said. At the military tribunal, Mohammed, bin Attash and Ali represented themselves with assistance from both civilian and military lawyers. Lawyers for both Binalshibh and Hawsawi, however, had challenged the mental competence of their clients to represent themselves, and the issue had not been resolved when the Obama administration suspended proceedings at Guantanamo Bay.

The lawyer question
The issue of self-representation will have to be taken up again in federal court for all five defendants.

In New York, lawyers for defendants in death cases are usually drawn from a "capital panel," a short list of attorneys with experience in death penalty cases. Attorneys will also need security clearances to handle classified evidence that is off limits to the defendants.

The American Civil Liberties Union plans to ask the court to consider allowing some civilian lawyers from outside New York who worked at Guantanamo Bay to continue in the case. Mohammed's civilian attorneys at Guantanamo, for example, are from Idaho. They declined to comment on the issue of representation in federal court.

The sources said the five have not yet established a common position on the role of defense counsel. But, the sources said, the five are beginning to understand the harsh conditions they will face in Manhattan and that meetings with lawyers will be their only human contact apart from any interaction with their jailers.

The strategy meetings in Guantanamo will almost certainly end. Federal authorities are likely to impose "special administrative measures" on the defendants, according to Boyd.

Apart from measures already in place at Guantanamo Bay -- including bans on social visits, phone calls and access to the media -- special measures can limit access to other inmates, a privilege currently enjoyed in Cuba by high-value detainees such as the 9/11 defendants.

The attorney general can order the Bureau of Prisons to impose such conditions to protect national security and prevent the leak of classified information, according to federal guidelines.

At Guantanamo Bay, Mohammed and 15 other high-value detainees held at the top-secret Camp 7 can share recreation time with another detainee; visit a media room with movies, newspapers and electronic games; or work out in a gym, according to a Pentagon study, which recommended even more communal activities. Mohammed and the others have been told by military defense lawyers that once in New York, they will be in a sparse 23-hour-a-day lockdown with one hour of individual recreation, according to the sources.

"They are quite anxious about the new system and the new living conditions," one of the sources said. "They've been treated like rock stars compared to other detainees at Gitmo. And they know that all of that is about to change."

Gold9472

12-26-2009, 01:26 PM

Deciding Terror Trialâ€™s Venue Is a Complex Case

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/nyregion/26venue.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1261848074-zbnEsjAUUEMAL%20riQeJu9A

By BENJAMIN WEISER
Published: December 25, 2009

Since the governmentâ€™s announcement that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed would be tried with others in Manhattan in connection with the 9/11 attacks, some lawyers and others have expressed skepticism that such a trial will ever be held in the city.

They are confident that defense lawyers will ask that the trial be moved, and believe that a judge might even consent.

But a review of previous terrorism trials and interviews with lawyers involved in those cases and other legal experts show that such an outcome is hardly guaranteed.

Federal juries in Manhattan, for instance, have not imposed the death penalty against any of the six defendants who could have received it since the federal death penalty was reinstated some two decades ago. Lawyers for Mr. Mohammed could well calculate that their greatest legal obligation is not to win acquittal but to save his life, and that there is no better place to try to do that than in a Manhattan federal courtroom.

As well, judges have been reluctant to order cases moved, ruling that careful pretrial questioning can weed out jurors who are not impartial.

In a case in 2002, a lawyer in Federal District Court in Manhattan sought a change of venue for a suspected aide to Osama bin Laden who had been charged with stabbing a jail guard. The lawyer, Richard B. Lind, said he was convinced that his client could not get a fair trial in Manhattan so soon after 9/11.

Mr. Lind had surveys conducted in New York and five other jurisdictions in January 2002. The results showed that 58 percent of New Yorkers had been â€œpersonally affectedâ€ by the attacks â€” from losing family members or friends to having their work disrupted â€” more than double the average of those in the other areas. â€œThere is a tidal wave of public passionâ€ in New York, Mr. Lind wrote.

But the judge, Deborah A. Batts, rejected the request, citing other survey evidence showing that levels of bias were not much different elsewhere.

â€œWhile New York residents are particularly hard hit because of the destruction of the World Trade Center and considerable loss of loved ones,â€ the judge wrote, â€œthe tidal wave is of national, not just local, proportions.â€

Defense lawyers in a prominent terror trial in Manhattan nearly 15 years ago reached a similar conclusion when they ordered research on whether their clients would fare better in a city other than New York.

Back then, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and a group of other men faced a 1995 federal trial on charges of plotting to blow up the United Nations, the George Washington Bridge, the Hudson River tunnels and other landmarks. The lawyers believed that their clients could not get a fair trial in the city they were accused of targeting. But their surveys of potential jurors indicated that New York was not clearly worse than other places for the trial.

â€œDid we expect that finding? No,â€ said David L. Lewis, one of the lawyers. â€œDid we expect the opposite of that? Yes.â€

Much is unknown about the forthcoming cases against Mr. Mohammed and four others. No public indictment has been released; no judge has been picked. It is not clear that Mr. Mohammed will even mount a defense. And he may want his trial to be a soapbox of sorts, blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood

If he does seek to defend himself, some lawyers say a motion for change of venue would almost be mandatory because of 9/11â€™s impact on the city.

â€œGiven the publicity that has come out about this, all bets are off, I think, in terms of whether you can get a fair jury in Manhattan,â€ said Neil Vidmar, a Duke law professor who studies pretrial prejudice. â€œMy gut instinct is, it should be moved elsewhere, but I could be wrong. I have been fooled in the past by these things.â€

The inability of the government to obtain a federal death sentence in Manhattan does not mean all jurors favored life sentences. To block the death penalty, the defense needs only a single holdout, the kind of free-thinking juror who might conclude, for example, that a lifetime in solitary confinement would be greater punishment for a terrorist seeking martyrdom.

â€œNot all American jury pools have the diversity and open-mindedness that New Yorkers are famous for,â€ said Daniel C. Richman, a Columbia law professor and former federal prosecutor in Manhattan. â€œI suspect people elsewhere would probably be a whole lot quicker to close their ears to anything the defendants had to say.â€

Transferring major terrorism cases can lead to mixed results. After the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people, including infants and children in a day care center, the trials of Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry L. Nichols were ordered moved to Denver by a judge who found that pretrial publicity had created â€œso great a prejudiceâ€ against the two men in Oklahoma that they could not get fair trials there.

Mr. McVeigh received the death penalty in Denver, while Mr. Nichols was spared execution. Mr. Nichols was later tried again, on state charges, in McAlester, Okla., and again was spared the death penalty.

Michael E. Tigar, a lawyer who represented Mr. Nichols in the federal trial, said it was too early to say whether a change of venue was warranted in the 9/11 case, but added, â€œI would pause before I would say, â€˜Letâ€™s get out of New York.â€™ â€

In such cases, he said, every lawyer must examine the issue and â€œmake a recommendation to the client based on a great deal more information than Iâ€™ve got right now.â€

It was that kind of information that lawyers were seeking as they prepared for the trial of Mr. Abdel Rahman and others charged with conspiring to blow up city landmarks. The men were indicted in August 1993, six months after the first attack on the World Trade Center, which killed six people.

The lawyers believed jurors would be affected by that bombing and traumatized by the courtâ€™s proximity to 26 Federal Plaza, a government building that prosecutors said was also a target of the plot.

Two lawyers recalled that they had commissioned a survey of potential jurors in Manhattan and at least two other districts, Connecticut among them, to examine whether jurors who were â€œfurther from the alleged target sites would be less fearful and therefore less pre-judgmental of the defendants in this matter,â€ the lawyers wrote to the judge in May 1994.

Mr. Lewis, one of the lawyers, said he had expected the study to support â€œa very powerfulâ€ venue motion. But the results showed instead that â€œthe overall level of prejudice against these defendants is essentially equalâ€ in all of the places surveyed, the lawyers wrote to the judge.

â€œIn short, it appears that it will be equally difficult to assemble a fair and impartial jury in any district,â€ the lawyers wrote. The case remained in New York, where the defendants were convicted.

In the 2002 case of the suspected bin Laden aide facing trial in the stabbing of a jail guard, a survey of six jurisdictions conducted four months after 9/11 found that while overall prejudice was greater in Manhattan, the difference was less than expected.

Edward J. Bronson, a professor emeritus of political science at California State University at Chico who oversaw the study, wrote in a report that the data did not ultimately provide â€œthe sort of clear and convincing empirical evidence that would mandate a change of venue.â€

As for a 9/11 case, he said by phone, â€œthereâ€™s no question that thereâ€™ll be high levels of prejudice in New York. The question will be, compared to what?â€

Gold9472

12-30-2009, 09:21 AM

Security Costs Will Top $75M in 9/11 Trial: Kelly

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Security-Costs-Will-Top-75M-in-911-Trial-Kelly-80332662.html

12/30/2009

New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly says security for the upcoming trial of the Sept. 11 terror attack suspects is going to cost much more than the initial estimate of $75 million.

Kelly drafted a security plan Dec. 18 for the upcoming trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others in New York federal court.

The men have been charged with war crimes. Kelly says the costs will be considerably more than $75 million, but he would not say how much more. The initial estimate was given Nov. 18.

The NYPD says there aren't enough officers to deal with the crush of work the trials will bring, so much of the cost will come from overtime and it will be impossible to accomplish without federal funds.

Attorney General Eric Holder has promised New York federal money for the trials.

There is no set date for the trial and no final decision has been made on funding.

Gold9472

01-06-2010, 08:15 PM

Security for 9/11 Trials in NYC Will Cost More than $400M
Cost of Trying 9/11 Terrorists Could Go as High as $600 Million

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/york-estimates-cost-terror-trials-400-million/story?id=9496406

By RICHARD ESPOSITO
Jan. 6, 2010

New York City projects it will cost more than $400 million to provide security if the pre-trial preparation and trial of the suspects in the Sept. 11 terror attacks takes two years, which insiders say is virtually certain, according to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

It will cost another $206 million annually if the trial runs beyond two years, which some fear is possible, the mayor's office estimates.

In a letter to the director of the federal Office of Management and Budget supporting Sen. Charles Schumer's proposal for federal reimbursement, Bloomberg projected a first year security price tag of $216 million and an ongoing annual cost of $206 million. "The City of New York's financial resources are in short supply," Bloomberg wrote. "Thus securing the trial will require us to pull existing personnel from crime prevention resources from around the city." The civilian trial of the Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five other suspects in the attacks that killed nearly 2,750 civilians will take place in a Manhattan federal courthouse just blocks from where the towers stood.

The November decision to prosecute the suspects in a civilian court sparked an intense political debate, with critics suggesting that as enemy combatants the suspects ought be tried by a military tribunal. Schumer initially projected a cost of more than $100 million, an estimate that officials later called a quick, "back of the envelope" projection. Schumer and other officials have since raised his estimate and called for a separate line in next year's federal budget to cover the reimbursement of resources spent on securing the streets of lower Manhattan, where City Hall, Police Headquarters, the FBI offices and the courthouse are all just a short walk from each other.

Each of those buildings was evacuated after 9/11, and most city operations were centered on a pier in the Hudson River. The FBI sought separate temporary sanctuary.

In his letter supporting Schumer's proposal, Bloomberg noted that the cost of securing the 2004 Republican National Convention exceeded $50 million. That took place from Aug. 30 through Sept 2, less than one week. Security is expected to include the closure of many streets around the court house, a very heavy uniformed police presence, snipers, heavy weapons teams, undercover police officers and a massive federal and local intelligence and counter terror operation.

Schumer Presses for Feds to Pay for New York Terror Trial
Schumer released a statement today saying, "Not a nickel of these costs should be borne by New York taxpayers, because terrorism is a federal responsibility and this is a federal trial. I will do everything I can to see that the federal government fully owns up to its responsibility."

In addition to the Manhattan trial, sources familiar with the civilian cases told ABC News in December that another Guantanamo Bay detainee is expected to be tried in New York City's other federal court house in Brooklyn. However the Justice Department will not confirm that possibility.

Gold9472

01-13-2010, 09:19 AM

Terrorism prosecutor treads familiar ground
Government prepares its team for Sept. 11 trial

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/01/13/terrorism_prosecutor_treads_familiar_ground/

1/13/2010

NEW YORK - When a federal prosecutor asked a Virginia jury in 2006 to impose the death penalty on Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th Sept. 11 hijacker, he cited the agonizing calls from victims in the burning World Trade Center towers and quoted the defendantâ€™s own words as he rejoiced in their pain. â€œI wish there would be more pain,â€™â€™ Moussaoui had said.

â€œLet me be blunt, ladies and gentlemen,â€™â€™ the prosecutor told the jury as he appealed for execution. â€œThere is no place on this good Earth for Zacarias Moussaoui.â€™â€™

Moussaoui ultimately received a life sentence when the jury could not unanimously agree on executing him.

Now, nearly four years later, that prosecutor, David Raskin, looks as if he will get another shot at prosecuting a Sept. 11 case, and this time, he could end up asking that five men be put to death. Raskin, an assistant US attorney in Manhattan, is widely expected to be the lead prosecutor in the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other terrorism suspects when they arrive from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, former colleagues say.

Raskin, 45, is one of the last remaining members of a cadre of seasoned terrorism prosecutors in the Manhattan office, a group that for the past decade and a half has handled many of the most high-profile cases of international terrorism.

In 2007, appearing on a panel at the Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law, Raskin suggested that cases against men held at Guantanamo could well be tricky in ways previous terror cases were not. â€œSome of these people are going to be difficult to prosecute if the opportunity is ever thereâ€™â€™ in the civilian system, he said.

He elaborated more recently in a talk at New York Law School: â€œIs the government allowed to sort of try Plan A and keep people, you know, detained on an island for years, and then when it doesnâ€™t work out, can we just decide to go a different route?â€™â€™

There has been neither a formal announcement about the 9/11 prosecution team nor any indication of when the defendants might come to New York. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in November that the case would be jointly assigned to the federal prosecutorâ€™s offices in Manhattan and Alexandria, Va., which earlier pooled their resources in the Moussaoui case.

The Virginia prosecutor who will be a partner on the case is John Davis, a Harvard Law graduate who helped win the 2002 conviction of John Walker Lindh for aiding the Taliban.

Neither man nor their offices would comment on their roles, but in recent months, each has quietly left a key post - Raskin as chief of the terrorism unit in Manhattan and Davis as chief of his officeâ€™s criminal division - to focus on the 9/11 matter.

It will take their full attention. The trials come amid a storm of criticism and protest over the decision to bring the cases into federal court.

But those who know Raskin and Davis say the menâ€™s experience and temperament make them a good fit for the case.

â€œTheyâ€™ve each got a very strong compass and a very even keel,â€™â€™ said David N. Kelley, a former US attorney in Manhattan who led the governmentâ€™s 9/11 investigation.

Davis, 51, a soft-spoken philosophy major from Davidson College, also served as an associate deputy attorney general from 2004 to 2006. His assignments included overseeing the creation of the special Iraq war crimes tribunal that tried Saddam Hussein and other regime leaders.

Raskin, meanwhile, who joined the US attorneyâ€™s office in 1999, seems a logical choice for the 9/11 cases. With other senior prosecutors in the office having gone on to become judges and US attorneys and to hold top Justice Department posts, Raskin has emerged as perhaps the prosecutor with the greatest continuity of experience on issues related to 9/11, starting from literally the hours after the attacks.

In the years since 9/11, Raskin has clearly wrestled with the issue of where law enforcement fits in the larger world of counterterrorism measures. Criminal charges, he told the students at New York Law School last year, can be an effective way of combating terrorism.

â€œBut the question of are we safer is so much bigger than me or any individual in our government,â€™â€™ he said.

Gold9472

01-20-2010, 09:09 AM

Cops will have double layer of security at courthouse for 9/11 suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/01/20/2010-01-20_cops_will_have_double_layer_of_security_for_.ht ml

BY Rocco Parascandola and Bill Hutchinson
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Wednesday, January 20th 2010, 4:00 AM

Cops are planning to ring the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan with a double-layer of security when the accused 9/11 mastermind and his four cohorts arrive for trial.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly on Tuesday outlined a plan that would turn most of lower Manhattan into a heavily-patrolled fortress.

"Not only will we have to protect the core area of Manhattan, we'll have to provide additional protection for the entire city," Kelly said at a New York Press Club event.

"We will have to be prepared and we are preparing for any event," the top cop added.

Kelly said a "soft" perimeter will be established from Bowery to Broadway, and from Franklin St. to Canal St., and be manned by cops on foot, horseback and patrol cars.

A harder perimeter, which will include bomb squad cops and police snipers, will be set up in the blocks adjacent to the 500 Pearl St. courthouse.

Kelly said the plan calls for setting up 2,000 barriers and checkpoints that will restrict pedestrians and traffic.

He also said there will be unannounced vehicle stops.

The feds have agreed to alert the NYPD 45 days before they plan to move Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 suspects to New York federal from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Kelly said the NYPD security plan could go into effect a day before the suspects arrive.

Gold9472

01-21-2010, 09:17 AM

Community Board Wants 9/11 Trial Moved

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/sept_11/100120-community-board-wants-911-trial-moved

Published : Wednesday, 20 Jan 2010, 11:20 PM EST

MYFOXNY.COM - Community Board 1, which serves Lower Manhattan south of Canal Street including Ground Zero, held a public hearing on moving the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other suspected 9/11 terrorists out of the area.

Many residents of Chinatown and the neighboring areas to the federal courthouse at 500 Pearl Street testified that holding the trial there will be a burden and a danger for them.

Board members voted unanimously to ask the White House to move the trial to a secure nonresidential location, such as Governors Island or Randall's Island.

Gold9472

01-25-2010, 09:42 AM

Charges Withdrawn in Military Commissions for Sept. 11 Suspects

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/22/charges-withdrawn-military-commissions-sept-suspects/?test=latestnews

1/22/2010

Charges against 9/11 suspects were dropped "without prejudice" -- a procedural move that allows federal officials to transfer the men to trial in a civilian court and also leaves the door open to again bringing charges in military commissions.

All charges have been withdrawn in the military commissions against the five suspects in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks being held at Guantanamo Bay.

The charges were dropped "without prejudice," according to the Defense Department -- a procedural move that allows federal officials to transfer the men to trial in a civilian court and also leaves the door open, if necessary, to bring charges again in military commissions.

"This action comes in light of the announcement by the attorney general of the United States that the Department of Justice intends to pursue a prosecution ... in federal court in the Southern District of New York," says a release from the Defense Department.

Click here to see the file dropping charges against the alleged 9/11 conspirators.

Currently no suspects stand charged in the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11. U.S. officials sent notification to Congress and families of 9/11 victims Friday afternoon. The order dropping charges was made Thursday.

"This action is a procedural step, which is part of a normal process, when an alternative forum is chosen," according to the Defense Department.

The Obama administration decided in November to remove the five suspects -- including self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- from a military trial after $100 million was spent on their prosecution and on the construction of a state-of-the-art courthouse at Guantanamo Bay built specifically to facilitate their military commissions.

One source familiar with the decision told Fox News that officials have not given the all-important 45-day transfer notification to Congress, indicating that the men will not be on U.S. soil imminently.

But as of Friday afternoon, the five suspects -- Mohammed and alleged co-conspirators Walid bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi -- were one step closer to a civilian trial in New York.

Similar actions were taken in May 2009 against Ahmed Ghailani, an alleged Al Qaeda member and participant in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Ghailani was then transferred to trial in federal court in New York, the first Guantanamo detainee to face civilian charges in the U.S.

Gold9472

01-26-2010, 09:32 AM

New sites eyed for 9/11 trials

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/new_sites_eyed_for_trials_JKMmu8puuHkzSyBYih7oxJ

By TOM TOPOUSIS
Last Updated: 4:32 AM, January 26, 2010

If Governors Island can't be used to hold the 9/11 terror trials, lower Manhattan officials will ask the feds to consider four other alternatives to the downtown courthouse, including West Point and the federal court in White Plains.

"I'm asking Attorney General [Eric] Holder to look at these alternatives and determine if they are feasible or not feasible," said Julie Menin, chairwoman of Community Board 1.

Also on the list of alternatives Menin is putting forward are the National Guard air base at Stewart Airport near Newburgh, and a Bureau of Prisons complex in Otisville, also in Orange County.

Gold9472

01-26-2010, 03:28 PM

Governors Island idea for 9/11 terror trial sparks feud

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/01/23/2010-01-23_governors_isle_idea_for_911_trial_sparks_feud.h tml

1/26/2010

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and other Manhattan leaders chided Mayor Bloomberg yesterday for calling a plan to move the 9/11 trials to Governors Island "one of the dumber ideas" he's ever heard.

That's what Bloomberg told newspaper publishers Thursday he thought of the push to hold the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his thugs on the former military base instead of lower Manhattan's Federal Courthouse.

The executive committee of Community Board 1 in Manhattan endorsed the alternative site this week. Now, Silver and other Democrats who represent lower Manhattan are steamed.

"We were extremely disappointed by Mayor Bloomberg's callous dismissal [this week] of a potential alternative location," wrote Silver, Rep. Jerrold Nadler and several other lawmakers, including state Senator Daniel Squadron and City Council member Margaret Chin.

An NYPD review found the site an impractical alternative because of the risks of transporting prisoners there and a lack of a modern infrastructure to host the trial.

Gold9472

01-27-2010, 09:22 AM

Unanimous! Move 9/11 trial

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/unanimous_move_trial_ayQNYpKwU7FBzYwWkMN1AM#ixzz0d omZulPw

By TOM TOPOUSIS
Posted: 3:46 AM, January 27, 2010

Downtown community leaders voted last night to demand that US Attorney Eric Holder consider a new location -- possibly West Point -- to hold the 9/11 terror trial now slated for lower Manhattan.

Community Board 1's unanimous vote came after a suggestion to move the trial from Manhattan federal court to Governors Island was rejected by Mayor Bloomberg.

"There are so many reasons that this trial shouldn't be here," said Community Board 1 Chair Julie Menin, who cited the ultra-high security that would impact residents and businesses.

Menin expanded the list of suggested alternatives to White Plains federal court, the US Military Academy, the National Guard Base at Stewart Airport, and a federal prison in Otisville.

All the sites are in the Southern District of New York, where the al Qaeda attack took place.

Gold9472

01-28-2010, 09:57 AM

Bloomberg: try 9/11 mastermind somewhere else
Urges feds to boot 9/11 prosecution as $1B cost looms

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/mike_try_1w1hLYpkm0FihEHooEqUdN

By TOM TOPOUSIS and DAVID SEIFMAN
Last Updated: 7:31 AM, January 28, 2010

Responding to growing pressure from downtown residents and business leaders, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday said the trial for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his fellow terrorists should be moved out of the city.

"It would be great if the federal government could find a site that didn't cost $1 billion, which using downtown will, and it will also impact traffic and commerce and people's lifestyles," Bloomberg said.

"And it would be great if we didn't do it."

Bloomberg agrees with a resolution from Community Board 1 this week calling on US Attorney General Eric Holder to move the trial out of the city.

The board suggested another federal site, possibly West Point, an Air National Guard base at Stewart Airport, the federal prison in upstate Otisville, or White Plains federal court.

"The suggestion of a military base is probably a reasonably good one, relatively easy to provide the security," Bloomberg said. "They tend to be outside of cities, so they don't disrupt other people."

The mayor said it's up to the feds to decide the trial site.

"But if they were to move it elsewheres, I'd be very happy with that," the mayor said.

Bloomberg had previously called the decision to try the terrorists near the World Trade Center "fitting," and last week blasted a CB 1 push to move the trial to Governors Island as "one of the dumbest ideas" he's ever heard.

Sen. Charles Schumer yesterday also joined the growing list of lawmakers hoping to move the trial out of the city.

"Senator Schumer is following the guidance of the mayor and the police commissioner, shares their concerns and is certainly open to alternatives," said spokesman Josh Vlasto.

Schumer had previously insisted on getting federal funding to pay for the city's massive security costs during a trial in lower Manhattan. But, like Bloomberg, he had not called for moving the trial outside the city.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly previously estimated the cost of security in lower Manhattan for the trial at more than $200 million a year.

Proposed security measures, including steel barriers throughout the neighborhood, rooftop snipers and street closures, have infuriated local residents and business owners fearful of the economic and emotional impact.

Julie Menin, chairwoman of CB 1, has been pushing to move the trial, citing the impact on a community that is still recovering from 9/11. "Someone has to stand up and say this is unacceptable," she said. "Why on earth would we hold this trial in the financial capital of the nation when we're struggling to dig out of a recession?"

Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, said a terror trial would have a devastating impact on tourism, retail and residential development in a neighborhood that has already suffered from the terror attacks.

"The dramatic economic impact to the city of New York and lower Manhattan will be enormous," he said.

Menin said she has been reaching out to lawmakers and members of New York's congressional delegation to build support for a new trial location.

House Republican leader John Boehner (Ohio) vowed yesterday to keep the trials out of downtown Manhattan.

"There is not going to be a trial in New York," he said. "I guarantee it. There is no appetite for the trials in Congress."

Boehner insisted that the White House can't shift the trials without congressional approval.

Asked for a comment yesterday, a spokesman for the Department of Justice referred back to a statement last week, insisting the trial could be held safely in lower Manhattan federal court.

Gold9472

02-01-2010, 09:05 AM

Experts say 9/11 terror trial must take place where crime was committed, leaving locations limited

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/01/30/2010-01-30_finding_new_venue_isnt_an_openshut_case.html

BY Greg B. Smith
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, January 30th 2010, 4:00 AM

There are limits to where the U.S. can try the self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind outside of New York City - especially if murder is in the mix, experts say.

Bowing to critics who want the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed out of Foley Square, the Department of Justice Friday appeared close to abandoning plans to bring the case in lower Manhattan.

If the attacks had taken place outside the U.S., prosecutors could bring the case in any federal court in America.

Because the crime occurred in the U.S., the trial has to happen where at least one part of the conspiracy took place.

"The trial has to occur in the venue where the crime was committed," said James Benjamin Jr., a former Manhattan federal prosecutor who handled the appeal of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef.

Complicating matters is that prosecutors would likely want to bring murder charges against Mohammed and his four co-defendants for the deaths of 3,000-plus.

That, experts said, would restrict the location to the three places where blood was shed: the Southern District of New York, the Eastern District of Virginia or the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania has no experience with such cases, while Southern District New York has handled the most terrorist defendants - 52 - since Sept. 11, with Virginia close behind at 34.

Just because Manhattan may be out doesn't mean the whole Southern District is - its borders include the Bronx and several upstate counties.

If prosecutors choose to bring a broader terror conspiracy charge, the case could land in any district where part of the plot happened, including "the planning, the implementation or the coverup," Benjamin said.

That means prosecutors could bring the case in Florida, where some hijackers learned to fly, or Boston or Newark, where they boarded jets that later crashed into the twin towers.

"Wherever conspiratorial activity occurred, you can charge a conspiracy," said attorney Joshua Dratel, who defended Embassy bomber Wadih el-Hage and Gitmo detainee David Hicks.

Critics have suggested other locales: Governors Island, the federal prison in Otisville upstate, Stewart Air Base outside Newburgh, and West Point military academy.

Dratel and Benjamin agreed that some of those spots might be intimidating to jurors and prejudicial to defendants.

Gold9472

02-01-2010, 09:05 AM

White House asks Justice Department to look for other places to hold 9/11 terror trial

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/01/28/2010-01-28_white_house_orders_justice_department_to_look_f or_other_places_to_hold_911_terro.html

BY Kenneth R. Bazinet, Adam Lisberg and Samuel Goldsmith
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Thursday, January 28th 2010, 8:04 PM

The White House ordered the Justice Department Thursday night to consider other places to try the 9/11 terror suspects after a wave of opposition to holding the trial in lower Manhattan.

The dramatic turnabout came hours after Mayor Bloomberg said he would "prefer that they did it elsewhere" and then spoke to Attorney General Eric Holder.

"It would be an inconvenience at the least, and probably that's too mild a word for people that live in the neighborhood and businesses in the neighborhood," Bloomberg told reporters.

"There are places that would be less expensive for the taxpayers and less disruptive for New York City."

State and city leaders have increasingly railed against a plan to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Manhattan federal court since Holder proposed it last month.

Sen. Chuck Schumer said he was "pleased" that the administration is reconsidering the location of the trial.

Earlier in the day, Schumer spoke "with high-level members of the administration and urged them to find alternatives," said the senator's spokesman, Josh Vlasto.

The order to consider new venues does not change the White House's position that Mohammed should be tried in civilian court.

"President Obama is still committed to trying Mohammed and four other terrorist detainees in federal court," spokesman Bill Burton said Thursday.

"He agrees with the attorney general's opinion that . . . he and others can be litigated successfully and securely in the United States of America, just like others have," Burton said.

Burton referred questions about the location debate to the Justice Department. While not commenting publicly, a department official disputed the characterization that the White House ordered the possible move.

But another insider told the Daily News that Justice officials have been caught off guard by the fiery opposition in New York.

"They're in a tizzy at Justice over Bloomberg," a federal law enforcement official said. "It's like a half-baked soufflÃ© - the plan is collapsing."

Julie Menin, the chairwoman of Community Board 1 who helped rally opposition to the plan, called the shift "a step in the right direction."

"I'm thrilled the White House is reconsidering," Menin said. "The trial has to be moved out of New York City."

Meanwhile, a source told The News that Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly was the driving force behind the push by Manhattan business leaders to change the mayor's mind on the trial.

Kelly made an "extremely powerful" speech to a roomful of 150 prominent business leaders about how disruptive and costly the trial would be for lower Manhattan at an annual police charity event on Jan. 13, the source said.

"What turned this around was when Ray made a presentation to the Police Foundation," the source said. "Everyone went from thinking, 'Justice will be served' to thinking 'We are screwed.' "

What followed was a barrage of complaints to the mayor from some of New York's most powerful tycoons - part of a tide of pressure that led Bloomberg to turn against hosting the trial.

Estimates put the cost of a multiyear terror trial in lower Manhattan at about $200 million a year. Leaders have suggested other venues for the trial, such as the Military Academy at West Point or Stewart Air National Guard Base in upstate Newburgh.

The federal government has said they would reimburse the city for the costs, most of which cover overtime for increased security, but they won't reimburse business owners for lost revenue during the chaos, said Steven Spinola, president of the heavyweight business group Real Estate Board of New York.

"Is the federal government going to give the city $1 billion plus the cost of propping up businesses? I don't think so," Spinola said.

"The mayor clearly has been thinking about this. The tide is turning," he said.

Gold9472

02-01-2010, 09:34 AM

Gibbs: Accused 9/11 plotter likely to be executed
Still no decision on where Mohammed will be tried

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35168785/ns/us_news-security

msnbc.com news services
updated 5:59 p.m. ET, Sun., Jan. 31, 2010

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration said Sunday it would consider local opposition when deciding where to hold Sept. 11 terror trials and pledged to seek swift justice for the professed mastermind of the attacks.

"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is going to meet justice and he's going to meet his maker," said President Barack Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs. "He will be brought to justice and he's likely to be executed for the heinous crimes that he committed in killing and masterminding the killing of 3,000 Americans. That you can be sure of."

Objections from New York City officials and residents have intensified since the Justice Department announced late last year it planned to put Mohammed and other accused Sept. 11 conspirators on trial in federal court in lower Manhattan. In its new budget, the Obama administration is proposing a $200 million fund to help pay for security costs in cities hosting terrorist trials.

White House aide David Axelrod said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials have changed their minds after initially supporting the decision for trials in the city, citing logistics and costs.

"The president believes that we need to take into consideration what the local authorities are saying," Axelrod said. "But he also believes ... that we ought to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and all others who are involved in terrorist acts to justice swift and sure."

Safety and cost have been issues in the debate, but some officials also have questioned the administration's legal strategy for using civilian courts for the suspects instead of military tribunals.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, said the administration should shift the trials to military courts, which he said have been reviewed by Congress to ensure fairness. He and other Republicans have criticized officials for charging Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in civilian court in the Christmas airliner plot instead of turning him over to military authorities.

"We have to make a distinction between a kid who breaks into a sandwich shop in Detroit and a Nigerian terrorist who wants to blow up an airplane flying into Detroit," Alexander said.

Sen. Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat, indicated he didn't support the request for $200 million for civilian trials, saying he favored trying terrorism suspects safely, quickly and inexpensively.

"If there's somewhere we can try them without spending that money, why spend the money? We've got a lot of other fiscal problems," Bayh said.

Gibbs spoke on CNN's "State of the Union" while Axelrod appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press." Alexander and Bayh spoke on "Fox News Sunday."

Gold9472

02-03-2010, 09:13 AM

Senators push for 9/11 trials in military court

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6115E320100202?type=politicsNews

2/2/2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of nine U.S. senators on Tuesday offered legislation to force special military trials for the accused September 11, 2001, conspirators, further complicating President Barack Obama's bid to try them in a civilian court.

The Obama administration has been caught off guard by mounting bipartisan opposition to trying the self-professed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four others in a federal criminal court in lower Manhattan.

The nine senators argued against prosecuting the five men in a criminal court because they would receive full U.S. constitutional rights, and they could use the civilian trials to espouse their anti-American views.

They were also upset at the price tag, pegged at $200 million a year. Their legislation would bar funding for civilian trials.

"Civilian trials are unnecessarily dangerous, messy, confusing and expensive," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters.

He argued that the five men, who are being held at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. military prison, are war criminals who should face military trials that would also ensure that no classified information would spill out.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the bill.

The Obama administration has maintained that most foreign terrorism suspects have been successfully prosecuted in federal criminal courts, but has agreed to reconsider holding the trials in Manhattan amid the security and cost concerns.

'PRETTY OBVIOUS'
"I think it's pretty obvious they're not going to do it in New York but they have not signed off on it," said Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York. A Justice Department official said on Monday Manhattan was still a possibility.

The legislation is sponsored by six Republicans, along with Democrats Jim Webb and Blanche Lincoln and independent Joe Lieberman, a former Democrat who often votes with Democrats.

Lincoln is facing a tough re-election bid in her home state of Arkansas. Other terrorism-related trials may be held in Webb's home state of Virginia.

Graham did not detail how the bill's sponsors would pursue the measure in Congress. The Senate and House of Representatives are controlled by Obama's fellow Democrats, but Graham noted that some Democrats are backing the bill.

Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to prosecute the five accused September 11 conspirators in a civilian court has turned into a political hot potato for the Obama administration. It has forced the White House and Justice Department to spend time and political capital to try to ensure that funding for the criminal trials is not blocked.

"I believe strongly in letting the Justice Department make prosecutorial decisions, and I support this administration's decision to try detainees in federal courts when appropriate," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Obama on Monday described the opposition to the criminal trial as "rank politics" because most prosecutions of foreign terrorism suspects during his Republican predecessor George W. Bush's administration were held in criminal courts.

"I hope and pray that the president will understand that as commander-in-chief he is pursuing a strategy that will weaken our national security. I do not question his motives, I question his judgment," Graham said, denying a political motive.

"It's really cost, I think it's also security and I think it's appropriateness, it's exactly what I hear from my constituency," Lincoln said. "These are criminals, they're war criminals and they need to be tried in the military courts."

Republican U.S. Representative Frank Wolf plans to introduce companion legislation in the House of Representatives on Tuesday. Similar efforts to force the trials into military court failed last year.

Gold9472

02-04-2010, 09:13 AM

Republicans unite to halt trials of alleged 9/11 plotters

http://rawstory.com/2010/02/republicans-unite-halt-trials-alleged-911-plotters/

By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 -- 7:32 pm

US lawmakers Tuesday unveiled plans to block public funding for US-based trials involving Guantanamo detainees who are accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Republican lawmakers Frank Wolf and Lindsey Graham joined forces to introduce legislation which "would explicitly block this dangerous and wasteful trial from any domestic civilian court," Wolf said.

They also won support from Democrats Jim Webb and Blanche Lincoln, as well as independent senator Joe Lieberman.

If approved, the legislation would stop the Justice Department from using public funds to try the alleged mastermind of the 2001 attacks, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, and his four co-accused, in domestic US courts.

President Barack Obama's administration has announced plans to prosecute the men in New York, just steps from Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center once stood. The attacks killed almost 3,000 people.

But the plan has been met with howls of protest from lawmakers and New York residents.

"The whole venue of New York would be a circus. When you criminalize the war you make a huge mistake," Senator Graham said.

And he told a press conference that using a "civilian trial with the 9/11 conspirators could be dangerous."

"The law enforcement model being used by the Obama administration should be rejected. We're not fighting a crime, we're fighting a war. And to criminalize this war puts our nation at risk."

He insisted the system of special military commissions, set up to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was the best venue to try the alleged September 11 plotters.

Such trials could be held "quickly, securely and with very little additional cost," he said.

The White House said Sunday it was still hoping to bring Sheikh Mohammed and other alleged plotters of the September 11 attacks to trial in New York, despite reservations including from Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"We are talking with the authorities in New York," spokesman Robert Gibbs said. "We understand their logistical concerns and their security concerns that are involved. We have been discussing that with them."

A civilian trial in New York could cost around 200 million dollars a year, racking up a billion-dollar price tag if it extended over five years as a complex case could, according to figures cited by lawmakers on Tuesday.

Graham, who plans to meet with the White House to discuss the legislation, said he was "confident" the measure had the support to pass a vote.

Democratic Senator Jim Webb threw his backing behind the bill saying the attacks should not be prosecuted in a US civilian court.

"This is not an appropriate type of crime to be tried in an American criminal court," he said.

He also warned that Attorney General Eric Holder had yet to give "a very clear answer" on what would happen to the accused plotters of the attacks if they were acquitted by a US court.

Meanwhile, the second most senior Democrat in the House of Representatives told reporters that the White House was reassessing a decision to transfer some prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the Thomson prison facility in Illinois.

"I think the administration realizes that this is a difficult issue," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

"And I think that they are assessing where they are and where they think we ought to be. I think that's appropriate. And I'm looking forward to discussing it with them."

On Monday, Obama requested 237 million dollars in his 2011 budget for the purchase and retrofitting of the Thomson facility, where his administration has said they plan to hold some former Guantanamo detainees.

Thomson would be upgraded to a high-security facility with space for federal prisoners and a wing under Pentagon administration for former Guantanamo prisoners.

Obama's administration has pledged to close the facility at Guantanamo Bay, located on US naval base on Cuba's southern tip. There are 192 detainees still being held at the prison.

Gold9472

02-05-2010, 08:54 AM

Attorney General Eric Holder: Rudy Giuliani is playing politics on 9/11 terror trial move

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/02/05/2010-02-05_attorney_general_eric_holder_rudy_giuliani_is_p laying_politics_on_911_terror_tri.html

BY Bill Hutchinson
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, February 5th 2010, 4:00 AM

An unapologetic U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder blasted ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani in a published report for turning his decision to try terrorists in civilian courts into a "partisan issue."

Holder told the New Yorker that it was "exceedingly strange" to hear the one-time zealous prosecutor publicly express a lack of faith in the U.S. justice system.

"If Giuliani was still the U.S. Attorney in New York, my guess is that, by now, I would already have gotten 10 phone calls from him telling me why these cases needed to be tried not only in civilian court but at Foley Square," Holder told the magazine.

Under protest from Mayor Bloomberg and Sen. Charles Schumer, Holder and the Obama Administration have backed away from trying 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Manhattan federal court.

But Holder is not kowtowing to critics like Giuliani and former Vice President Cheney, who believe Mohammed and his Al Qaeda henchmen should be prosecuted by military tribunals.

"I don't apologize for what I've done. History will show that the decisions we've made are the right ones," Holder said.

"It's distressing to me that on an issue that is truly a matter of life and death for this nation people will find a way to make that a partisan issue," he said.

Amy Jeffress, Holder's national security adviser, told the magazine that military files on terrorist suspects were so haphazardly kept it appeared the Bush Administration "hadn't planned on prosecuting anyone."

"You'd look at what the Department of Defense had, and it was something, but, as a prosecutor, it wasn't what you'd like to see as evidence," Jeffress said.

Holder bristled at Cheney for equating the decision to try terrorists in civilian courts to giving "aid and comfort to the enemy."

"On some level, and I'm not sure why, he [Cheney] lacks confidence in the American system of justice," Holder said.

Gold9472

02-12-2010, 10:23 AM

Senate rejects 9/11 trials in New York City

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=899029&category=STATE

First published in print: Wednesday, February 10, 2010

ALBANY -- The state Senate on Tuesday passed a resolution expressing opposition to the Obama administration's decision to hold the trials of suspected 9/11 terrorists in Lower Manhattan.

"I personally believe that we should not be using the civilian criminal justice system to deal with these terrorists," said Sen. Vincent Leibell, R-Patterson, who authored the resolution. "These are the worst of the worst. ... There is no area of our country that has suffered more than these few blocks."

Leibell said Obama's decision to hold the trials in Lower Manhattan was a "mistake, but there is time to correct that mistake."

Sen. Daniel Squadron, D-Manhattan, was one of seven Democrats who voted against the measure. He made it clear that he didn't want the trials held in the neighborhood, but voted against the resolution because it also calls for the alleged terrorists -- including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- to be tried in military tribunals, not civilian courts.

"This is my district, this is my community in Lower Manhattan," Squadron said. "But we are not going to turn our back on the fundamental tenets of our country."

Gold9472

02-12-2010, 10:23 AM

Don't Let Congress Block Trials for the 9/11 Accused

http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=13706

Amnesty International

President Obama made the right decision to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other alleged 9/11 conspirators in U.S. federal court, but now members of Congress are attacking the President's decision and threatening to block funding for the trial. Senator Lindsey Graham called federal trials a "dumb idea" and wants to use the kangaroo courts known as military commissions, that he and other politicians cooked up at Guantanamo, to ensure convictions and cover up evidence of torture. According to military and intelligence experts, the Guantanamo show trials have not only failed to hold the alleged 9/11 plotters accountable, but have also tarnished America's reputation for justice and served as recruiting propaganda for al Qaeda. President Obama chose the right alternative: U.S. federal courts have convicted 195 accused terrorists since September 2001, and those criminals are safely behind bars in U.S. federal prison. Tell Congress not to block fair federal trials. It's time for justice for 9/11, and real justice requires a real court.

Gold9472

02-15-2010, 08:56 AM

White House: 9/11 Military Trial Possible
Attorney General Doesn't Rule Out Military Trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as Obama Faces Increased Congressional Pressure

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/13/politics/main6204500.shtml

2/13/2010

The Obama administration appears increasingly unsure what to do with professed Sept. 11, 2001 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed after officials indicated they are reconsidering not just where he should go on trial, but whether he should face civilian or military justice.

Both Attorney General Eric Holder and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs did not rule out a military trial when asked Friday about the Obama administration's options.

Trying Mohammed in military court would mark a further political retreat from Holder's announcement last year that Mohammed and the four other Sept. 11 suspects now held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would be tried in federal court in New York.

On Saturday, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said at an event in New York that â€œsupport from the local communityâ€ and the â€œfunding requirementsâ€ were key factors in deciding where to hold the trial, CBS News reports.

Brennan made a two-hour appearance at â€œA Dialogue on Our Nationâ€™s Securityâ€ at New York University's School of Law.

During the event, one audience member, complaining of the â€œcowardly â€¦ not in my backyardâ€ backlash against a federal trial in Manhattan for alleged Sept. 11 conspirators, asked, â€œIs it possible we might get that trial back here in New York City?â€

Brennan wouldn't pin the administration down on a specific location for the trial.

â€œThe administration, the attorney general and others are trying to push this forward as best we can," Brennan said. "But, again, the dependencies are there. Whereâ€™s the funding going to come from in order to provide the necessary security? We need non-obstructionism from certain elements from within the government in order to move forward on this."

The Obama administration is trying to head off a possible vote in the Senate that could stop any terror suspects held at Guantanamo from being brought to the United States to face a civilian trial. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is offering such legislation, after losing a vote last year on the issue.

"These al Qaeda terrorists are not common criminals," Graham said in the Republicans' weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. "A civilian trial of hard-core terrorists is unnecessarily dangerous and creates more problems than it solves."

At stake is the public perception of the administration's handling of national security, already shaken last year by strong congressional opposition to transferring any Guantanamo detainees to American soil. A defeat over the trial issue could embolden the Republican minority to raise national security concerns in midterm elections later this year.

"Military tribunals are the best way to render justice, win this war and protect our nation from a vicious enemy," said Graham.

The prospect of such a vote could test of how many moderate Democrats have abandoned Obama on the issue.

White House officials said Friday that Mr. Obama and his top advisers will play a direct role in ultimately deciding how to prosecute Mohammed. The administration initially decided to try the five terror defendants in New York but have since appeared to backtrack.

As a result of Holder's decision to seek a civilian prosecution, Bush-era military charges that had been pending against the five suspects were dismissed last month. Those military charges could now be revived.

The administration is reconsidering Holder's plan to put the five men on trial in a federal court in Manhattan, after local officials there balked at security complications.

The White House insisted it is sensitive to their concerns.

"We're going to take into account security and logistical concerns that those individuals now have," Gibbs said. "The cost of the trial, obviously, is one thing."

Republican Rep. Peter King, who has repeatedly criticized Holder's decision to try Mohammed in New York, said the White House has bungled the issue from the start.

"What it shows is there was no preparation, no advance work done by the administration," said King.

For his part, Holder said he still expects Mohammed to be tried in a federal civilian court, but he conceded it's possible that won't happen.

"At the end of the day, wherever this case is tried, in whatever forum, what we have to ensure is that it's done as transparently as possible and with adherence to all the rules," Holder told The Washington Post. "If we do that, I'm not sure the location or even the forum is as important as what the world sees in that proceeding."

The administration has been on the defensive about its record on terrorism since a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up an airliner landing in Detroit on Christmas. The suspect faces charges in federal court, but Republicans say such suspects should be treated not as criminals but war criminals.

Obama administration officials counter that the Christmas case was handled no differently than Bush's Republican administration had handled similar cases.

Gold9472

02-15-2010, 08:58 AM

Administration 'flexible' on 9/11 trial venue

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hqKSeW2IuYNmUUr3hiqGMVbhvxwgD9DSHIF00

(AP) â€“ 3 hours ago

WASHINGTON â€” The Obama administration prefers a civilian trial for the alleged 9/11 mastermind, but says that in the face of public and political opposition it must be open to a military tribunal.

In an interview published Monday in The New York Times, Attorney General Eric Holder said, "I have to be more forceful in advocating for why I believe these are trials that should be held on the civilian side."

However, Holder did not rule out a military trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, saying, "You have to be flexible."

Vice President Joe Biden defended the White House from critics of its approach to prosecuting accused terrorists, saying in interviews aired Sunday that it is not yet clear where Mohammed and four other Sept. 11 suspects held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be tried.

However, Biden said he believes Mohammed will be found guilty regardless of the venue.

President Barack Obama will make the final decision about the trial, Biden said.

Republicans and some Democrats argue that terrorists should be treated not as criminals but as enemy combatants and tried by military commission.

"These policies are ill-conceived and they need to stop and start over," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Graham said he favors closing the jail at Guantanamo Bay because its existence helps recruit terrorists to al-Qaida. But he said that treating terrorists as criminals to be tried in civilian courts "is a huge mistake that will come back to haunt us."

Graham also said he thinks Obama should replace John Brennan, the president's counterterrorism adviser. Brennan on Saturday said that the rate of former Guantanamo inmates engaging in extremist or militant behavior â€” roughly one in five â€” "isn't that bad" compared to recidivism rates for U.S. prisoners of around 50 percent.

"Do you want someone in charge of counterterrorism who finds a 20 percent return-to-the-fight rate is acceptable? He has lost my confidence, and it's the best evidence yet how disconnected this administration has come from the fact that we're at war," Graham said.

Obama national security adviser James Jones, while not defending Brennan's statement, said Sunday the counterterrorism adviser does his job well and that the White House National Security Council is fortunate to have him.

Holder announced last year that Mohammed's trial would take place in federal court in New York City. City officials later opposed the idea because of costs, security and logistical concerns, and some senators are trying to stop any Guantanamo detainees from being brought to the United States for a civilian trial.

Jones said Holder is heading a review into the matter and will advise Obama on the course to take.

Biden appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS' "Face the Nation." Jones appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and CNN's "State of the Union." Graham appeared on "Fox News Sunday."

Gold9472

02-15-2010, 09:01 AM

Liz Cheney: Civil terror trials led to 9/11

http://rawstory.com/2010/02/liz-cheney-civil-terror-trials-led-911/

By David Edwards and Gavin Dahl
Sunday, February 14th, 2010 -- 4:37 pm

Liz Cheney must have forgotten about the presidential daily briefing ignored by Condoleeza Rice and the Bush administration before 9/11, that said Osama bin Laden was determined to strike within the US.

The daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney said today on Fox that she believes military tribunals, instead of civilian trials, following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, would have produced intelligence that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks.

"What you have is a situation where unquestionably we did go through a period in this nation's history where we dealt with terrorism as a law enforcement matter," Cheney explained to Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday.

"As Attorney General (Michael) Mukasey has pointed out recently, when we prosecuted and successfully convicted people after the '93 World Trade Center bombing, after the East African bombing, what it got us was 9/11 and 3,000 dead Americans."

Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan said this week that 20% recidivism of released Guantanamo detainees is "not that bad." She called his remarks "a diversion."

The discussion was centered on Brennan's accusation that critics of Obama were fear-mongering for political effect.

"So the notion that, well, the Bush administration did this, I find it perplexing as a political argument to hear that from this administration," said Cheney, a former State Department official. "I think they're confusing the facts and the law with respect to many of those terrorists. But it's not surprising because there's a level of incompetence that you're seeing from people like Brennan and others that scares the American people. So I'm not surprised they're trying to divert attention to something else."

In other words, Liz Cheney says it isn't fear-mongering because the American people are scared by Brennan, not Republican histrionics. And the 9/11 attacks could have been avoided, if only the American justice system could have been further bent to the whims of a security-minded government.

She is sounding more and more like her father.

This video is from Fox's Fox News Sunday, broadcast Feb. 14, 2010.

Video At Source

Gold9472

02-24-2010, 09:24 AM

Attorney General Eric Holder: 9/11 terror trial in New York City is still on the table

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/02/23/2010-02-23_holder_ny_trial_is_still_on_the_table.html

BY Kenneth R. Bazinet
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Tuesday, February 23rd 2010, 4:00 AM

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Eric Holder said the Najibullah Zazi case shows his department can handle terrorists - a hint he'd still like to prosecute the 9/11 thugs in a civilian court.

"This demonstrates that our federal civilian criminal justice system has the ability to incapacitate terrorists, has the ability to gain intelligence from those terrorists and is a valuable tool in our fight against terrorism," Holder said at news conference after Zazi's guilty plea.

Holder has faced Republican fire for dealing with the underwear bomber airliner plot as a civilian case and for his decision, now being reconsidered, to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four henchmen in lower Manhattan.

A resolution of where to try Mohammed is expected "relatively soon," Holder said. But a Manhattan trial - strongly opposed by New York officials - remains in play, he added.

Under pressure from congressional critics, the Justice Department is also considering sending Mohammed to trial before a military tribunal.

Holder's comments came a few hours after Gov. Paterson lobbied administration officials against holding the trial in Manhattan.

"We don't disagree with the way the White House wants to hold the trial. We just tried to point out to the White House that New York is a very vulnerable place," Paterson told the Daily News.

Later, Paterson told CNN it would be "more appropriate" to move the trial upstate, mentioning West Point and Newburgh as alternatives.

Gold9472

04-04-2011, 11:42 AM

9/11 Mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to be Tried by Military Commission
Some Sept. 11 Suspects Were to Have Been Tried in New York City

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/911-mastermind-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-military-commission/story?id=13291750

By JASON RYAN and HUMA KHAN
April 4, 2011

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and four co-conspirators will be tried in a military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Department of Justice officials said today.

Mohammed was to have been tried in New York City, but city officials strongly objected to the move and Congress refused to appropriate funds to house Guantanamo inmates on mainland United States and to provide funds for a trial of extraordinary expense.

New York City projected it would cost more than $400 million to provide security for the pre-trial preparation and trial of the suspects in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. It would have cost another $206 million annually if the trial ran beyond two years, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office estimated.

Mohammed confessed to his role in the attacks in 2008. He will be tried alongside Walid Muhammed Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Al Hawsawi, the four Sept. 11 co-conspirators Mohammed was undergoing proceedings with the first time around.

President Obama announced in March his decision to resume military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay after heavy resistance from both Democrats and Republicans over trying suspects in U.S. courts.

Closing the detainee center at Guantanamo Bay was one of the Obama administration's first orders of business. But the president has faced months of fierce, bipartisan resistance from Congress on his proposal to try Guantanamo detainees on U.S. soil.

The $725 billion National Defense Authorization Act that Obama signed Jan. 7 explicitly prohibits the use of Defense Department funds to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to the United States or other countries. It also bars Pentagon funds from being used to build facilities in the United States to house detainees, as the president originally suggested.

The move essentially barred the administration from trying detainees in civilian courts. The president objected to the provision in the bill before signing it, calling it "a dangerous and unprecedented challenge to critical executive branch authority" but also said his team would work with Congress to "seek repeal of these restrictions."

There are about 170 prisoners remaining at the detainee center in Guantanamo Bay, 30 of whom were due to face trial in criminal courts or before military commissions. Since 2002, 598 prisoners have been transferred to other countries.

Gold9472

07-09-2011, 04:02 AM

Pentagon prepares for media focus on 9/11 trials

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/22488/pentagon-prepares-for-media-focus-on-911-trials

Agence France-Presse
10:03 am | Saturday, July 9th, 2011

WASHINGTONâ€”Pentagon officials said Friday they were looking at how to accommodate media interest in upcoming trials of the accused 9/11 plotters after journalists requested a live video feed of the proceedings from the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay.

Only a handful of reporters are allowed into the small court rooms at Guantanamo and other journalists at the base watch the proceedings from a separate room with a video monitor.

Defense officials permit only about 60 reporters at a time at the base in southeastern Cuba, but the high-profile nature of the pending 9/11 cases has prompted the Pentagon to review an appeal from news organizations to provide a video feed outside Guantanamo.

â€œWe think this is a fair request from the media,â€ said spokesman Douglas Wilson, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs.

â€œAnd I have put together a team to look at the options available to be able to address and accommodate the request,â€ he told AFP. â€œI should have those options for review very shortly.â€

In May, prosecutors filed charges against 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators, with Guantanamo military trials expected to start later this year.

Another defense official said the Pentagon was considering allowing reporters to watch a closed-circuit video feed of the proceedings outside of Washington.

Similar arrangements were being planned for families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The video access for reporters would be subject to the same restrictions imposed on journalists at Guantanamo, officials said.

In previous tribunal hearings, reporters watching the video monitors are not allowed to record the proceedings and broadcasters are not permitted to air the footage.

Defense officials say the restrictions are required due to security precautions.

It was also unclear if the video feed would be live or delayed, to allow officials to prevent the disclosure of potentially classified information.

In requesting a video feed outside of Guantanamo, the Pentagon Press Association said the remote location of the Guantanamo base, the restrictions on entering and leaving the base and the limited facilities there â€œall serve to impose significant practical limitations on meaningful press access to the proceedings of the military commissions.â€

The Pentagon also has promised news outlets that legal motions and other relevant documents will be posted promptly on the military commissionsâ€™ official website.

Gold9472

09-16-2011, 08:45 AM

Woods prepares Guantanamo for 9/11 tribunals

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/16/2409817/woods-prepares-guantanamo-for.html

By Carol Rosenberg
The Miami Herald

In the few weeks since Rear Adm. David B. Woods took charge here, he has looked in on the men accused of killing two of his Naval Academy classmates, walked the camps where President Barack Obamaâ€™s closure order has faded in the Caribbean sun and presided over a somber ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of Americaâ€™s 21st Century Day of Infamy.

Or, as the sturdy, 6-foot-4 career Naval aviator with a flat-top buzz cut sees it: Itâ€™s just his latest job in 30 years in uniform.

Woods, 53, considers himself part of â€œthe 9/11 Generation.â€ He calls it â€œthe event that defined us.â€ He acknowledges that two fellow midshipmen from his Class of 1981 were killed on Sept. 11, 2001. They were Navy Capt. Robert Dolan, who was inside the Pentagon and former Navy nuclear engineer turned insurance broker Michael McGinty, who lived in Massachusetts but was doing business at the World Trade Center.

The admiral wasnâ€™t assigned to the Pentagon that day. He went on to command an air wing that flew missions meant to jam enemy air defenses in Afghanistan. He worked on a program to thwart deadly roadside bombs in Iraq.

Now, heâ€™s the 11th commander of the controversial detention and interrogation center that Congress wouldnâ€™t let his commander-in-chief close. Resistance was so intense to holding trials in Manhattan that the administration reversed course and now the military gets to put on the capital mass murder trial of the five alleged 9/11 conspirators at the base.

And it is Woodsâ€™ job to not only incarcerate those men after years of secret interrogation by the CIA but to prepare Camp Justice for the trial â€” a role he sees as a natural extension of his career.

â€œObviously, over the last 10 years being in the military at 9/11 and the aftermath, the Global War on Terror has been a focal point for much of my operational career,â€ he said.

â€œThis is just another one of those missions.â€

Itâ€™s a mission that was never meant to be. He has inherited a prison compound where visitors can glimpse fading copies of Obamaâ€™s Jan. 22, 2009 closure order in the recreation yards of the camp for low-value captives â€” al Qaeda foot soldiers, training camp wannabes, Taliban militiamen. An earlier admiral had guards hang the order for the captives to see while his team built a blueprint for closure.

But recently, the guard force began taking some copies down. â€œThey were tattered or unreadable,â€ said Navy Cmdr Tamsen Reese, camp spokeswoman.

Far from closing, Woods is expanding: Plans are underway to build a new detention center hospital closer to the camp where seven months ago an Afghan died of a coronary after working out. Workers are doubling the workspace of a crude media center. The admiral has requisitioned reinforcements â€” troops to secure the court , staff to inspect news photos for â€œoperational securityâ€ concerns that doom the images to deletions, and escorts to squire reporters and lawyers around the 45-square-mile base.

The Pentagon plans death penalty trials for six of the 171 captives. So far, Woods has made no contingency plans for how to execute them.

â€œI donâ€™t have instructions and we donâ€™t have a plan to do it.,â€ he said. â€œThereâ€™s been no order.â€

When he took charge Aug. 24, in a ceremony that was atypically unaccompanied by a news release, Woods told fellow U.S. forces that the eyes of the world would be on this corner of southeast Cuba. But he likened the operation to the flight deck of an aircraft carrier at sea â€” hot, busy, remote, cacophonous, in constant motion of aircraft coming and going with â€œspit-second accuracy.â€

Did he volunteer for this post, far different from any in a career that has focused on electronic jamming warfare?

â€œI guess I did when I signed up for the Naval Academy in 1977,â€ he said.

He confirmed that heâ€™s met former al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the man who boasted he planned the 9/11 attacks â€œfrom A to Z,â€ but said he never looked up the names of his dead classmates on the Pentagon charge sheet that seeks to execute Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators. Heâ€™s seen and spoken to the men accused of starting his generationâ€™s war â€” he wouldnâ€™t say more.

â€œI have,â€ he said. â€œIt wasnâ€™t uncomfortable.â€

Soon, it may be his duty to deliver them to a trial that presumes them innocent, which he says doesnâ€™t cause concern.

â€œI guess itâ€™s the professionalism I learned over 30 years that takes the emotion out of it. Iâ€™ve got a job to do; itâ€™s pretty clear,â€ he said, reciting the mantra of management on the base: â€œSafe, humane, legal, transparent care and custody of the detainees.â€

Gold9472

09-20-2011, 08:11 AM

Obama administration insists on Guantanamo closure

http://www.abc6.com/story/15502638/obama-administration-insists-on-guantanamo-closure

Posted: Sep 20, 2011 7:15 AM EDT Updated: Sep 20, 2011 7:16 AM EDT

BRUSSELS (AP) - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says that the Obama administration will do its utmost to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay ahead of next year's presidential elections despite political opposition.

Holder said at the European Parliament on Tuesday that even if the current administration fails to close it ahead of elections, it will continue to press ahead if it wins the November 2012 presidential vote.

Republican presidential rivals Rick Perry has said he was happy the U.S. prison at Guantanamo has been kept open.

Holder said that the administration wants to close the facility "as quickly as possible, recognizing that we will face substantial pressure."

Gold9472

09-30-2011, 08:08 PM

The General Who Would Try KSM
This Army lawyer tried to bring a justice system to Afghanistan. Next assignment: chief prosecutor at Guantanamo.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204226204576600623413286118.html

By MATTHEW KAMINSKI
9/30/2011

In July of 1999, I met a young Army lawyer on a muddy farm field in southern Kosovo. His rÃ©sumÃ© (first in his class at West Point, Rhodes Scholar, Harvard Law) suggested that Major Mark Martins had his pick of private-sector jobs. But there was this tall and down-to-earth Ranger in a cramped tent, working late into the night. Days after NATO bombers forced Serbia out, Kosovo was scarred by civil war and ethnic strife. There was no government, no courts and effectively no laws. The military had to fill this gap and Maj. Martins was trying to sort out how. At the time, many thought troops were wasting time better spent on tank training in Germany. "We don't need to have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten," said Condoleezza Rice, then the foreign policy adviser to an ambitious Republican governor from Texas.

Fast forward a dozen years. Brig. Gen. Martins, 51, who deployed three times to Iraq, has just wound up a two-year tour in Afghanistan. Far from a distraction, Kosovo was a preview of things to come. The post-9/11 conflicts jolted the military out of the Cold War mindset for good and into the messy work of hunting terrorists, fighting insurgencies and, once again a dirty word in Republican presidential politics, nation-building in failed states.
Related Video

Matt Kaminski on the killing of Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki.

Gen. Martins serves at the innovative wedges of this long war. He fashioned military-led efforts to provide Afghans and Iraqis with basic governance "in that difficult time that we call the meantime"â€”the months, usually years, from the collapse of the old regime to the rise of a functioning new state. In between, he helped "detoxify" (his words) American detention and interrogation policies in Afghanistan. He helped draft guidelines for U.S. military commissions adopted by Congress in 2009.

On Monday, a general whom Pentagon chief counsel Jeh Johnson calls a "superstar" begins as the chief prosecutor at the tribunals, which are gearing up to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terror suspects held at Guantanamo.

As the legal system struggled to adapt to the post-9/11 world, so did military doctrine. The army once favored "a hands-off approach" to civilian governance, says Gen. Martins. That was for the locals. But in the last decade, "important lightbulbs went off," he says. During the 2007 surge in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus decided that to succeed, the military had to step in and help Iraqis deliver justice to their citizens. Gen. Martins set up "rule of law green zones" in seven Iraqi cities. U.S. forces secured courtrooms and protected judges and prosecutors. When Gen. Petraeus moved into Afghanistan last year to lead that surge, Gen. Martins got his own command, a Rule of Law Field Force, that built on the Iraq experiment. The U.S. had written new constitutions and set up legal systems in Japan and Germany after World War II. This was the first time that rule of law was at the heart of counterinsurgency.

The Afghan insurgency feeds off frustration with the ineptitude and rapaciousness of Kabul. "The Taliban is using the idiom of justice as its calling card and recruiting card," says Gen. Martins. "Afghanistan puts in very high relief the need for governance and dispute resolutionâ€”not the classic Western form of justice, but more resolution of disputes in a way that's seen as legitimate."

At the beginning of the year, a fifth of Afghanistan's 500 districts, spread out across half its provinces, didn't have a prosecutor or judge. These areas, principally in the south and east, were also the most violent. The Taliban sent shadow courts and traveling judges into this vacuum. Their form of justice is brutal but efficient.

The extra 30,000 troops ordered by President Obama in late 2009 pushed the Taliban out of strongholds. Gen. Martins's teams of up to 25 lawyers, engineers and trainers followed into the areas cleared by the Marines and Army in Kandahar and Helmand provinces in the south and Khost and Paktika in the east. They scouted out space for courts and police offices. They brought in land clerks to address the most common dispute in Afghanistanâ€”who owns what. They put and protected 23 new prosecutors and judges in the districts without them, and plan to have 52 in all.

Yet the formal judicial system is foreign to most Afghans in this tribal, rural society. Four-fifths of disputes are settled by councils of village elders, called jirgas, or the Taliban. The U.S. has tried to support this informal system. Forces have provided security to the elders and brought in Afghan experts to train them. "There's squabbling. There's real vituperative dialogue. But there's no shooting," says Gen. Martins of the jirgas. "This really is about turning shooting into shouting."

The field force is an overdue experiment in the projection of governance. And time is short. Mr. Obama wants to bring home the surge contingent by next summer and finish the military drawdown by 2014. If the Taliban regain control over this territory, the effort of the past year will be wasted. Surveys suggest an improved perception of the Afghan government in the south. Yet as any military officer will tell you, none of this is irreversible, all of it fragile. Every town in Iraq had a courthouse; in all of Helmand province, there's only one. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has resisted the push by Gen. Petraeus, who left last month to head up the CIA, to empower local authorities beyond his direct control. "There's no silver bullet to this," says Gen. Martins.

In previous jobs, he worked to strengthen the legitimacy of weak states and fix tarnished military programs. The next one gets no easier. The challenge for Gen. Martins will be to try to show that the military tribunals can prosecute the men behind 9/11 legitimately and fairly. He certainly has the credentials for it.

Gold9472

10-03-2011, 06:59 PM

No 9/11 trial this year at GuantÃ¡namo war court
A briefing scheduled outlined in an email to lawyers makes clear that the alleged Sept. 11 plotters wonâ€™t be back at a military commission until next year.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/03/2437082/no-911-trial-this-year-at-guantanamo.html

By Carol Rosenberg
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

The trial of five GuantÃ¡namo captives accused of the Sept. 11 mass murder cannot begin until next year at the earliest under a timetable set out Monday by the legal authority in charge of the war court.

Retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald notified lawyers on both sides of the case that he will accept recommendations on whether the case should go forward as a death penalty prosecution until Jan 15, 2012. Moreover, he also set the same deadline for Pentagon-appointed lawyers to offer their opinions on whether all five men should be tried simultaneously.

Prosecutors swore out a capital case against confessed 9/11 plot mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four alleged co-conspirators in May after Attorney General Eric Holder abandoned a plan to have a civilian judge and jury hear the case in a Manhattan federal court.

Since then, the case has been mired in delay while some members of the Pentagon-paid defense teams try to obtain security clearances to meet the accused at GuantÃ¡namo and start work on their cases.

They have been held at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba since their transfer from CIA custody in September 2006. The government alleges the five men were the organizers, financiers and trainers of the 19 men who hijacked the four aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001, and then slammed them into the World Trade Center, Pentagon building and a field in Pennsylvania.

The Obama administration halted the Bush-era 9/11 prosecution while it reformed the military commissions and considered where to put them on trial.

MacDonaldâ€™s instruction to both prosecutors and defense attorneys on Monday was the first written indication that the Navyâ€™s former top lawyer, now overseeing commissions, was considering whether to have the five men tried separately.

He had already indicated that he would entertain arguments on whether the case should go forward seeking the execution of the five men but added in his email to attorneys Monday that, â€œyou may include any comment on the issue of a joint trial.â€

Only one other GuantÃ¡namo war court prosecution is in the pipeline â€” the death penalty case against alleged USS Cole bombing architect Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, also a former CIA captive. The chief military commissions judge, Army Col. James Pohl, is expected to hold an arraignment in that case later this month.

Meantime, the Pentagon is preparing a viewing site at Fort Meade, Md., near Washington, D.C., for reporters to watch the proceedings by a 40-second-delayed closed circuit feed as an alternative to making the trip to Camp Justice at GuantÃ¡namo. The military is also preparing a viewing site in Norfolk, Va., for the families of the 17 American sailors who were killed in the Cole attack off Yemen in October 2000.

Gold9472

11-02-2011, 08:42 AM

Lawyers of Alleged 9/11 Conspirators Object to Mail Monitoring

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204528204577012910530239928.html?m od=googlenews_wsj

By JESS BRAVIN
11/2/2011

WASHINGTONâ€”Defense lawyers for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11 conspirators said Tuesday the Defense Department was reading their correspondence with the defendants and called on officials to halt the practice.

In a letter to the Pentagon's top detainee official, William Lietzau, nine defense lawyers said the security procedure violated military-commission rules as well as domestic and international humanitarian law.

The defense lawyers, including seven military officers and two civilians, said the monitoring "destroys the attorney-client relationship" by undermining the trust they must build with the defendants. The lawyers said they had raised the issue repeatedly with Pentagon officials over the past five months, but "received no response to any of our letters."

A spokesman for Mr. Lietzau and other Pentagon officials didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Guantanamo prison officials have said their procedures are necessary to maintain security at the facility.

The Obama administration has said it plans to try the five accused 9/11 conspirators at a military commission on the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, reversing an earlier plan to try them in a New York City federal court. However, formal charges against the five have yet to be filed at Guantanamo.

The same issue involving lawyer-client communications has arisen in the case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who has been formally charged at a Guantanamo military commission with organizing the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.

The Pentagon has scheduled a Guantanamo hearing for Mr. Nashiri on Nov. 9. Mr. Nashiri's attorney, Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes, has filed a motion with a military judge seeking to end the monitoring of communications with his client, a person close to the defense office said.

The lawyers for Mr. Mohammed and his four alleged co-conspirators said the trial, already long delayed, could be even more difficult to carry out because professional ethics require them to maintain confidential communications with their clients. The practice of monitoring mail "will effectively stall this case," they wrote.

Military commissions proceedings have been bedeviled for years by conflicts between Guantanamo prison authorities and the offshore trial system. Prosecution and defense attorneys alike periodically have complained that their access to inmates has been impeded and that detention conditions sometimes interfere with the trial process.

Gold9472

11-02-2011, 08:44 AM

9/11 Suspects' Attorneys Accuse Defense Department of Snooping on Correspondence

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/01/11-suspects-attorneys-accuse-defense-department-snooping-on-correspondence/

By Catherine Herridge
Published November 01, 2011

The military lawyers for the 9/11 suspects, in what is believed to be an unprecedented legal move, are accusing the Defense Department of sanctioning â€œpractices that are unlawfulâ€ that will â€œeffectively stall this case.â€

In a letter to the head of detainee affairs obtained by Fox News, military attorneys for the 9/11 suspects, including the self-described architect of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as well as lawyers for other high-value detainees, claim that correspondence between the detainees and their attorneys is routinely opened, read and even confiscated by Defense Department officials.

â€œThe policies and practices are unlawful and will effectively stall this case: these procedures violate attorney-client confidentiality privilege,â€ the letter says. And in what appears to be a thinly veiled critique of broader policy, the lawyers write, â€œA failure to act on this concern belies any claim to transparency and fairness.â€

In the three-page letter, signed by nine military attorneys, Defense Department officials are scolded for allegedly ignoring rules laid out by the military commissions. The 9/11 case was first designated for a federal court trial in New York City two years ago, but it was ultimately sent back to the commissions by Attorney General Eric Holder in April after opposition by New York City officials, the public and some members of Congress.

More than a decade after the murder of nearly 3,000 Americans in the 9/11 attacks, there is still no public timetable for an arraignment at the Guantanamo Bay facility.

â€œThe Military Commission Rules of Evidence, in Rule 502, specifically protect attorney-client privileged material from disclosure to anyone aside from the client and his legal team,â€ the lawyers state. While claiming the correspondence is not classified, the attorneys add that â€œViolations of attorney-client privilege are acutely egregious in the context of death penalty litigation, where the Supreme Court has long held that heightened Due Process applies.â€

The letter says the lawyers first sought redress through the office that oversees the detention operation at the Navy base at Guantanamo â€“ before taking the complaint to the senior Defense Department official responsible for detainee affairs.

â€œThe problems with legal materials were brought to your direct attention more than five months ago, and again two weeks ago when you were copied on correspondence to (base officials)," it says. "We have received no response to any of our letters.â€

A source familiar with the military lawyers' complaints told Fox News it was not about the 9/11 suspects mail because â€œnobody cares about the security of Khalid Sheikh Mohammedâ€™s mail,â€ but the dispute framed a much larger issue -- in this case, the sanctity of a lawyerâ€™s relationship with a client, even if the clients are some of the most hated men on the planet.

The lawyers complain that "counsel are in the untenable position of having either to violate professional ethical standards in order to communicate with our clients or cease communicating with our clients.â€

Fox News is told that if there is no resolution, the military lawyers are laying the groundwork for a federal court action. The letter hints at that prospect: â€œAbsent a meaningful response and the institution of remedies, the ongoing concern will be litigated to the fullest extent.â€

While not familiar with the specifics of the complaint, a former Defense Department official told Fox News that there can be sound security reasons for the review of materials. Fox News sought comment from the media office responsible for the undersecretary of detainee affairs. The Defense Department media office was sent a copy of the letter, but there was no immediate response.

Gold9472

12-28-2011, 09:14 AM

Guantanamo wants access to communications between lawyers, 9/11 suspects, sparking backlash

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/americas/guantanamo-commander-seeks-review-of-legal-mail-to-prisoners-sparking-protests-from-lawyers/2011/12/27/gIQA3rnkKP_story.html

By Associated Press, Published: December 27

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico â€” The new commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison wants a team of government and law enforcement officials to be allowed to review all communications between lawyers and inmates accused of helping organize the Sept. 11 attacks, The Associated Press has learned.

The proposed changes, contained in a 27-page draft order, have sparked a backlash from the Pentagon-appointed attorneys representing the five Guantanamo prisoners charged in the attacks. They say the new rules would violate attorney-client privilege and legal ethics and deprive the prisoners of their constitutional right to counsel.

The order is still in draft form and has not yet been signed by the commander, a detention center spokeswoman, Navy Cmdr. Tamsen Reese, said Tuesday. She said the commander was not available for an interview.

Lawyers for the Sept. 11 prisoners received the draft order from the commander, Navy rear Adm. David Woods, on Dec. 22 and were told to sign an agreement to abide by the rules within 48 hours.

Instead, they sent a written response contending that requiring them to abide by such rules in order to see their clients was illegal.

â€œThis requirement, as a precursor to engaging in client communications, interferes with the attorney-client relationship, compels counsel to violate ethical obligations, and therefore renders it impossible for counsel to effectively represent our clients,â€ they wrote, appealing for more time to review the proposed order.

The memo was signed by at least one member of each legal team representing the five prisoners, according to a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the document had not been publicly released.

The five prisoners accused of helping to organize the Sept. 11 case are expected to be arraigned at the base in 2012 in what would be the most high-profile U.S. war crimes tribunal since the World War II era. The five, including the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, are facing charges that include murder and could be sentenced to death if convicted.

The Sept. 11 trial has been delayed for years by legal challenges and a dispute between members of Congress and the White House over whether it should be held in a civilian court on the U.S. mainland or in a tribunal at Guantanamo. A dispute over communications rules between prisoners and their lawyers could add another delay.

The most significant disagreement is over the handling of legal communications, which are typically sent by courier from the defense lawyers, who are based in the Washington area, and the prisoners at the base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

Under the new rules, a â€œprivilege team,â€ which would include Department of Defense and law enforcement officials, would conduct a security review of all communications to the prisoners, according to the memo. The lawyers say such a review is unnecessary, since they all have security clearances and know not to release classified information, and also overly intrusive.

They say it would be impossible for Woods to ensure that these officials do not share this information with the prosecution or others because the members of the team wouldnâ€™t be under his command.

The chief defense counsel of the military tribunals, Marine Corps. Col. Jeffrey Colwell, said he shares the concerns of the attorneys in the Sept. 11 case. He also objects to a provision in the new rules that would allow detainees to receive only letters from their lawyers and not any supporting documents such as legal motions or articles about their case.

â€œThe governmentâ€™s interpretation is very restrictive,â€ Colwell said.

Woods can change the rules because he has authority over the detention center, where the U.S. now holds 171 prisoners. The government has said that 30-60 of the prisoners could be charged before military tribunals and the new rules would only cover communications between those prisoners and their lawyers. A separate set of rules covers the rest.

Woods has not said publicly why he has proposed the new rules. In his draft order, he says the new rules he has proposed are motivated by his responsibility for â€œmaintaining safety and security, as well as good order and discipline,â€ at the prison.

This is not the first attempt by Woods, who took command Aug. 24, to tighten security at the prison.

In October, the admiral ordered a search of prisonerâ€™s cells and the plastic bins where they are allowed to keep personal papers such as mail from their lawyers or family mail sent to them through the Red Cross.

Navy Cmdr. Thomas Welsh, the senior legal official at the detention center, testified at a hearing in November that the inspections were intended to make sure prisoners did not improperly mix personal and legal mail, which are supposed to be kept in separate bins, and to make sure they didnâ€™t have any â€œincendiaryâ€ magazines or material that could pose a security threat.

The defense team for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the Guantanamo prisoner charged with orchestrating the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, faced a similar set of restrictions in November. A lawyer for al-Nashiri said they would also violate the attorney-client privilege and asked the military judge in that case to intervene. The judge directed prison staff to not read attorney letters to clients, but came before last weekâ€™s broader order from Woods.

There is no judge yet in the Sept. 11 case and so those attorneys cannot yet ask a court to intervene.

Rick Kammen, a civilian attorney for al-Nashiri, said that his defense team also has concerns about the proposed new rules but has not yet decided how to respond. He said the new changes underscore the argument among many that the cases should be tried in the established civilian federal courts rather than military tribunals, where the rules have evolved in recent years.

â€œThe rules keep changing. The landscape keeps changing daily,â€ Kammen said.

Gold9472

12-29-2011, 09:03 AM

Guantanamo leader signs order opposed by lawyers

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CB_GUANTANAMO_SEPT_11_TRIAL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-12-28-13-38-26

By BEN FOX
Associated Press
12/28/2011

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- The commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison has signed an order that would require a security review of legal mail to prisoners facing war crimes charges, a spokeswoman said Wednesday, rejecting arguments the new rule would violate attorney-client privilege and undermine long-delayed tribunals for five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Rear Adm. David Woods considered the arguments of defense lawyers and made some modifications, said Navy Cmdr. Tamsen Reese, a spokeswoman for the detention center on the U.S. base in Cuba.

Critics said the changes were minor and did not address the central complaints.

Woods retained a provision that would require the creation of a "privilege team," which would include law enforcement or intelligence officials as well as Defense Department attorneys, to review legal communications between lawyers and their clients, according to a copy of the order obtained by The Associated Press.

In issuing the order, the commander is seeking to prevent prisoners from receiving prohibited material without placing the burden for deciding what is appropriate on guards or other detention center staff, Reese said.

"He's trying to strike a balance," she said in a telephone interview. "He's got responsibilities. He's got to keep security and good order and force protection. And he's got to allow proper procedures for legal meetings between defense counsel and detainees and here's the way we're going to do it."

The order directs members of the privilege team to preserve attorney-client privilege "to the fullest extent possible," and sets guidelines for when they can disclose information from legal mail to other officials such as when they encounter what they suspect as "unauthorized information."

Those limits do not go far enough to avoid violating attorney-client privilege or making the order legal, said Bryan Broyles, the deputy chief defense counsel for the military commissions.

"What they keep wanting to do is to have their intelligence employees promise not to tell anybody about our communications and say that's good enough," Broyles said. "And as a matter of law it's not."

Broyles and the chief defense counsel, Marine Corps. Col. Jeffrey Colwell, said they were still doing a line-by-line analysis of the signed order that it appears that no substantive changes were made.

"They certainly didn't take anything we said into account," Broyles said.

Lawyers representing the five prisoners facing war crimes charges for helping to plan and carry out the Sept. 11 attacks had sent a memo to Woods opposing the order and calling for substantial changes.

Their memo said the new rules would deprive the prisoners of their constitutional right to counsel and make it impossible for lawyers, because of their professional and military codes of professional conduct, to participate in their long-delayed war crimes tribunal.

The five prisoners accused of helping to organize the Sept. 11 case are expected to be arraigned at the base in 2012 in what would be the most high-profile U.S. war crimes tribunal since the World War II era. The five, including the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, are facing charges that include murder and could be sentenced to death if convicted.

They are represented by teams of civilian and military attorneys, all of whom have security clearances required to visit prisoners who are kept under such tight security that the location of their cells on the base is considered secret and everything they say is considered presumptively classified.

Reese said Woods, who took command of the base on Aug. 24, softened language in the order that apparently added restrictions on attorney visits to their clients. "The orders doesn't impede defense counsel from personally visiting or communicating with their clients, which was never the intent but some of the language may have led them to believe that that was going to be the case."

The order still limits legal mail to only letters from lawyers to their clients, barring supporting documents such as legal motions or articles about their case. Such material may be sent through standard mail but would also be subject to review.

Broyles said that the defense believes that, for now, these new rules would only apply to the five prisoners who have been accused of helping to plan and carry out the Sept. 11 attacks. That's because a military judge has already rejected the creation of a similar review process in the only other active case at Guantanamo, the trial of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is charged with orchestrating the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

"They will have to go back to the judge to have this process in place" in the Nashiri case, Broyles said. "I think that will be an interesting conversation."

There is no judge yet in the Sept. 11 case because the charges against the five prisoners accused of helping to plan and carry out the attacks, including self-proclaimed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have not been finalized. They are expected to be arraigned in 2012.

The U.S holds 171 prisoners at Guantanamo and officials have said several dozen could be tried before a military tribunal.

Gold9472

01-07-2012, 08:19 PM

Terror on Trial
Legal proceedings against violent extremists are a crucial defense of our civilization, writes William Shawcross, whose father was a prosecutor at Nuremberg.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203513604577140671297550142.html

Expect to hear a lot about Nuremberg in the months ahead. The war-crimes trials of leading Nazis, begun in that German city in 1945, will form an important subtext as we approach the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of 9/11, and his associates. The pretrial proceedings at GuantÃ¡namo may start as soon as March.

Since 9/11, America's attempt to balance justice and national security has drawn protests both at home and abroad. Some of the criticism has been fair, but much of it ignores the dilemmas that any administration would face in dealing forcefully with 21st-century terrorists who, unlike the defendants at Nuremberg, have not yet been defeated. Few things are harder for democracies than to render justice to enemies whose aims are both irrational and non-negotiable.

The trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be historic. It will address not just a group of thugs but the enduring human phenomenon of evil. Mutable and persistent, evil has not been discouraged by the progress of reason or the taming of nature. Evil reinvents itself in every age and is reinvigorated by mankind's inevitable immaturity. Like the fascist ideology that the democratic world fought in the 1940s, the dogma of al Qaeda (and of the extremist Shiite dictators of Iran) is despotic, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and nihilist. Like the Nazis, they cannot be appeased.

On the campaign trail in 2008, Barack Obama invoked Nuremberg. He had studied the tribunal in law school and referred to it in the context of the Supreme Court decision in the case of Boumediene v. Bush, which gave GuantÃ¡namo detainees the right to challenge their detention in federal court. Mr. Obama praised the opinion and linked it to the respect for due process, which he said, Nuremberg had exemplified. "During the Nuremberg trials, part of what made us different was even after those Nazis had performed atrocities that no one had ever seen before, we still gave them a day in court, and that taught the entire world about who we are."

To which the most appropriate response isâ€”up to a point. The top Nazis captured in 1945 were indeed given "their day in court." But that court was a unique military tribunal, created specifically for the circumstances after V-E Day. The defendants were far better protected than they would have been in any Nazi court (or Soviet court, for that matter), but they certainly did not enjoy the rights of defendants in the U.S. The idea that top Nazis should have the same protections as those afforded to Americans by the U.S. Constitution never occurred to the jurists devising the rules for Nuremberg.

To some, Nuremberg will always be an example of "victors' justice." I believe that view is wrong and that the tribunal (where my father, Hartley Shawcross, was the chief British prosecutor) was a necessary and successful exercise of law. At Nuremberg, our civilization developed a vehicle to anathematize men imbued with evil.

Justice Robert Jackson, the chief U.S. prosecutor and the architect of Nuremberg, put it well when he spoke of the regime that the accused at Nuremberg had served: "Civilization can afford no compromise with the social forces which would gain renewed strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom those forces now precariously survive."

The scale and nature of the threats from fascism and Islamist extremism are different, but that same problem persists today. In trying both to prevent further atrocities by Islamist extremists, and to deliver justice to those detainees suspected of such crimes, President Obama has found himself, like President Bush before him, faced with decisions that test our ideals. He has been forced to shed many of his preconceptions.

On Sept. 30, 2011, drones high above Yemen targeted a car carrying Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Islamic preacherâ€”and an American citizen. A Hellfire missile killed Mr. Awlaki and another American jihadist travelling with him.

Mr. Obama said afterward that the successful attack, coming less than five months after the killing of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team Six, was "further proof al Qaeda and its affiliates will find no safe haven in Yemen or anywhere around the world."

The decision to use a drone to kill American citizens in Yemen was a remarkable turnaround for a politician who had criticized almost every aspect of the "war on terror" waged by his predecessor in the Oval Office. But by fall 2010, it did not come as such a surprise. By then Mr. Obama had also authorized military trials (which he once condemned) to take place in GuantÃ¡namo (which he had promised to close).

There is no question that Mr. Awlaki was a remarkably dangerous man. Born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents in 1971 and largely educated in the U.S., he spoke mellifluously and possessed a deep understanding of Western popular culture. His sermons were designed to encourage individual Muslims around the world to launch "lone wolf" attacks against all "infidels" and to persuade American Muslims to rise up against their government.

Over the Internet, Mr. Awlaki personally instructed Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan, the American Muslim soldier who murdered 13 of his colleagues and wounded 30 more in a rampage at Fort Hood in November 2009. He helped to train the so-called "underpants bomber," Farouk Abdulmutallab, who came close to blowing up a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

In 2010, Mr. Awlaki started to groom a British Muslim, Rajib Karim, who worked for British Airways, and instructed him to place a bomb on a flight to the U.S. Mr. Karim was arrested before the plot went far. Later that year, Mr. Awlaki's group, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, managed to get two bombs, disguised as printer cartridges, onto cargo planes bound for U.S. They were discovered and defused en route.

By this time, the U.S. government had decided that it had enough evidence to designate Mr. Awlaki an active terrorist threat who could be targeted. As the administration argued, over the protests of human rights groups, Mr. Awlaki was playing an operational role as part of the enemy forces covered by the legislation authorizing the use of military force that Congress had passed immediately after 9/11. Mr. Awlaki had made no attempt to surrender, and the U.S. was not able to arrest him.

As for the idea that his citizenship should give him protection from attack, it is worth recalling that in the case of Nazi saboteurs arrested in the U.S. in 1942 (the case of Ex Parte Quirin), two of them were U.S. citizens. They were nonetheless convicted and sentenced to death. The Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. citizenship of "an enemy belligerent does not relieve him of the consequences of belligerency."

Since 9/11, drones have provided a vast revolution in warfare. They have multiplied, as missile platforms and observers, and their technology is still rapidly advancing. Soldiers can now launch drones from backpacks, and the Pentagon is experimenting with drones the size of dragonflies.

Such technological developments raise new questions about the relevance of the Geneva Conventions, whose interpretation has dominated the waging of the war on terror. P.W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert in robotic warfare, points out that the Conventions were last effectively updated in 1949, at a time when the 45-rpm vinyl record was a hot new invention. The old laws, he argues, are struggling to keep up with high-tech weapons "like the MQ-9 Reaper, which is being used to target a 21st-century insurgent who is intentionally violating those laws by hiding in a mosque or a civilian house."

Mr. Bush used drones sparingly to attack terrorism suspects. He is said to have feared the inevitable accusation of war crimes. By the time he left office, there had been just 44 drone strikes over five years, according to the New America Foundation, all of them in Pakistan. They are thought to have killed some 400 people.

After taking office in 2009, Mr. Obama swiftly expanded the use of drone attacks on suspected Islamist terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and then in Somalia and Yemen. Drone strikes in Pakistan grew from 33 in 2008, Mr. Bush's last year in office, to 53 in 2009. Altogether, there have been more than 240 drone attacks in Pakistan since the beginning of 2009, with a death toll of more than 1,300.

The remarkable thing about the president's reliance on drones is how little protest, until recently, it has aroused. Waterboarding may be deemed an abuse of a terrorism suspect's rights, but an attack by a Predator drone results (in the Vietnam-era phrase) in "termination with extreme prejudice."

Public acquiescence in these aerial killings demonstrates the way in which political and moral judgments can be driven by perceptions of personality and politics. But even Mr. Obama's honeymoon had to come to an end. His policy of killing suspects rather than detaining and interrogating them has come under increased scrutiny, and not just in the case of Mr. Awlaki.

John Bellinger, the former legal adviser to the State Department, argues that one of the Bush administration's biggest mistakes was neglecting to secure international support for its novel counterterrorism policies. Unless Obama is careful, Mr. Bellinger says, his drone program could "become as internationally maligned as GuantÃ¡namo."

As a senator and a presidential candidate, Barack Obama criticized almost all of Mr. Bush's decisions in the "war on terror." Two days after his inauguration in January 2009, he ordered GuantÃ¡namo shut within a year, and that November his attorney general, Eric Holder, insisted that the main 9/11 suspects at GuantÃ¡namo, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would be put on trial in federal court in Manhattan.

Since discovering the complexities of fighting Islamist terror, Mr. Obama has abandoned many of his earlier positions. In March 2011, he signed an executive order allowing terrorist detainees to be held indefinitely at GuantÃ¡namo. He also agreed that the base's recently constructed courthouse should be the venue for the military tribunals that he had set out never to allow there.

Brig. Gen. Mark Martins is to perform the task that Justice Robert Jackson did at Nuremberg. He was appointed last June by the secretary of defense to be the chief prosecutor of the military commissions, which were reformed by act of Congress in 2009.

This was, by all accounts, an inspired choice. A former infantryman who has thought deeply about the history of military tribunals, Gen. Martins recently won widespread praise for his work as commander of the Rule of Law Field Force in Afghanistan.

In some ways, his task is even more daunting than that of his illustrious predecessor in 1945. Jack Goldsmith, a former Bush-administration lawyer and the author of "The Terror Presidency," says that Gen. Martins faces a much more difficult task in legitimating the tribunals than Justice Jackson did at Nuremberg.

For his part, Gen. Martins pointed out recently, in a speech to the American Bar Association, that the military courts, as now reformed, "incorporate all of those fundamental guarantees of a fair and just trial that are demanded by our values." Anyone accused in them enjoys far more protections than the Nazi defendants had in 1945â€”indeed, more than in many respected criminal justice systems around the world. Anyone convicted also will have the ultimate safeguard under American lawâ€”the right of appeal, all the way to the Supreme Court.

Why not, then, just use the federal courts to try terrorism suspects? They can be used in many cases, Gen. Martins says, but military tribunals are more appropriate, in certain cases, for the trial of non-U.S. citizens who fight in no uniform and without obeying the rules of warâ€”"unprivileged belligerents."

While giving great protection to defendants, the rules of military tribunals also accord more protection to the government those defendants are accused of seeking to destroy. The rules prohibit the use of statements obtained as a result of torture, or of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, but they take into account the challenges of intelligence-gathering in wartime operations overseas, do not require soldiers to give Miranda warnings to captured enemy forces, and allow an occasional hearsay statement, when it is the best available evidence from a now unavailable witness and the interests of justice are best served by considering it.

Referring to Nuremberg, Gen. Martins says that the new military tribunals cannot "make decisions to please the public or the Congress. Like our forebears, we are compelled to step back from 'victor's justice.' This is what the rule of law is about. Sometimes various people or interests will not be happy. But in the end we can only do the right as we see the rightâ€¦and trust that our efforts will stand the test of time."

All wars involve choices between lesser evils. In a 1973 essay, the philosopher Michael Walzer described the politician who decides that he has to authorize torture to save lives. "His choices are hard," Mr. Walzer wrote, "and he pays a price not only while making them but forever after."

The Bush administration's early post-9/11 decisions on GuantÃ¡namo and "enhanced interrogation" of some detainees (three were waterboarded) are believed to have provided life-saving intelligence, but each proved costly to the reputation of the U.S. Mr. Obama's decision to kill many terrorism suspects rather than interrogate them has certainly disrupted plots and saved lives. But it carries similar costs.

This continuing crisis is not of America's making. It stems in large part from the struggle within the Muslim world for the soul of Islam, of which the most brutal manifestation is the pitiless campaign of mass murder waged across the world by al Qaeda and its associates, most often against fellow Muslims.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, America's commitment and sacrifices have been essential to the world's ability to resist the forces of nihilistic aggression. That was certainly true in the war against fascism, and it is still true today. Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama has had to learn the hard way that, as the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr warned, "we take and must continue to take morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization."

Gold9472

01-13-2012, 09:17 AM

South Florida 9/11 Families Meet With Prosecutors Before Guantanamo Cases
Prosecutors are gathering evidence and finding out which families want to testify

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/South-Florida-911-Families-Meet-With-Prosecutors-Before-Guantanamo-Cases-Begin-137216078.html

1/13/2012

A decade on after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, South Florida families who lost loved ones on that day had an opportunity to tell prosecutors what they want to see in the upcoming court cases of five alleged 9/11 conspirators Thursday.

Retired New York City policeman John Napolitano was one of the 9/11 family members who spent the day at an out-of-the-way VFW hall in West Palm Beach.

Not a day goes by without Napolitano thinking of his son, firefighter Lt. John P. Napolitano, who lost his life in the World Trade Centerâ€™s north tower.

â€œThey were murdered. There is no sanitizing it,â€ the firefighterâ€™s father said. â€œThe Taliban, al-Qaida, terrorists, theyâ€™re thugs. Theyâ€™re thugs and murderers.â€

Federal prosecutors are building their cases against the alleged architect of the attacks â€“ Khalid Sheikh Mohammed â€“ and four other detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay. The prosecutors asked the South Florida families to come to West Palm Beach as they search for evidence and see who wants to testify.

â€œLooking at them face to face with them, for me, is not the important issue. The important issue is that justice be done,â€ Napolitano said.

The trials will take place at Guantanamo before a military commission, and the five men are formally charged with violating the laws of war.

Debra Stricklandâ€™s husband, Larry, was an Army sergeant major who died at the Pentagon.

She said she is not sure how she would handle coming face to face with those charged if she is selected to testify â€“ but said that â€œof courseâ€ she wants to.

â€œA sense of closureâ€ motivates her to testify, she said. â€œYou know the individuals that were responsible for this, they still have an opportunity to speak every day.â€

Family members said Thursday they were not given an exact timeline on when the trials will begin, but they appear to be months away. The prosecutors will need to decide how many families should take the stand. Prosecutors did not respond to a request for details on their efforts.

Now, the families go back to exercising something they have perfected over the years â€“ patience.

Gold9472

01-15-2012, 08:35 AM

Lawyer in 9/11 Trials Cries Foul Over Correspondence Rule as Death Penalty Decision Looms

http://nation.foxnews.com/september-11/2012/01/14/911-trials-hit-another-roadblock

By Catherine Herridge
Published January 14, 2012

The trial of 9/11 suspects has hit another roadblock.

A defense lawyer at the Guantanamo Bay military courts says new restrictions imposed by the detention camp commander in Cuba are forcing him to "violate his ethical obligations" as a military officer, according to new federal court filings obtained by Fox News.

The motion, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by Navy Commander Walter B. Ruiz, states that an order from Rear Adm. David Woods to systematically inspect all correspondence between the defense lawyers and the 9/11 suspects violates one of the most basic legal tenets -- attorney-client privilege.

Gold9472

01-16-2012, 10:05 AM

Military lawyers blast Guantanamo mail search as violating rights, ethics

http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/01/15/3661494/military-lawyers-blast-guantanamo.html#storylink=cpy

By CAROL ROSENBERG
McClatchy Newspapers
Posted Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012

WASHINGTON â€” Military lawyers for Guantanamo detainees who could someday be put to death are accusing the new prison commander of censoring protected attorney-client documents, raising a new legal controversy that spotlights ongoing concern about the fairness of possible military trials.

The Obama administration reformed the military commissions in consultation with Congress to give accused terrorists greater rights. But an order by the new prison commander that all attorney-client mail be reviewed for contraband, including information that the commander argues the detainees shouldn't be allowed to have, has attorneys crying foul.

The Pentagon's chief defense counsel for military commissions, Marine Col. Jeffrey Colwell, has instructed war court defense lawyers to no longer send their clients privileged mail, saying the prison camp's policy of inspecting attorney-client mail violates the lawyers' ethical obligations. For a week now, defense lawyers have honored his instruction.

Meanwhile, a Navy defense lawyer, Cmdr. Walter Ruiz, has filed suit before the U.S. Court of Appeals here, accusing the prison of violating the Sixth Amendment rights to a fair trial of a Saudi detainee accused of helping to move money that financed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

At Guantanamo, the chief military commission judge, Army Col. James Pohl, is being asked to referee the ethical question at a hearing that opens Tuesday for accused al-Qaida bomber Abd al Rahim al Nashiri. Nashiri's lawyers argue that the prison camp's policy is at odds with Congress' mandate to give accused war criminals the assistance of counsel.

At issue is what information a lawyer may exchange with his captive client.

Defense lawyers argue that their material should be scanned only for physical contraband - anything that might be used to harm someone or something. Or as Pohl put it at a hearing in November, they should be looking for "staples, pins, baseball bats" versus "content."

But the prison commander, Rear Adm. David B. Woods, wrote lawyers last year that his staff would study and sort materials for "escape plots" or subjects of a "sexual nature."

Then the prison camps went further, the defense lawyers allege. At one point, prison camp lawyers refused to allow an official document from a senior Pentagon official, retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, to go to alleged 9/11financier Mustafa al Hawsawi as a privileged communication. In it, MacDonald approved Hawsawi's choice of a "mitigation expert" for his future capital murder trial.

In another instance, prison camp lawyers blocked a pleading by James Connell, a Pentagon-approved lawyer for accused 9/11 plotter Ammar al Baluchi, saying "Baluchi wasn't entitled to get his lawyer's draft brief as legal mail," Ruiz said.

Navy Cmdr Tamsen Reese, the prison camp's spokeswoman, wouldn't comment on either of those episodes or discuss the detention center's latest legal mail inspection policy, but said in an email that the issue could come up at this week's Nashiri hearing. Pohl ruled in November that Guantanamo personnel could not look at mail between Nashiri and his attorneys as long as it was properly marked.

"The problem is they are reading privileged communications and he is censoring what he believes the client should get," Ruiz said of Woods. "Our ethical rules are very clear: Attorneys cannot disclose privileged matters unless it is to avoid imminent harm or danger to a person or persons or in response to a lawful order, such as a judge's."

He has asked the federal courts to intervene, setting up yet another Guantanamo conflict that could reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The prison camps commander, he said, is "chilling the attorney-client relationship and the accused's ability to have access to the courts."

Woods, a one-star admiral, became the 11th commander of the detention center in August, two months before the Pentagon formally charged Nashiri with killing 17 American sailors as a behind-the-scenes planner of al-Qaida's October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen.

Nashiri's case is already complicated by the way interrogators treated him when he was held in a clandestine CIA prison. A congressional inquiry found that Nashiri, a former millionaire from Mecca in Saudi Arabia, was water-boarded and interrogated as a loaded gun and a revving drill were held near his head.

Nashiri, who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo for five years, is being held in a secret part of the camp where, according to war court testimony, Woods had his staff do a surprise search of the captives' legal materials in October to see what earlier prison staff had allowed in.

In a hearing in November, Nashiri's attorneys objected to the search, and Pohl sided with them. But the policy that the prison camps drafted in response to Pohl's ruling is too broad, the defense attorneys argue, allowing Guantanamo personnel to read documents and then decide whether they agree with the lawyer that the documents should be considered privilege.

The defense lawyers' refusal to send mail to their clients applies to about 30 detainees who could some day face a war-crimes tribunal. The remainder of the 171 Guantanamo captives have either been cleared for release or will be held indefinitely with no prospect of trial because of problems with the evidence against them.

Gold9472

01-18-2012, 09:31 AM

Another Guantanamo taint
A draft order likely violates the right to counsel and threatens to jeopardize the progress made in reversing Gitmo's legacy as a 'legal black hole.'

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-raustiala-gitmo-20120118,0,7059609.story?track=rss

By Kal Raustiala
January 18, 2012

Of all the hangovers from the George W. Bush years, the thorniest may be what to do about the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There are still 171 detainees at Guantanamo and little consensus on what to do with them. Last spring, President Obama announced the resumption of military trials for some of those charged with participating in the 9/11 attacks. These trials, known as military commissions, have been stalled for years by legal challenges. Recently, the official in charge of the Guantanamo prison, Rear Adm. David Woods, issued a draft order that compounds these challenges. The order requires all correspondence between the accused and their appointed military lawyers to be reviewed by federal officials.

The proposed order is a mistake, one that threatens to jeopardize the progress made in reversing Guantanamo's tainted legacy as a legal black hole. It likely violates the 6th Amendment's guarantee of the right to counsel, which has long been understood to permit lawyers to communicate confidentially with their clients.

The order is not just bad law. It is also bad policy that could tarnish the most high-profile military trials held by our nation since World War II.

What legal rights the Guantanamo detainees possess is hotly contested. The Bush administration long argued that Guantanamo was Cuban, not American, territory and therefore the detainees had no constitutional rights. That view was repudiated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 in Boumediene vs. Bush. In deciding that at least some constitutional rights extended to those held at Guantanamo, the court recognized the highly unusual nature of the base.

Guantanamo has been under American control since U.S. troops prevailed in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Cuba has no effective control over the base, which is governed by a lease that cannot be changed without U.S. consent and that accords the U.S. "complete jurisdiction and control." This history led the Supreme Court to declare that whatever the legal formalities, it is an "obvious and uncontested fact" that the United States is the de facto sovereign there.

In short, Guantanamo Bay is technically Cuba. But as a practical matter, it is just as much a part of the United States as Tampa Bay.

Boumediene did not involve the 6th Amendment. And the Supreme Court has never expressly declared that the 6th Amendment applies to foreigners tried abroad. In the closest case on point â€” involving Nazi saboteurs captured during World War II on the beaches of Long Island and Florida and tried in the U.S. â€” the court held that they lacked a 6th Amendment right to trial by jury because the laws of war did not require one for unlawful combatants. But the 1942 decision pointedly said nothing about the other aspects of the amendment, including the right to counsel.

In light of these precedents, it is not at all implausible that the right to counsel extends to those at Guantanamo. The Supreme Court made it clear in Boumediene that it was deeply troubled by the idea that the federal government could evade constitutional restraints simply by moving prisons offshore. That reasoning applies no less readily to offshore trials.

Woods' order does not simply raise legal concerns, however. By violating the sanctity of attorney-client privilege, it jeopardizes the perception of American military commissions as fair and just, a perception that is crucial if these trials are to succeed.

To see why, consider the fundamental purpose of such trials. Why not simply imprison the suspected terrorists in perpetuity without trial? The chief reason, dating to the landmark Nuremberg tribunal, is the belief that a just and fair trial of even our worst enemies is the best vindication of our nation's values, and the best way to ensure that cycles of revenge are tamped down, individuals are held accountable and the truth emerges.

War-crimes trials have long been tarred by cries of "victor's justice." It is only through scrupulous adherence to fair, neutral and time-honored procedures that we can forcefully refute such criticism.

To some critics, of course, no amount of due process can save the military commissions. They see the results as foreordained and the legal process as so much window-dressing. But the commissions, though rarely employed in our history, grow out of a long and honorable tradition of military justice. They can and ought to be fair proceedings. If they are perceived as unfair, they will jeopardize the entire point of war-crimes trials â€” which is, in the famous words of Justice Robert Jackson, the American prosecutor at Nuremberg, to "stay the hand of vengeance" and submit "captive enemies to the judgment of the law."

That is why the defense lawyers appointed to represent the detainees â€” American service members who proudly wear our uniform â€” have vigorously protested the effort to intrude on attorney-client privilege. They recognize an important truth. The U.S., and our long struggle against terrorist violence, will be the loser if the deck is stacked against the Guantanamo defendants.

Gold9472

01-18-2012, 09:33 AM

Gitmo defends monitoring of mail

http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_19765177

Posted: 01/18/2012 01:00:00 AM MST
Denver Post Wire Services

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba â€” In unprecedented war court testimony, the prison camps' commander on Tuesday defended a three-tier system of classifying lawyers' mail to alleged terrorists that sparked a defense lawyer's boycott and is threatening to stall future war-crimes trials.

It was the first time the camps' top commander testified at a Guantanamo military commission. Rear Adm. David B. Woods said he had a team of Defense Department contractors examining confidential, privileged attorney-client mail for "safety, force protection and good order."

Gold9472

01-18-2012, 07:41 PM

Al-Qaeda magazine found in Guantanamo jail

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jRR8kJoNK-V3ND_GmlCEKW7IXeZA?docId=CNG.f02a09f392cafaaab8362 a7efd066fb0.511

By Chantal Valery (AFP) â€“ 26 minutes ago

US NAVAL BASE AT GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba â€” An Al-Qaeda magazine was discovered after being smuggled into Guantanamo prison, a senior US official said Wednesday amid a debate on new rules on mail inspections.

Prison staff found an English-language copy of "Inspire" magazine which used to include such articles as how to make bombs, deputy military prosecutor Andrea Lockhart told a military tribunal hearing.

She did not specify how the magazine, which is published by the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was smuggled into the remote US base in southern Cuba nor whether it was discovered during a search of the cells.

But Lockhart said new rules on inspecting the mail between lawyers and detainees were brought in on December 27 after its discovery.

"That was the genesis for the baseline review... that it wasn't working. And there was material that was getting in, like Inspire magazine that should not have been getting in," she said.

The new rules have been hotly contested by lawyers as a violation of their clients rights.

Among the 171 men still held in Guantanamo, some have languished there since the jail was opened 10 years ago this month to house "enemy combatants" detained in the US "war on terror" launched after the 9/11 attacks.

The discussion on the new mail rules took up four hours of debate over two days of a preliminary hearing to fix a trial date for Saudi-born Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri accused of masterminding the USS Cole bombing in 2000 in the Yemeni port of Aden.

US military officials have ordered that the Saudi man's letters and email correspondence be systematically reviewed, which his attorneys have challenged.

It is a "violation of the attorney-client privilege," said Stephen Reyes, one of Nashiri's military defense lawyers, adding that "at the end of the day it's got to stop."

Lockhart shot back that there was a need to "balance the needs of defense and the needs to protect the legitimate government interests."

Judge James Pohl, responding to the concerns, gave the defense and prosecution seven days to offer written arguments.

"There's got to be a new order in a couple of weeks," he said, calling both sides to a new hearing in April. The trial itself is unlikely to take place for several months.

Nashiri is the first defendant to be up for trial since President Barack Obama reversed course and ordered military trials to resume at the US naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba.

The 47-year-old Nashiri, wearing his white prison uniform but without handcuffs, listened attentively to a translation of the discussions.

Nashiri is accused in the plot to bomb USS Cole, killing 17 sailors and wounding 40 more in Yemen.

He is also accused of involvement in an attempted attack against another American warship in Aden, the USS The Sullivans, in January 2000.

US military prosecutors also accuse Nashiri of planning an attack on a French civilian oil tanker MV Limburg in the Gulf of Aden in 2002 that left one Bulgarian crew member dead and caused a 90,000 barrel oil spill.

Gold9472

02-03-2012, 09:10 AM

Defenders seek 9/11 trial delay, blame GuantÃ¡namo legal mail dispute
This time, Pentagon defense lawyers are citing a new GuantÃ¡namo prison camp controversy involving inspection of confidential mail in their request for a delay in the Sept. 11 mass murder case.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/02/2621667/defenders-seek-another-911-trial.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com

Lawyers for the 9/11 plot suspects on Thursday sought to delay until this summer filing memos on why the terror tribunal should not go forward as a capital case.

If a senior Pentagon official agrees, the soonest the alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his accused four co-conspirators would get initial appearances at GuantÃ¡namoâ€™s Camp Justice would be around the next Sept. 11 anniversary.

At issue is an ethical dispute over how the GuantÃ¡namo prison commander is reviewing confidential communications between Pentagon lawyers and their captive clients. Defense lawyers stopped sending so-called privileged mail to their clients late last year after the Chief Defense Counsel, Marine Col. Jeffrey Colwell, declared the policy of reviewing mail unethical.

Colwell said Thursday that all five 9/11 defense teams were seeking the delay because the controversial camp mail policy â€œcomplicated the attorneysâ€™ ability to prepare.â€

Prosecutors are now working with the camps commander, Rear Adm. David B. Woods, to devise a new mail system thatâ€™s blessed by the chief war court judge. No solution is expected before April.

The attorney for Ramzi bin al Shibh, a Yemeni accused of orchestrating part of the mass murder from Hamburg, Germany, asked for a delay until August. Another lawyer asked for a four-month delay on behalf of Mustafa al Hawsawi, who is accused of helping to move some of the money that financed the Sept. 11 hijackersâ€™ travels.

A Pentagon spokesman, David Oten, said the request for an extension was under consideration.

The Obama administration cleared the way for a 9/11 tribunal in April. Prosecutors swore out death-penalty charges May 31.

Since then, the Pentagon has been assembling defense teams. .

The teams are supposed to write a senior Pentagon official overseeing the war court, retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, by Monday on why the case shouldnâ€™t go forward.

A Navy war-crimes prosecutor defended the new mail policy at a hearing last month by disclosing that a copy of al Qaidaâ€™s now defunct Inspire magazine had reached the detention center. Prison-camp commanders wonâ€™t discuss when or how the alleged security breach happened in the Pentagonâ€™s showcase prison, which has a staff of 1,875 U.S. forces and civilians and 171 detainees.

Gold9472

02-03-2012, 09:14 AM

Sept. 11 Trial At Guantanamo May Face New Delay

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=146313463

by The Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico February 2, 2012, 05:25 pm ET

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) â€” Lawyers for at least two Guantanamo Bay prisoners accused of planning the Sept. 11 attack asked the Pentagon on Thursday to extend a deadline for pretrial motions, which could again delay a case that has been stalled by political and legal disputes for years.

The attorneys for Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi sent letters requesting the extension to the Pentagon legal official who oversees the war crimes tribunals at the U.S. base in Cuba but did not receive an immediate response.

Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz, the lawyer appointed to represent al-Hawsawi, said it was likely that extensions also will be sought by attorneys for other prisoners accused in the attack. The U.S. has charged five prisoners in all, including the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Pentagon spokesman David Oten said the requests for extensions were under consideration.

The lawyers are seeking more time to prepare legal motions addressing whether the five prisoners should face the death penalty for charges that include murder. The Pentagon's Convening Authority is to consider those motions before finalizing the charges and arraigning the men before a tribunal known as a military commission.

Once charges are finalized, or "referred to commission" in the language of the Pentagon, the military has 30 days to arraign the prisoners at the base.

In the war crimes case against a Guantanamo prisoner accused of orchestrating the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, the Convening Authority, Bruce MacDonald, took about two months to review the defense team's argument against the death penalty before referring it to a commission as a capital case. It was expected to take at least that long in the Sept. 11 case, but observers had expected the arraignment to happen as early as spring at Guantanamo.

The case has long been plagued by delays. Their first arraignment was held in June 2008 and the case began moving forward slowly when it was halted by President Barack Obama, who wanted to close the Guantanamo prison and try the men in civilian court. That effort was rebuffed by Congress, and the administration moved the case back to the military's war crimes tribunal at Guantanamo.

Ruiz is seeking an extension of four months to submit his motion, arguing that new restrictions on legal mail that can be sent to prisoners at Guantanamo, and his pending challenge to those rules in federal court, have interfered with his ability to finish a submission that is due Monday.

A lawyer for Binalshibh wants a six-month extension because of the mail restrictions and because of delays getting security clearances for members of the legal team.

Copies of both letters were obtained by The Associated Press.

The dispute over legal mail at the prison has been going on for months. The commander of the detention center, Navy Rear Adm. David Woods, issued a directive in December that requires legal mail to undergo a security review to ensure prisoners are not receiving prohibited materials, such as top-secret information or objects that might be fashioned into weapons.

Defense lawyers say they cannot abide by the rule without violating military and civilian codes of professional ethics that bar them from disclosing any information about their clients to a third party unless specifically ordered to do so by a court.

The chief defense counsel for the military commissions issued guidelines to the dozens of attorneys who work in the commissions that they should not follow the order and Ruiz says his efforts to work with his clients and prepare motions has been thwarted.

"Mr. Hawsawi is being deprived of his right to counsel at a critical stage of the proceedings," Ruiz wrote to the Convening Authority.

Gold9472

02-03-2012, 08:21 PM

Pentagon wonâ€™t slow 9/11 death penalty filings
A senior Pentagon official told defense lawyers to write him by Monday on why the Sept. 11 mass murder file should not go forward as a death-penalty case.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/03/2623407/pentagon-wont-slow-911-death-penalty.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

A senior Pentagon official on Friday refused to delay a pre-arraignment phase in the prosecution of five GuantÃ¡namo captives accused of conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Defense lawyers had asked to delay at least until this summer the process of filing memorandum on why the 9/11 trial should not go forward as a capital case.

They cited an ongoing dispute over the prison camps handling of privileged attorney-client mail, now being addressed in several courts, as well as delays by some defense lawyers in meeting with their alleged terrorist clients.

But the Pentagon official, retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, wrote 9/11 defense lawyers on Friday that Monday was still the deadline to argue in writing why life imprisonment â€” not military execution â€” should be the maximum possible penalty in the future tribunals of confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other alleged conspirators.

Under that timetable, the Sept. 11 accused could be brought before a judge for arraignment at GuantÃ¡namoâ€™s Camp Justice as early as March.

In the case of Ramzi bin al Shibh, who allegedly put together the German hijackersâ€™ cell, his military lawyer has argued the Yemeni was likely not mentally fit to stand trial because GuantÃ¡namo medical staff had him on psychotropic drugs. His civilian lawyer, Buffalo attorney James P. Harrington, said he had no time to make any form of a â€œmitigation argumentâ€ before Mondayâ€™s deadline.

MacDonald approved Harringtonâ€™s appointment in July. But U.S. intelligence agencies didnâ€™t grant him permission to meet the former CIA captive until December.

â€œI only met my client two weeks ago,â€ Harrington told The Miami Herald. â€œI just got a security clearance; there is no way we can do it.â€

MacDonald made clear in his rejection of the pleas for delay that the law does not require him to consider defense lawyersâ€™ arguments against military execution as the ultimate penalty in a GuantÃ¡namo military commission case.

â€œConsidering the seriousness of the charges and the potential penalty, I concluded it was appropriate to do so in this case, but only if the defense could submit such matters in a timely manner,â€ he wrote Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz, defending Saudi captive Mustafa al Hawsawi. â€œYou were given more than adequate time in which to prepare matters in mitigation for my consideration.â€

Gold9472

02-03-2012, 08:21 PM

Pentagon refuses extension for Guantanamo Sept. 11 trial

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-02-03/guantanamo-trial-sept-11/52952554/1

The Associated Press
2/3/2012

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico â€“ A Pentagon legal official refused Friday to extend an important deadline for defense lawyers for the five Guantanamo Bay prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 attack, a decision that means their highly anticipated arraignment may now occur within months.

Bruce MacDonald, the Pentagon official who oversees the war crimes trials at the U.S. base in Cuba, refused separate requests for extensions from the lawyers for all five prisoners, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks.

The lawyers had asked for extensions ranging from three months to a year to file motions arguing against capital charges that would make the men eligible for the death penalty if convicted. These are the final motions before MacDonald sends the long-stalled case to a military tribunal for trial, and the decision means an arraignment may take place at Guantanamo as early as this spring.

The Pentagon-appointed defense lawyers said they needed more time because of delays getting security clearances and a dispute over new rules on legal mail that they say have prevented them from communicating with their clients. MacDonald said he had already granted extensions and Monday's deadline for filing the motions would not be changed.

"You were given more than adequate time in which to prepare matters in mitigation for my consideration," he wrote to Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz, who represents Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, a Saudi accused of helping supply the Sept. 11 hijackers with money, Western clothes and credit cards.

Ruiz said he and the other defense lawyers are considering various options, including asking MacDonald to reconsider, but he conceded they have few avenues to address what they say is another example of a tribunal system that favors the prosecution.

He said that he has not had access to a translator for some meetings with his client, who speaks limited English, and that it is taking too long to get security clearances for defense experts so they can see evidence in a trial that will rely on large amounts of classified evidence. The obstacles, he said, contradict recent statements from military officials that changes in the tribunals have made them more like federal courts.

"The chief prosecutor wants to go out there and say this is a fair process â€” 'We have transparency. We've brought this back in line with federal procedures.' It's nonsense," Ruiz said. "For us this is just business as usual."

The Sept. 11 case has long been plagued by delays. The defendants' first arraignment was held in June 2008 and the case began moving forward slowly when it was halted by President Barack Obama, who wanted to close the Guantanamo prison and try the men in civilian court. That effort was rebuffed by Congress, and the administration moved the case back to the military's war crimes tribunal at Guantanamo.

The charges against the five allege they were responsible for planning the attacks that sent hijacked commercial airliners slamming into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.

What's next is for MacDonald, a retired admiral, to give his final approval to the charges so they can be set for trial by a tribunal known as a commission. At that point, the military will have 30 days to arraign them before a judge.

Gold9472

02-10-2012, 09:15 AM

Suit challenges new GuantÃ¡namo mail rule

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/09/2633649/suit-challenges-new-guantanamo.html

2/9/2012

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) â€“ A lawyer for a GuantÃ¡namo prisoner charged in the Sept. 11 attack has filed suit against the prison commander, arguing a new rule subjecting legal mail to a security review is unconstitutional and amounts to illegal â€œintelligence monitoringâ€ of a U.S. citizen.

James Connell said Thursday that his suit filed in federal court in Washington D.C. is broader than a previous legal challenge to the rule brought by the lawyer for a separate defendant in the Sept. 11 case.

The suit filed by Connell, which was cleared for public release Wednesday after a security review that redacted some details about his client and his confinement at the U.S. base in Cuba, asks a judge to strike down the rule as a violation of the rights of defense lawyers.

The Washington-based Connell said the rule not only violates attorney-client privilege but his rights as a citizen to communicate in private with a prisoner.

â€œThe Supreme Court has said there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in a letter when you mail it from one person to another and there have to be certain requirements before the government can violate that,â€ he said.

Connell added that it is also a problem that the new policy requires legal mail to prisoners facing war crimes trial be reviewed by a security team that includes intelligence officers. That is a kind of monitoring of U.S. citizens â€“ the lawyers â€“ that canâ€™t be done except under limited circumstances, he said.

â€œThe intelligence community should not be reading my mail without going through the strict requirements of U.S. law,â€ Connell said.

Connell is a civilian attorney who was appointed by the Pentagon to represent Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, also known as Ammar Al-Baluchi, an alleged al-Qaida lieutenant from Pakistan who has been charged with war crimes for allegedly helping nine of the Sept. 11 hijackers travel to the United States and sending them money for expenses and flight training. He has been in U.S. custody since April 2003 and at GuantÃ¡namo since September 2006.

A Pentagon official is deciding whether the charges warrant it being a capital case that would make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted. He is expected to be arraigned with four other GuantÃ¡namo prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 attack later this year.

Connellâ€™s suit names the prison commander, Rear Adm. David Woods, who adopted the new rule on legal mail on Dec. 27 to ensure prisoners are not receiving prohibited materials, such as top-secret information or objects that might be fashioned into weapons.

A Pentagon spokesman, Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, said the military would not comment on the suit. But officials have defended the rule as a necessary security step, denying it violates attorney-client privilege and makes it impossible to ethically represent the defendants.

In a letter earlier this month to the president of the American Bar Association addressing concerns about the rule, the commander of U.S. Southern Command, Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, said the creation of a review team to screen the mail reflects the militaryâ€™s goal of trying to balance the â€œlegitimate and importantâ€ need for detainees to be able to communicate with their lawyers with â€œnational security and physical security concerns at GuantÃ¡namo.â€

Gold9472

02-29-2012, 09:13 AM

Guantanamo plea deal 'could speed 9/11 trials'

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5isodZvFKQQFv-lLnpNY49iWOg4UQ?docId=CNG.2c0bb64ff049f2ece081f320 360f3722.311

By Chantal Valery (AFP) â€“ 1 hour ago

US NAVAL BASE AT GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba â€” A plea deal struck between US military prosecutors and a Pakistani detainee at Guantanamo Bay will likely speed the stalled trials of September 11 suspects, experts say.

Majid Khan, 32, who has spent the last nine years behind bars, was to plead guilty on Wednesday to a raft of charges connected to his role in alleged terror plots hatched by accused September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

In exchange for a sentence of 25 years, Khan -- who had faced life in prison -- will testify against other "high value" detainees, including Mohammed and four others alleged to have taken part in the 2001 attacks.

Many of the terms of the plea agreement remain classified, and the Washington Post reported that the military plans to delay Khan's sentencing for four years to ensure he complies with the agreement.

"It's part of a strategy of building more solid cases against the handful of defendants that the government plans to try before the commissions," said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer who has represented other Guantanamo detainees.

More than 10 years after the September 11 attacks, Mohammed and four co-defendants accused of plotting them are still awaiting trial at the prison, part of a US naval base in Cuba.

Since the special military tribunals were authorized to try "enemy combatants" during the administration of president George W. Bush, six prisoners have been brought before the tribunals, with four pleading guilty.

Colonel Morris Davis, a former chief military prosecutor, has noted that more Guantanamo detainees had died since the US-run prison was established in 2002 than have been tried before the tribunals.

Khan is accused of working under Mohammed's direction to plan explosions of fuel tanks at US gasoline stations and to deliver funds for a bomb attack at a Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, that killed 11 people in August 2003.

"If Khan provides information on KSM and others, as has been suggested was part of the deal, it will no doubt speed up the prosecutions," said Karen Greenberg, a terrorism expert at Fordham Law School, referring to Mohammed, who had been scheduled to be arraigned earlier this month.

"If Khan does provide information on KSM and others... it will break through the barriers presented by evidence obtained through torture, as this information will be presented in the present time and in a legal proceeding."

The agreement with Khan is the first plea bargain among 14 Guantanamo detainees the US military classifies as "high value."

US President Barack Obama -- criticized for failing to live up to his promise to shut down Guantanamo's prison by 2010 -- could benefit from the speedy prosecutions as he seeks a new term in November elections.

Over the years, 779 inmates have been detained at Guantanamo, most without charge or trial. Most have been transferred to their home countries or third countries in recent years and released.

Today, 171 people are still languishing there in limbo, including 89 detainees who have been cleared for release but are still in custody, thanks to a law passed by the US Congress.

For the other detainees who remain, pleading guilty may be the only way to guarantee that they one day leave the facility.

"The irony is that if you're charged with a crime and make a plea deal, you know you'll be released someday and have some idea when. You have an end-point," says David Remes, who has represented several detainees.

"But if you're not accused of a crime, you don't know whether you'll ever be released, much less when. That may be the crueler fate. The system is upside-down."

Khan was imprisoned in a secret CIA jail for three years before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.

He could be asked to testify in the trial of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged Saudi mastermind of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen's port of Aden, which killed 17 sailors and wounded another 40.

Nashiri's lawyer, Richard Kammen, said he's not surprised Khan has agreed to the plea bargain.

"Given the essentially lawless conditions of Guantanamo and the military commissions, many people would say or do anything to have a chance at release," he said.

Gold9472

03-11-2012, 01:32 PM

9/11 mastermind set to face US military court
Khalid Shaikh Mohammad could soon be back in court for the much-awaited 'trial of the century'

http://gulfnews.com/news/world/usa/9-11-mastermind-set-to-face-us-military-court-1.992797

AFP
Published: 08:55 March 11, 2012

WASHINGTON: Nine years after his arrest in Pakistan, self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad could soon be back in court for the much-awaited "trial of the century."

After years of delays, a significant step took place last week when a former aide to Mohammad, Majid Khan, accepted a plea deal with US authorities that will require him to testify against other terror suspects at a tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

More than a decade after the 2001 attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead on US soil, the 46-year-old extremist known simply as "KSM" remains the ultimate figurehead in a legal battle fought by two successive US administrations.

President Barack Obama "can claim credit for killing (Osama) bin Laden and (Al Qaida cleric Anwar) Al Awlaqi, so nailing KSM would complete the hat trick and help quiet the conservative fearmongers who say he's weak on terrorism," former chief US military prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis told AFP.

Victory in the trial could prove critical to Obama this year in his re-election bid, where he faces Republicans critical of his approach to terrorism.

The Democratic president had sought to hold a trial for KSM and his four accused accomplices in New York, just steps from the Ground Zero site where the World Trade Center's twin towers fell.

But congressional Republicans put an end to those plans by blocking the transfer of terrorism suspects to the United States.

The five September 11 defendants, known as the "Guantanamo Five" for their incarceration at the US naval base in southern Cuba, will face a trial under special military tribunals created by the George W. Bush administration after the attacks.

Procedures for the military tribunals, also known as commissions, were modified by the Obama administration.

KSM, along with Walid bin Attash of Saudi Arabia, Yemen's Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Pakistan's Ammar Al Baluchi or Ali Abd Al Aziz Ali and Mustafa Al Hawsawi of Saudi Arabia, all face possible death penalties.

The 88-page indictment lists 2,976 murder counts for each of the victims of the coordinated attacks.

"Let's get rid of the alleged. KSM has admitted (the crimes) many times," said Michael Mukasey, who served as US attorney general under Bush.

KSM's first confessions were made when he was subjected 183 times to a simulated drowning method known as waterboarding and other so-called "enhanced" interrogation techniques at a secret CIA prison after his March 2003 capture.

But "no statement obtained as a result of coercion can be used" in a military commissions trial, chief prosecutor Brigadier General Mark Martins said in an interview.

Although KSM has since repeated his confessions, the prosecution needs to obtain statements that are legally admissible in court.

This is where Khan's awaited testimony fills the gap. The Pakistani national, who lived legally in America and graduated from a US high school, pleaded guilty at Guantanamo to a reduced charge of "conspiracy" to commit terrorism in exchange for a lighter sentence.

"If Khan provides information on KSM and others, as has been suggested was part of the deal, it will no doubt speed up the prosecutions," said Karen Greenberg, a terrorism expert at Fordham Law School.

With Khan's testimony in hand, KSM can be officially tried before a Guantanamo judge, which observers say could take place at any time.

The person who presides over the commissions, a judge known as the convening authority, now has "everything he needs to make the decision but he's not under a timeline," Martins said.

Baluchi has requested that he be spared the death penalty, saying he played a lesser role in the attacks.

But, following a vote in Congress, if the Guantanamo Five plead guilty, "they're allowed to be executed," said Adam Thurschwell, a general counsel in charge of defending Guantanamo detainees.

Baluchi's lawyer, James Connell, said it is the convening authority's choice to decide a date for the trial.

"We don't want them to rush into a decision but on the other hand, we don't want them to drag their feet," he added.

Although the defendants might make pre-trial appearances soon, the crucial trial could be months away.

"KSM wanted to use the rest of the trial as an opportunity to deliver a diatribe against US policy," said appellate attorney David Rivkin.

KSM himself has declared that he wants to die and become a martyr.

Gold9472

03-11-2012, 07:13 PM

9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed set to face US military court

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/archives/old-news-pages/mastermind-khaled-sheikh-mohammed-set-to-face-us-military-court/story-e6frf7n6-1226296208758

3/11/2012

NINE years after his arrest in Pakistan, self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed could soon be back in court for the much-awaited "trial of the century".

Court illustration by Janet Hamlin shows Khalid Sheikh Mohammed seated during a hearing at the US Military Commissions Court for war crimes in

After years of delays, a significant step took place last week when a former aide to Mohammed, Majid Khan, accepted a plea deal with US authorities that will require him to testify against other terror suspects at a tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

More than a decade after the 2001 attacks that left nearly 3000 people dead on US soil, the 46-year-old extremist known simply as "KSM" remains the ultimate figurehead in a legal battle fought by two successive US administrations.

President Barack Obama "can claim credit for killing (Osama) bin Laden and (Al-Qaeda cleric Anwar) Al-Awlaqi, so nailing KSM would complete the hat trick and help quiet the conservative fearmongers who say he's weak on terrorism," former chief US military prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis told AFP.

Victory in the trial could prove critical to Obama this year in his re-election bid, where he faces Republicans critical of his approach to terrorism.

The Democratic President had sought to hold a trial for KSM and his four accused accomplices in New York, just steps from the Ground Zero site where the World Trade Center's twin towers fell.

But congressional Republicans put an end to those plans by blocking the transfer of terrorism suspects to the United States.

The five September 11 defendants, known as the "Guantanamo Five" for their incarceration at the US naval base in southern Cuba, will face a trial under special military tribunals created by the George W Bush administration after the attacks.

Procedures for the military tribunals, also known as commissions, were modified by the Obama administration.

KSM, along with Walid bin Attash of Saudi Arabia, Yemen's Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Pakistan's Ammar al-Baluchi or Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustafa al-Hawsawi of Saudi Arabia, all face possible death penalties.

The 88-page indictment lists 2976 murder counts for each of the victims of the coordinated attacks.

"Let's get rid of the alleged. KSM has admitted (the crimes) many times," said Michael Mukasey, who served as US attorney general under Bush.

KSM's first confessions were made when he was subjected 183 times to a simulated drowning method known as waterboarding and other so-called "enhanced" interrogation techniques at a secret CIA prison after his March 2003 capture.

But "no statement obtained as a result of coercion can be used" in a military commissions trial, chief prosecutor Brigadier General Mark Martins said in an interview.

Although KSM has since repeated his confessions, the prosecution needs to obtain statements that are legally admissible in court.

This is where Khan's awaited testimony fills the gap. The Pakistani national, who lived legally in America and graduated from a US high school, pleaded guilty at Guantanamo to a reduced charge of "conspiracy" to commit terrorism in exchange for a lighter sentence.

"If Khan provides information on KSM and others, as has been suggested was part of the deal, it will no doubt speed up the prosecutions," said Karen Greenberg, a terrorism expert at Fordham Law School.

With Khan's testimony in hand, KSM can be officially tried before a Guantanamo judge, which observers say could take place at any time.

The person who presides over the commissions, a judge known as the convening authority, now has "everything he needs to make the decision but he's not under a timeline," Martins said.

Baluchi has requested that he be spared the death penalty, saying he played a lesser role in the attacks.

But, following a vote in Congress, if the Guantanamo Five plead guilty, "they're allowed to be executed," said Adam Thurschwell, a general counsel in charge of defending Guantanamo detainees.

Baluchi's lawyer, James Connell, said it is the convening authority's choice to decide a date for the trial.

"We don't want them to rush into a decision but on the other hand, we don't want them to drag their feet," he added.

Although the defendants might make pre-trial appearances soon, the crucial trial could be months away.

"KSM wanted to use the rest of the trial as an opportunity to deliver a diatribe against US policy," said appellate attorney David Rivkin.

KSM himself has declared that he wants to die and become a martyr.

Gold9472

03-14-2012, 08:19 AM

Two 9/11 suspects on Gitmo hunger strike, sources say

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/13/two-11-suspects-reportedly-on-gitmo-hunger-strike/

By Catherine Herridge
Published March 13, 2012

pril 27, 20120: In this photo, reviewed by a U.S. Department of Defense official, a Guantanamo detainee does pull-ups inside an exercise area at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base.

At least two of the suspects in the 9/11 terror attacks have been on hunger strikes at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps since January, Fox News has learned.

The men, among the so-called â€œhigh value 14â€ who were transferred from the CIA secret prisons in 2006 to the Navy base in Cuba, are protesting conditions at Guantanamoâ€™s Camp 7 and a new policy in which communications between detainees and their defense lawyers are reviewed for security purposes, according to knowledgeable sources who would not provide further detail.

It is not clear whether the men are refusing all foods and fluids or whether they are eating only on an occasional basis.

Defense Department spokesman Todd Breasseale said he could not discuss health-related issues of the 9/11 suspects, adding, â€œthe physical well-being of detainees is our primary responsibility, and their security is of vital importance to our mission there. ... Hunger strikes are a form of non-violent protest, and those few who have engaged in this practice are monitored so that their health is never in any real danger. Their vital statistics are routinely monitored and they are not allowed to endanger their lives.â€

In December, the admiral who oversees the detention camps ramped up the screening of communications and mail between the lawyers and their clients to keep out contraband. In January, it came to light during a routine military hearing at the base, that a copy of Al Qaedaâ€™s Inspire magazine, likened to the â€œMartha Stewart Livingâ€ for would-be jihadists, nearly made it into the camps.

The American Bar Association has written to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta about the preservation of attorney-client privilege in the Guantanamo military prosecutions. While urging Panetta to take immediate steps to â€œrescind this policy,â€ Bill Robinson III, president of the ABA, wrote that it was especially important in death penalty cases.

The Defense Departmentâ€™s current policy, Robinson said, "seriously compromises the ability of lawyers to meet their obligations and provide ethically and constitutionally adequate representation to their clients. It also impairs the ability of these dedicated lawyers to gain the trust and confidence of their clients.â€

As for conditions at Camp 7, a detention facility so secretive that no journalist has ever been given access, it is claimed that they do not satisfy the requirements under the Geneva Conventions that establishes minimum guarantees for the treatment of â€œlaw of war detainees.â€

On Feb. 24, all of the military defense lawyers for the 9/11 suspects at Camp 7, along with the lawyer Abu Faraj al-Libi, a Libyan implicated in a plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic in 2006, wrote to William K. Lietzau, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy. They claimed in the five-page letter that serious deficiencies remain in health care and living conditions.

The lawyers questioned the validity of a 2009 declassified report that stated the detainees enjoyed recreation yards with â€œelliptical machines and stationary bikes, soccer balls, racquetballs ... media rooms are available three times weekly for each detainee to watch movies of their choice, read newspapers, magazines (and) books.â€

The lawyers said they â€œare not in a position to speculate as to the reason for the changes. ... Nonetheless, some appear to coincide with the arrival of the current JTF-GTMO commander, who has publicly expressed that he lost two comrades in the 9/11 attacks, and that he defines himself as part of the â€œ9/11 generation.â€

Gold9472

03-15-2012, 08:25 AM

Let a jury decide Mohammed's fate

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_20175485/let-jury-decide-mohammeds-fate

By Terry McDermott
Posted: 03/15/2012 01:00:00 AM MDT

Among the many reasons Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man who planned the Sept. 11 attacks, should be tried in an American court of law, there is this:

"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head."

The murder of Pearl, the Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau chief, was but one of 31 attacks or planned attacks that Mohammed confessed to in front of an American military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay on March 10, 2007. The crimes of KSM, as Mohammed is known within the international counterterrorism community, occurred around the globe over the course of a decade. They ranged from the wholly aspirational â€” plots to assassinate Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II â€” to the horrifically real: Pearl was beheaded with a butcher knife.

For those keeping score, the confession to Pearl's brutal killing came five years after the crime. It has now been another five full years and still Mohammed remains in the limbo of Guantanamo. The limbo is ours, not his. Although he has claimed he would welcome martyrdom, he seems quite content to remain there in the military prison with his exercise machine, fellow detainees and the consternation that he has caused. The U.S. government, on the other hand, is still vexed about how to handle him.

The lines of debate have grown blurry over time, but the broad outlines have not changed. The George W. Bush administration and its supporters argued in favor of establishing military tribunals to try KSM and his fellow terrorism suspects. Barack Obama, when he was still candidate Obama, argued for closing Guantanamo and bringing the prisoners there to justice in the United States. Upon taking office, President Obama repeated this pledge, and in 2009, his attorney general announced that Mohammed and four of his cohorts would be tried in federal court in New York.

That announcement was greeted, predictably, with an uproar of opposition that grew to include majorities in both houses of Congress, which subsequently outlawed the spending of any federal money to transport the prisoners to the United States. Claims were made that holding a trial in New York would surely put the city at risk of terrorist attacks. Local politicians complained that the cost would be in the billions of dollars. A subsequent trial of a lesser terrorism figure gravely undermined many of the claims, but opposition remained entrenched.

Those opposed to trying KSM have argued that he would be able to hijack any proceeding against him and turn it into a publicity coup for al-Qaeda and its sympathizers. A trial might inevitably be a circus of some sort, but a propaganda victory for radical Islam? Hardly. Mohammed has been a perplexing figure on the few occasions when he has appeared in semi-public proceedings at Guantanamo. He is a curious, compelling but an almost clownish presence. As a propagandist, he's too comical and grandiose to be anything but an utter failure.

The government has recently signaled it might finally be ready to begin formal proceedings against KSM, bringing him before a military commission in Guantanamo. Such a commission would be heavily censored, and coverage would be limited. It would be a poor substitute for a trial before an American jury.

If putting on a trial for the crime at the center of the controversy â€” the Sept. 11 attacks against New York and Washington â€” is too much to undertake, why couldn't the government do a test case first? Why not try KSM for the relatively simple, if no less venal, execution of Pearl? We already have his confession on file and, as he boasts, video evidence of his "blessed right hand" caught in the act.

Gold9472

04-04-2012, 07:11 PM

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, alleged 9/11 mastermind, to get new trial

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/khalid-sheik-mohammed-to-face-death-penalty-trial/2012/04/04/gIQALLHOvS_story.html

By Peter Finn, Wednesday, April 4, 12:29 PM

A senior Pentagon official on Wednesday authorized a new trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four others accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a step that restarts the most momentous terrorism case likely to be held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The suspects were first charged in a military commission in 2008, but the case was suspended after the Obama administration came into office and later moved to have them tried in federal court in New York.

Most-wanted al-Qaeda terrorists: The death of Osama bin Laden has not fully disabled his terrorist group. Hereâ€™s a look at individuals deemed the most wanted terrorists in al-Qaeda.

That effort collapsed in the face of congressional and local opposition. In April 2011, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that he was reluctantly sending the case back to the military.

Military charges against the five men were re-sworn in June, and on Wednesday, retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, the official who oversees the commissions and is known as the Convening Authority, sent the case for trial after reviewing and approving those charges.

The men face multiple charges, including murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, hijacking aircraft and terrorism. If convicted, they could face the death penalty.

Charged along with Mohammed are Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, a Pakistani who is Mohammedâ€™s nephew; Ramzi Binalshibh and Walid bin Attash, both Yemenis; and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, a Saudi. All are accused of playing key organizational or financial roles in the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, a plot that Mohammed has said he masterminded.

In the previous case, Mohammed, Ali and Attash won the right to represent themselves with advisory military and civilian counsel. A military judge was considering whether Binalshibh and Hawsawi were competent to make that choice when the case was suspended.

An arraignment will be held at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay next month, and all of the pretrial issues that surfaced in the earlier case will have to be litigated again, including the issue of self-representation and the mental health and capacity of Binalshibh and Hawsawi.

Each of the defendants is entitled to a military attorney and â€œlearned counsel,â€ a lawyer with experience in death penalty cases.

At one point in the last case, the defendants said they were interested in pleading guilty to capital charges because they wanted to be executed and die as martyrs. Next monthâ€™s arraignment should make clear whether Mohammed wants to fight the charges or is still interested in pleading guilty.

The other defendants have tended to follow his lead.

All five men were held in secret CIA custody at prisons overseas before they were transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006. Their treatment at the hands of the CIA, including the extensive waterboarding of Mohammed, is likely to be an issue at trial.

Under the reformed system of military commissions, prosecutors cannot use as evidence any statement that resulted from torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. But attorneys for the accused are nonetheless likely to make their treatment a central plank of any defense against the death penalty.

Some civil libertarians remain deeply skeptical of the system.

â€œThe military commissions were set up to achieve easy convictions and hide the reality of torture, not to provide a fair trial,â€ said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU. â€œAlthough the rules have been improved, the military commissions continue to violate due process by allowing the use of hearsay and coerced or secret evidence.â€

But military officials said that the commissions, which were reformed in 2009 by Congress, offer defendants due process. They also said the use of hearsay or coerced evidence is strictly limited to some unique circumstances on the battlefield and is not a back door for tainted evidence.

â€œIf observers withhold judgment for a time, the system they see will prove itself deserving of public confidence,â€ Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, said in a speech this week at Harvard Law School.

Gold9472

04-04-2012, 07:16 PM

Pentagon approves 9/11 death penalty trial
Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other detainees in GuantÃ¡namo Bay will soon be presented with charges, then face a joint trial before a military commission on allegations they orchestrated the worst terror attack in U.S. history.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/04/2731254/us-says-sept-11-trial-to-resume.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com

The Pentagon on Wednesday cleared the way for a death penalty trial against five GuantÃ¡namo Bay captives charged with engineering the Sept. 11 attacks.

Retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, in charge of military commissions, signed off on the capital trial against alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, 46, and four accused co-conspirators.

The men face charges of terrorism, hijacking aircraft, conspiracy and murder in violation of the law of war, among other charges, in the system set up by President George W. Bush within months of the attack, and then reformed by President Barack Obama in 2009.

If convicted, they could be sentenced to death using a method to be decided by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, or his successor.

The charges accuse the five men of organizing the attacks, including funding and training the 19 men who hijacked the four commercial airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, and then crashed them into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pa., killing 2,976 people.

The lead trial attorneys are retired Army Col. Robert Swann and federal prosecutor Edward Ryan â€” the same two men who were designated to prosecute the case by the Bush administration.

Obama halted the previous trial and Attorney General Eric Holder was initially determined to prosecute them in Manhattan, not far from the site of the World Trade Center. But he reversed course a year ago after politicians protested, alternately, that a federal prosecution would put an even large al Qaida bullâ€™s-eye on New York City, would snarl traffic for security concerns or would risk acquittal if a civilian judge or jury concluded that the evidence against them was the fruit of torture.

Pentagon prosecutors have been preparing their case since then.

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said the decision to go forward with the trial at Guantanamo did not diminish Obama's desire to close the detention center.

â€œThere have obviously been obstacles in achieving that. But he remains committed to doing that,â€ said Carney. â€œIn the meantime, we have to ensure that Khalid Sheik Mohammad and others who are accused of these heinous crimes are brought to justice. And a procedure is now underway to ensure that that happens.â€

The decision drew a rebuke from the American Civil Liberties Union, which has funded some of the 9/11 defense lawyers.

The Obama Administration â€œis making a terrible mistake by prosecuting the most important terrorism trials of our time in a second-tier system of justice,â€ said Anthony Romero, the ACLU executive director. He said the war court was â€œset up to achieve easy convictions and hide the reality of torture, not to provide a fair trial.â€

â€œWhatever verdict comes out of the GuantÃ¡namo military commissions will be tainted by an unfair process and the politics that wrongly pulled these cases from federal courts, which have safely and successfully handled hundreds of terrorism trials.â€

All five men were interrogated by the CIA in secret overseas prisons â€” Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times, according to declassified CIA documents â€” before their 2006 transfer to GuantÃ¡namo for trial. Once in Cuba, he bragged to a panel of U.S. military officers that he was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks â€œfrom A to Z.â€

The chief prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, has said that by law no evidence derived through torture can be used at a GuantÃ¡namo trial.

MacDonald signed the 123-page charge sheet alleging the five men engaged in a years-long conspiracy that trained the 9/11 hijackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, funded them in wire transfers from Persian Gulf nations and dispatched some of them to the United States from Germany. It will be up to an 11-member team of U.S. prosecutors to prove it to a military jury of a dozen or more members.

But first, the military has to present the charges at the remote prison at the U.S. base in southeast Cuba, assign a judge to the case and give them a formal appearance at the war court compound, Camp Justice, probably in May. Months of pre-trial challenges, including wrangling over defense resources and whether the men are competent to defend themselves, are likely to follow.

The other four men facing the death penalty charges in the joint trial are Walid bin Attash, 33, a Yemeni; Ramzi Bin al Shibh, 39, a Yemeni; Mustafa al Hawsawi, 43, a Saudi; and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, 34, a Pakistani who is Mohammedâ€™s nephew and also known as Ammar al Baluchi.

The Pentagonâ€™s war court witness advocate, Karen Loftus, sent an email to Sept. 11 families on Wednesday advising them of the case development. Some survivors and victims of the 9/11 attacks will be invited to watch the proceedings at GuantÃ¡namo, selected through a lottery. Most will be directed to remote viewing sites being set up in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Maryland that will show closed-circuit broadcasts of the proceedings.

The broadcasts are on a 40-second delay in case someone in court divulges classified information, time enough for an intelligence center to muffle the proceedings behind white noise.

Loftus also described the military jury that will hear the Sept. 11 mass murder trial as â€œa panel of at least 12 members, whose function is analogous to jurors in a federal or state court. The case was also referred to as a joint trial, meaning that all five of the accused will be tried together, unless the military judge later determines that any or all of the accused should be tried separately.â€

A Pentagon-paid defense lawyer for Ali, accused of wiring money to the 9/11 hijackers, has argued his client should not face a capital trial because he isnâ€™t alleged to have killed anyone â€“ or plotted to kill.

â€œMr. Ali would not be eligible for the death penalty if this case were tried in federal court,â€ said attorney James Connell. â€œThis attempt to expand the reach of the death penalty to people who neither killed nor planned to kill is another example of the second-class justice of the military commissions.â€

Martins has assigned himself to the 11-lawyer prosecution team, which includes Justice Department lawyers Joanna Baltes, Jeffrey Groharing and Clayton Trivett as deputy trial counsels to Ryan and Swann. Trivett, a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserves, and Groharing, a lieutenant colonel in the Marines, had also worked on the 9/11 prosecution during the Bush years.

Gold9472

04-04-2012, 07:16 PM

US sets charges for 9/11 mastermind, four others

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gohcSgSRzdfn0KSE1TdgQDWPr5bw?docId=CNG.2f71a 201e9237be400a5cb37ad97710d.101

By Dan De Luce (AFP) â€“ 6 hours ago

WASHINGTON â€” The United States Wednesday unveiled charges against the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four other alleged plotters, vowing to seek the death penalty in a long-delayed military trial.

Mohammed and the other accused conspirators have been held for years at the US-run prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amid a legal and political battle over how and where to prosecute them.

"The charges allege that the five accused are responsible for the planning and execution of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in New York and Washington DC, and Shanksville, Pa., resulting in the killing of 2,976 people," the Defense Department said in a statement.

If convicted before a military tribunal, "the five accused could be sentenced to death," it said.

After more than 10 years since the attacks that jolted the American psyche, "it is important to see that justice is done," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

He also said that President Barack Obama was still committed to making good on his promise to close the prison at Guantanamo, a pledge he had to back away from after legal setbacks and stiff opposition in Congress.

The 46-year-old Mohammed, along with Walid bin Attash of Saudi Arabia, Yemen's Ramzi Binalshibh, Pakistan's Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali -- also known as Ammar al-Baluchi -- and Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi of Saudi Arabia, are due to appear in court for arraignment proceedings within 30 days, the Pentagon said.

The joint trial, which could be months away, will be held at the American naval base in Guantanamo Bay, where the US government has set up special military commissions to try terror suspects.

Mohammed, whom US officials refer to simply as "KSM," has been at the center of a years-long debate over the legal fate of the accused plotters.

After he was captured nine years ago, Mohammed was subject to harsh interrogations and repeated "waterboarding," a simulated drowning technique that has been widely condemned as torture.

His treatment has raised questions whether his statements to interrogators will hold up in a trial, but testimony from a former aide may resolve that problem.

His former deputy, Majid Khan, accepted a plea deal recently with US authorities that will require him to testify against the other suspects.

After taking office in 2009, Obama initially sought to try Mohammed and the four others in a civilian court in New York, not far from the Ground Zero site where the World Trade Center's twin towers fell in 2001.

But the proposal sparked criticism and Republicans in Congress put an end to those plans by blocking the transfer of terrorism suspects to the United States.

Human rights groups have slammed the Guantanamo tribunals as tainted and renewed demands Wednesday that terror suspects be tried in a federal courts by civilian judges.

"The Obama administration is making a terrible mistake by prosecuting the most important terrorism trials of our time in a second-tier system of justice," Anthony Romero, American Civil Liberties Union executive director, said in a statement.

A lawyer for one of the accused said his client, Ali of Pakistan, would not be facing execution if he was being tried in a civilian court.

"Because he did not kill or plan to kill, Mr. Ali would not be eligible for the death penalty if this case were tried in federal court," James Connell said in a statement.

The military tribunals were created under George W. Bush's presidency after the 9/11 attacks, with officials arguing that Al-Qaeda militants fell into a special category that did not suit civilian courts.

Procedures for the military tribunals, also known as commissions, have since been modified by the Obama administration to make them more closely resemble civilian courts.

Mohammed and the other accused plotters were charged once before under the Bush era and, now that the system has been revised, had to be formally charged again to clear the way for a trial.

The five are charged with terrorism, hijacking aircraft, conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, and destruction of property in violation of the law of war.

Gold9472

04-09-2012, 10:29 AM

9/11 Snitch Springs U.S. From Torture Trial Trap

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/04/911-trial-torture/

By Spencer Ackerman
April 9, 2012 |

Alleged 9/11 ringleader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed soon after his March 2003 capture in Pakistan. Photo: Wikimedia

The CIA tortured Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his fellow alleged 9/11 conspirators, a decision that, for years, jeopardized any prosecution for the deadly terror attacks. But when admitted al-Qaida member Majid Khan accepted a plea bargain at Guantanamo Bay, it practically paved the way for Wednesdayâ€™s announcement of a 9/11 trial. Months from now, Khan will take the stand against â€œKSMâ€ and his co-defendants â€” and significantly minimize, if not eliminate, the amount of evidence presented in the trial that the government obtained through cruel, inhuman or degrading measures.

According to experts in national security law, itâ€™s a tremendous win for the government. But it comes with a price. Alongside a criminal inquiry into CIA torture that concluded without recommending prosecutions, a 9/11 trial unblemished by torture will mean the U.S. government will face no consequences for employing techniques long repudiated by the civilized world.

Itâ€™s largely thanks to Brig. Gen. Mark Martins that thereâ€™s even a military commission for the 9/11 defendants at all. Martins, a former official at the Bagram airfield prison in Afghanistan, is the new chief prosecutor for the commissions. Unlike his predecessors, Martins approached his defendants like a criminal prosecutor: he prioritized among them, and offered deals to the smaller fish in exchange for their testimony against the larger ones.

There is no larger fish at Guantanamo Bay than KSM, the architect of the 9/11 plot. And in late February, Martins effectively announced had a viable path to prosecuting KSM: Majid Khan, a Baltimore-educated former associate of KSM also detained at Guantanamo, had agreed to a 19-year prison deal in exchange for testimony against the 9/11 conspirators. Barely a month later, the military announced it would soon put KSM and the other conspirators on trial at Guantanamo.

The two developments are intimately related. â€œIf they have Khan and he can present on the stand under non-coercive circumstances evidence about 9/11 and evidence about the operational aspects of al-Qaida pursuant to 9/11, then the prosecution doesnâ€™t think it has to introduce evidence gained through the torture of KSM, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and the others,â€ says Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School. â€œMajid Khanâ€™s testimony is not the result of torture. Therefore, you donâ€™t need KSMâ€™s confessions or anything thatâ€™s arguably compromised by torture.â€

Under the rules of the military commissions â€” which were written after 9/11 for terrorism trials and have been revised many times â€” evidence gained through torture is supposed to be inadmissible. KSM was waterboarded 183 times in the first month of his captivity. He and his fellow 9/11 conspirators were held by the CIA for years in secret prisons where the agency used interrogation techniques that included contorting detaineesâ€™ bodies in painful conditions, depriving them of sleep and sharply reducing their caloric intakes. Even though KSM confessed to playing a lead role in 9/11 years later, his confession may not be allowed to be used as evidence.

By contrast, the rules of the commissions are congenial to Khanâ€™s testimony. Khan was not party to the 9/11 plot. But military commissions allow greater flexibility to introduce hearsay evidence than civilian courts do.

Much of the prosecutorial strategy depends on how much leeway the military judge provides Martins to use Khan. Khan is not believed to have first-hand knowledge of the 9/11 plot, and interacted with KSM in 2002 about an alleged follow-on attack. But he is believed to have learned much about the plot through KSM. â€œI dont think heâ€™s a slam dunk,â€ says Andrea Prasow, the chief terrorism researcher for Human Rights Watch, â€œbut I absolutely believe the plea bargain is a huge win for the government for keeping torture out of the public view.â€

Additionally, Khan wonâ€™t be sentenced for four years. That means the structure of the deal Martins made with Khan is effectively contingent on how Khan performs on the stand against KSM. â€œThe incentives for Khan are so huge,â€ Greenberg observes. â€œThereâ€™s no deal until Khan testifies. It all happens in four years. It hangs over his head.â€

Before Khan testifies, the military commissions will work out the parameters of his testimony â€” especially whatâ€™s admissible. Pre-trial hearings will begin at Guantanamo by early May at the latest. There, lawyers for the 9/11 defendants will file motions arguing for the inadmissibility of various pieces of evidence, surely to include Khanâ€™s hearsay. These pre-trial hearings typically take months.

Even if the military judge assigned to the 9/11 trial permits the vast majority of Khanâ€™s testimony, the 9/11 lawyers will still endeavor to make the torture of their clients an issue at the trial. The problem, Greenberg says, is that the deck is stacked against them, institutionally.

â€œUnless the Convening Authority [who runs the commissions] says we wonâ€™t allow word torture, the defense will find a way to get it in,â€ she says. â€œBut the military commission rules give the Convening Authority a lot of leeway to introduce and exclude evidence. Even if he does exclude evidence gained through torture, the fact that the jury is picked by the judge and the commissionsâ€™ office of defense works within the prosecutorâ€™s office with half the resources provide ways of stacking the system.â€

All that points to an underwhelming conclusion to the bitter, ten-year controversy over torture in the 9/11 Era. Last year, the Justice Department concluded an inquiry into CIA torture without recommending prosecutions in 99 out of 101 cases. If the 9/11 trial proceeds with torture as an afterthought, then the government will have faced no hinderance, consequence or reprisal from the use of a practice most of the world considers barbarous and illegal.

â€œThere hasnâ€™t been a public accounting for torture. There hasnâ€™t been a detailed analysis about what happened and whoâ€™s responsible,â€ says Prasow. â€œIf you donâ€™t know what happened, you canâ€™t make sure it never happens again.â€

Gold9472

04-10-2012, 09:21 AM

Alleged 9/11 conspirators to be arraigned May 5 in GuantÃ¡namo

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/10/2740465/alleged-9-11-conspirators-to-be.html

By Carol Rosenberg
crosenberg@miamiherald.com
Posted on Tuesday, 04.10.12

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md -- The chief war court judge, Army Col. James Pohl, has assigned himself to preside at the death-penalty trial of the five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks and has set a provisional arraignment date for May 5 at GuantÃ¡namo, The Miami Herald has learned.

The rare Saturday hearing would meet a 30-day speedy trial clock deadline under the Military Commissions Act but could be changed if defense lawyers seek a delay.

The war court appearances of alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four accused co-conspirators would also come within days of the first anniversary of the U.S. Special Forces raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.

Two war court sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the judgeâ€™s orders have not yet been made public, said Pohl detailed himself to the case Monday. He set the date in a second order the same day.

Pohl is currently the only military judge hearing cases at the GuantÃ¡namo war court. Heâ€™s at the base in southeast Cuba this week to hear pre-trial arguments in the case of accused USS Cole bomber Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, also facing possible military execution if convicted.

It was not immediately known if Pohl would keep the Cole case or hand it off to another military judge.

Gold9472

04-10-2012, 06:17 PM

Court Date Set for Accused 9/11 Plotters

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Court-Date-Set-for-Accused-911-Plotters-146845685.html

4/10/2012

The chief war court judge at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay naval base has set May 5 as the date for the arraignment of five men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.

The Pentagon said Tuesday that military judge James Pohl set the rare Saturday morning court date to formally accuse the five suspected al-Qaida militants of participation in the 9/11 plot. The defendants' lawyers could ask for a delay.

The defendants include the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four other alleged co-conspirators.

They are accused of terrorism, hijacking aircraft, conspiracy, murder and other charges. If found guilty, they could face the death penalty.

The U.S. military last week formally ordered a military tribunal for the five suspects.

The Pentagon says in addition to their defense counsel, it has provided the five with attorneys with specialized knowledge and experience in death penalty cases in order to assist their defense.

But human rights groups have slammed the use of military tribunals as opposed to civilian courts. President Barack Obama initially had pledged to try the accused in a civilian court, but he reversed course last year after U.S. lawmakers passed restrictions prohibiting the transfer of terror detainees to the United States.

In 2008, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said he wanted to plead guilty to all charges against him.

Gold9472

04-10-2012, 06:20 PM

Accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four accomplices will go to GITMO court May 5, face death for killing 2,976
KSMâ€™s new arraignment comes over a decade since 9/11, and nine years after his capture in Pakistan

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/accused-9-11-mastermind-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-accomplices-gitmo-court-5-face-death-killing-2-976-article-1.1059268

4/10/2012

WASHINGTON - Al Qaeda big Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others will face a military court May 5 on death-penalty charges for killing 2,976 on 9/11, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Meanwhile European officials ruled that Britain can hand over one-eyed, hook-handed terrorist Abu Hamsa al-Masri to the U.S. plus four more suspects wanted here - two in the 1998 African embassy bombings that killed 224 people.

KSMâ€™s new arraignment comes over a decade since 9/11, and nine years after his capture in Pakistan.

The Kuwaiti last appeared in a Guantanamo Bay Court nearly four years ago, expressing the defendants' wishes to plead guilty on all counts.

Soon thereafter, a newly-elected President Obama scrapped Guantanamo proceedings in favor of a civilian criminal trial in Manhattan federal court.

Pushback from Congress, however, forced a return to the secluded Navy base in Cuba, where the Department of Defense re-charged the five on April 4.

They will be tried together, but arguments may not start for months.

Yemeni 9/11 co-defendant Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash allegedly helped mastermind the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and trained 9/11 hijackers.

Fellow Yemeni Ramzi Binalshibh sought entry to the U.S. to study aviation, and is therefore suspected of being a potential hijacker. He was denied a visa and wired money to the attackers instead.

Saudi defendant Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi allegedly helped hijackers gain entry to the U.S. and then funneled them money, while Pakistani Ali Abdul Aziz Ali paid for flight training, wired the hijackers money and provided other support.

Al-Masri - aka Mustafa Kamel Mustafa - has been jailed in the UK since 2004 for inciting murder in the name of radical Islam. He's wanted here for trying to set up a terror training camp in Oregon around 2000.

In exchange for the extraditions, the U.S. will not subject any of the British prisoners to the death sentence.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday that life sentences in a U.S. super-maximum security federal prison like Florence ADX in Colorado would not violate EU rules.

Supermax houses the nation's most notorious terrorists, spies and gangsters, among them Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, FBI snoop Robert Hanssen, and former acting Bonanno crime family boss Vincent Basciano.

Florence inmates spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement in cells with concrete furniture with tiny windows, denied outside communication.

The EU court said the five "should not be extradited" until its judgment becomes final - a move that could take months - or until a possible appeals process ends.

British prisoner Khalid al-Fawwaz, a Saudi citizen, and Adel Abdul Bary, an Egyptian, are wanted over the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Syed Talha Ahsan has been charged with conspiring to support terrorists via the Internet, while Babar Ahmad is accused of running websites to raise money, appeal for fighters and provide equipment - like gas masks and night vision goggles - for terrorists.

Conflicting reports have al-Masri losing his hand and eye either diving on a landmine in Afghanistan or bungling an attempt to build a bomb.

Gold9472

04-11-2012, 08:14 AM

Absurd lengths
OUR OPINION: Itâ€™s ridiculous for Pentagon to try to shield testimony at GuantÃ¡namo thatâ€™s already in public domain

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/09/2739703/absurd-lengths.html

By The Miami Herald Editorial
HeraldEd@MiamiHerald.com

The Pentagon has long claimed that it can infringe on the publicâ€™s right to know what takes place at the island prison in GuantÃ¡namo Bay, Cuba, under the guise of protecting national security. Now itâ€™s going to absurd lengths to justify a secret hearing involving a Saudi captiveâ€™s account of how CIA agents interrogated him while shackled in custody.

The government has played the national security card repeatedly for more than 10 years, relying on post-9/11 paranoia and fear of terrorism to win public support for the kind of odious policies that have no place in a democracy. Secret interrogations, secret custody, secret jails. Even the Red Cross was kept in the dark at one time about who was in captivity, and where â€” a violation of fundamental Geneva Conventions rules. Basic rights of fair trial have been denied. We as a nation used to condemn the Soviet Union for these sorts of practices, and still condemn Cuba and other dictatorships for violating commonly recognized standards of justice. Yet it happens at GuantÃ¡namo.

Thanks to the public outcry and persistent challenges by civil liberties advocates and some news organizations, progress has been made on a few fronts. The secret overseas jails are gone, or so the government has said, and reporters have gained limited access at GuantÃ¡namo. But old habits die hard and the Pentagon is at it once again at the upcoming hearing for Abd al Rahim al Nashiri.

Nashiri is accused of orchestrating al Qaidaâ€™s suicide bombing of a U.S. Navy warship, the USS Cole, off Yemen in October 2000. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed in the attack, and the Pentagon war court prosecutor is pursuing this case as its first death-penalty trial. In a bid to win a court order that he be unshackled during prison camp meetings with his attorneys, defense lawyers want to call him as a witness to describe the trauma of his CIA interrogations.

To be clear, the issue is not whether he should be shackled during his trial, but rather when meeting with his own attorneys. Thatâ€™s what a hearing scheduled for this week is about, but Col. James L. Pohl, a military judge, has ordered a blanket closure of the entire hearing because it touches on what lawyers claim is his treatment under interrogation prior to incarceration at GuantÃ¡namo.

The Miami Herald and a wide range of news organizations, including Fox News and The Washington Post, have rightly objected. In the first place, thereâ€™s that pesky thing called the First Amendment that protects public access to the proceedings, particularly in a case that commands worldwide attention and raises significant issues.

Beyond that, itâ€™s ridiculous to shield the public from testimony covering information already in the public domain. Declassified abuse investigations show that, while Nashiri was shackled, CIA agents waterboarded him, racked a semi-automatic handgun near his head and used a power drill to frighten him in 2002 and 2003.

Whatâ€™s left to hide? The list of published accounts detailing Nashiriâ€™s detention with the CIA covers five pages of a pleading submitted by defense attorneys to the court. The filing also points out that the courtâ€™s own media rules explicitly forbid exclusion of information that has already been publicly disclosed.

Besides, if any information that remains classified should emerge, it can easily be kept from reporters, who sit in a separate, soundproof room and hear information only after a 40-second delay. Just hitting a button can keep the secret material from being heard by reporters. The courtâ€™s own guidelines require using the least intrusive rules to keep information secret, which would seem to rule out a blanket closure.

Thereâ€™s no legitimate reason to keep these proceedings a secret.

Gold9472

04-13-2012, 08:23 AM

Reporting from GuantÃ¡namo: Leaving the Constitution on the Mainland

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-human-rights/reporting-guantanamo-leaving-constitution-mainland

Posted by Anna Arceneaux, Capital Punishment Project at 4:15pm

This week I am in GuantÃ¡namo Bay observing a hearing in the case of Abd al-Rahim Hussayn Muhammad al-Nashiri (pronounced al-NAH-shiri), the first death penalty case to be tried by military commission. Mr. al-Nashiri faces charges for his alleged participation in the attack on the destroyer USS Cole over 11 years ago. Apprehended in 2002, he was held by the CIA for four years in secret before his transfer to military custody. U.S. officials brutally tortured Mr. al-Nashiri: he was waterboarded, and threatened with a power drill and handgun next to his head. Sadly, this week's pretrial hearing in his case continues to erode the commission's purported commitment to fairness, transparency, and justice and instead affirms a commitment to GuantÃ¡namo's shameful legacy of injustice.

Yesterday, Mr. al-Nashiri's defense team argued motions challenging the jurisdiction of the military commissions and the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2009 that created this iteration of them. Among the challenges: the act singles out noncitizens for prosecution, which is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. An American citizen who committed the very same or even worse crimes violating the law of war or threatening national security would be tried in federal court. Chief Prosecutor for the military commissions Brig. Gen. Mark Martins circularly maintained that trial in a military commission was appropriate despite this inequality because of the acts al-Nashiri has committed. Nevermind the presumption of innocence.

Judge James Pohl asked the government whether constitutional rights even applied to Mr. Al-Nashiri and other GuantÃ¡namo detainees. Gen. Martins said, unequivocally, "no." His answer, reiterated several times, that Mr. al-Nashiri was not entitled to constitutional protections seemed to confirm that the commissions are set up not for fairness but to guarantee convictions through looser substantive and procedural rules than the Constitution requires.

Mr. al-Nashiri is not the first to be tried in this latest iteration of military commissions, but he is the first defendant in this new version of commissions against whom the government is seeking the death penalty. (There were six capital trials pending in 2008 when President Obama was elected: Mr. Al-Nahshiri and the five 9/11 defendants. Those cases were put on hold and ultimately dismissed after his inauguration, but like Mr. al-Nashiri, the 9/11 defendants have now been charged once more. They will be arraigned on May 5.)

Federal constitutional law has long recognized that death penalty cases are different. When the government seeks the ultimate punishment against a criminal defendant, a court must take extraordinary protections to guard against error. As a staff attorney with the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project, I represent defendants charged with serious, tragic crimes and facing the death penalty in courts across the country. I am no stranger to challenging courtroom environments and public hostility towards my clients. But when I walk into a courtroom, I know that if nothing else, I am armed with the Constitution. The Constitution guarantees that my clients have the right to due process, to be tried by an impartial jury, to confront the witnesses against them, to a speedy trial, and to a reliable capital sentencing proceeding. Most importantly in the case of indigent clients â€“ the only ones the ACLU's CPP represents â€“ defendants are entitled to be equipped with the resources necessary to defend against a death sentence, and to ask for those resources in an ex parte proceeding (in other words, without the prosecution present), so as not to tip off the prosecution about defense strategy. If these rights are not honored at the trial court, I know that my client will be able to challenge constitutional errors on appeal. At the military commission, we seem to have left the Constitution on the mainland.

This week's hearing was also expected to test the circumstances under which military commissions will be held in closed session. Of course, already the sessions are far from open. The few observers granted permission by the government to attend the proceedings in GuantÃ¡namo view the courtroom from an adjacent room through soundproof glass. We hear the proceedings via an audio feed with a 40-second delay. The government has deemed any utterance from a defendant presumptively classified, in order to censor damning evidence of torture and brutal interrogation methods. In fact, "classified" has been specifically defined to include any words about past torture or present conditions of confinement at GuantÃ¡namo. So, if evidence the government wants to keep from the public comes up, a red light goes off and suspends the audio feed for the observers. This is despite the fact that information about torture in CIA custody is already public, and techniques like waterboarding have been admitted by the government.

Mr. al-Nashiri was set to testify yesterday in support of a defense motion challenging his shackling during legal visits. The motion argued that shackling Mr. al-Nashiri during these meetings retraumatizes him, reminding him of the torture he endured at the hands of the CIA. Retraumatization prevents effective attorney-client communication â€“ a critical factor in any case, but even more so in when someone is facing the death penalty, where defense lawyers must ask about sensitive and highly personal evidence that is essential to their representation of a client and may save the client's life.

In anticipation of Mr. al-Nashiri's testimony, the judge heard arguments from counsel about the procedure for closing the courtroom, and in a first for a military commission, the judge allowed a lawyer present on behalf of 10 media companies to argue for openness in the proceedings. Ultimately, the judge dodged the issue by ruling that Mr. al-Nashiri should not be shackled when he meets with his legal team. But the issue of open hearings regarding torture and abuse will undoubtedly surface again soon, in Mr. al-Nashiri's case or in the upcoming military commission proceedings against the five alleged 9/11 perpetrators, over which Judge Pohl will also preside. Torture and abuse should not be covered up, and an important test of these commissions' transparency and fairness will be whether the government is able to censor and keep from the public the torture to which the 9/11 defendants were subjected.

The government is risking the integrity of the possible convictions and death sentences against Mr. al-Nashiri and the five men accused of participating in the 9/11 attacks with this untested and unfair system of justice, where the Constitution may not apply and where the proceedings may be conducted in secret. Our federal courts are well-equipped to handle these cases: the federal government has successfully prosecuted hundreds of terrorism cases in federal court since 9/11, without having to decide novel legal issues at every step and without abandoning the Constitution. In GuantÃ¡namo, we are using a second-class system of justice for the most important capital trials in our country's history. Already we are alone among Western nations in our heavy use of capital punishment. Must we also leave our Constitution behind?

Gold9472

04-13-2012, 08:23 AM

Guantanamo Judge Avoids Ruling On â€˜Tortureâ€™ Testimony

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/uss_cole_bombing_trial_al-nashiri_wouldnt_testify_on_torture.php

Ryan J. Reilly April 11, 2012, 7:57 PM

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA â€” Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was tortured by the United States of America. His lawyers say so. The U.S. government has said so. But whether or not members of the press and the public could hear him testify about his torture â€” from an adjacent room through three panes of glass â€” and listen â€” on a 45-second delay â€” was a matter of debate at Guantanamo Bayâ€™s Camp Justice facility on Wednesday.

Al-Nashiri â€” the man the government alleges planned the attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors and injured dozens in October 2000 â€” walked into a white-walled courtroom surrounded by several layers of barbed wire fences for the first day of pre-trial hearings on the legitimacy and logistics of his military commission trial. The administration announced they would restart military commissions last March, and al-Nashiriâ€™s case could be the first to head to trial later this year.

The biggest open question ahead of Wednesdayâ€™s session was whether al-Nashiri â€” clean shaven and wearing all white â€” would get to testify about his torture in court, and whether that testimony could be made public. The answer? Not today.

Judge Col. James L. Pohl avoiding ruling on the question of whether al-Nashiri would testify, instead making his testimony moot by ruling on behalf of his lawyerâ€™s request to leave him unshackled when they meet with their client.

The question of shackling is key because the 47-year-old Saudiâ€™s defense attorneys say it reminds him of how he was constrained when being held in a CIA â€œblack site.â€

As recounted in a 2004 CIA Inspector General report, a debriefer â€œentered the cell where Al-Nashiri sat shackled and racked the handgun once or twice close to Al-Nashiriâ€™s headâ€ and â€œentered the detaineeâ€™s cell and revved the drill while the detainee stood naked and hoodedâ€ shortly after al-Nashiri was first taken into custody in 2002. Al-Nashiri was transferred from an overseas CIA â€œblack siteâ€ to the Guantanamo Bay facility in 2006.

Lawyers for al-Nashiri wrote in a motion last month that they anticipated that it might be â€œnecessary and appropriate for the accused to show counsel how events occurred.â€ They said they might take a â€œpsychodramatic approachâ€ to the testimony that would allow lawyers to â€œaccess the experiences of others â€” to see things as they saw them and to feel it as they felt it â€” in other words, to truly empathize.â€

The prospect of testimony from al-Nashiri â€” and the likelihood that such a hearing would be conducted in a closed session â€” is what led 10 media companies to send First Amendment lawyer David Schultz down to Guantanamo to argue for the court to be open during the testimony.

This was Schultzâ€™s first trip to Guantanamo and his testimony marked the first known time that a military commission has heard an argument from a non-party.

â€œWe did establish an important precedent â€” that the pubic and the press have the right to be heard,â€ Schultz told TPM after the hearing.

Schultz mentioned publicly available information about the governmentâ€™s treatment of al-Nashiri in court â€” the use of waterboarding, a drill and a gun â€” and said it would be â€œimpossibleâ€ to reach a conclusion that national security concerns should prevent the public from hearing â€œinformation that the whole world knows or can find in two seconds on the Internet.â€

â€œYouâ€™re always going to have some people who think this thing is a sham,â€ Schultz told TPM. â€œBut the general public can only have confidence in the judgments if the system itself is open.â€

The legitimacy of the forum itself was the subject of a separate series of arguments by al-Nashiri lawyer Michel Paradis.

â€œThe intent and purpose of the Military Commissions Act was to deny equal justice,â€ Paradis argued. He argued that the system of justice an individual is placed into â€” military or civilian â€” should not be decided â€œsimply by accident of where they were bornâ€ and that Congress set up the military tribunal system for â€œpolitical self interest and political self interest alone.â€

â€œSeparate is not equal. We do not segregate in the United States anymore, we fought long and hard for that,â€ Paradis said. At one point, he argued that decisions about trying defendants in either military or civilian court would â€œat a certain pointâ€ become â€œoutright forum shopping.â€

The prosecution argued that Congress had a â€œvery rational and legitimate reasonâ€ for setting up two judicial systems.

Judge Pohl seemed inclined to defer to previous decisions about the legitimacy of military tribunals made by higher courts. But Paradisl argued that the fact that the death penalty was in play in this case made it different from previous decisions.

Preliminary hearings in the al-Nashiri case continue on Thursday, though itâ€™s not clear if al-Nashiri will be in attendance.

Defense lawyers asked the judge to order that Guantanamo officials donâ€™t forcibly extract al-Nashiri from his cell if he indicates he doesnâ€™t wish to attend.

Gold9472

04-13-2012, 08:23 AM

Prosecutor Says Reformed Guantanamo Trials Ensure Justice

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=67919

(Gold9472: Crapaganda.)

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

FORT MEADE, Md., April 12, 2012 â€“ The chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba took exception with defense lawyersâ€™ characterizations of proceedings on the base as being done without the protections of the U.S. Constitution.

Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins told a small news conference at the base that the reformed military commissions provide the protections of the U.S. Constitution and will follow the procedures of U.S. federal courts and military courts martials.

â€œAll officials in the federal government have an obligation within their areas of responsibility to help fulfill these requirements, which are among the fundamental guarantees of fairness and justice demanded by our values,â€ Martins said.

Martins spoke at the conclusion of a hearing on motions made for the trial of alleged Cole bombing mastermind Abd al-Rahim Hussein Mohammed Abdu al-Nashiri. The bombing killed 17 U.S. sailors and wounded 39 in Aden, Yemen in October 2000. Al-Nashiri is charged with capital crimes and could be put to death if found guilty. This tinges every decision the commission makes.

Defense motions questioned the prosecution on constitutional grounds, including that the charges violate the equal protection clause, that it was charging him under an ex post facto law, and that it was a bill of attainder. Trial judge Army Col. James Pohl denied all. He further denied a request for all documents given to the defense team be translated into Arabic. There are more than 70,000 pages to date.

The judge granted more time for the defense to present him with a theory of the case, their request for a Yemeni investigator, letters asking for Yemeni evidence and a motion asking for the amount of money and resources the government has expended on this prosecution.

Martins said the scene in the Guantanamo Bay courtroom proved the adversarial nature of American jurisprudence was alive and healthy in the reformed military commissions program.

â€œContrary to dark suggestions of some whose minds appear already made up to oppose military commissions regardless of how they are conducted, these protections are implemented by officers, I submit, are worthy of the public trust,â€ Martins said.

In the news conference, Martins listed the rights Al-Nashiri has. The defendant is innocent until proven guilty. He has the right to present evidence, the right to cross-examine witnesses and compel the appearance of witnesses in his defense. The U.S. government has provided more than $100,000 to fund defense requests, which include a full time investigator, a translator and four lawyers â€“ two military and two civilian.

The al-Nashiri prosecution is complicated, the general said. It is further complicated because the crime was 12 years ago, and in another country. Federal trials have stretched years in similar situations, he said.

â€œThose who state or imply that what you are seeing here would not happen in the federal systems are simply wrong,â€ the general said.

The trials at Guantanamo, while few, are important to the United States and to justice, and are worth every penny invested in them, he said.

â€œNot only must we continue to pursue the truth for the victims of these bombings, but we must also pursue it because that is what justice requires,â€ he said. â€œA civilized and open society facing very real and modern security threats can demand no less.â€

Gold9472

04-13-2012, 08:24 AM

A military trial for alleged 9/11 terrorists is unlikely to lead to justice
Bureaucratic and legal bungles â€“ and torture â€“ have undermined any prospect of a fair trial for the five key GuantÃ¡namo detainees

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/13/military-trial-alleged-9-11-terrorists?newsfeed=true

Nick Fielding
guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 April 2012 06.33 EDT

After almost 10 years of incarceration, US officials have announced that five of the most important prisoners left in GuantÃ¡namo Bay are finally to go on trial in a capital military tribunal where, if found guilty, they are likely to be executed.

By far the most important prisoner is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed â€“ known as KSM â€“ who together with his co-accused Ramzi bin al-Shibh, is widely recognised as the mastermind behind the planning of the 9/11 attacks on America. The others are KSM's nephew Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi. All five men were arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and 2003.

The military tribunal is the latest development in an extraordinarily convoluted and distorted legal saga that has already damaged the prospects of a fair trial for any of the accused. All of these men have been held in secret CIA "black sites" around the world, for months or years on end. KSM, who was captured in March 2003 at the home of a Pakistani military officer in the heart of a military camp in Rawalpindi, was waterboarded 183 times during the almost three-and-a-half years he spent in this maze of secret prisons. Waterboarding is an extreme form of torture which, although it leaves no physical marks, makes the victim believe he is about to drown. Only in September 2006 did KSM arrive at GuantÃ¡namo Bay.

Not surprisingly, he revealed a wealth of information about the way in which the 9/11 attacks were organised, as well as his role in numerous other attacks and plots. In fact, as he first told the Red Cross in October 2006, he provided the information that his interrogators wanted to hear in order to stop the torture.

At his first combatant status review tribunal in 2007 he admitted to an extraordinary catalogue of terrorist attacks, many of which he was responsible for, others merely vague ideas. Those admissions included responsibility for the 9/11 operation "from A to Z", the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, the decapitation of journalist Daniel Pearl, recruiting shoe bomber Richard Reid, the Bali nightclub bombing, a plot to bomb and destroy the Panama Canal, plans to assassinate former US president Jimmy Carter, Pope John Paul II, Bill Clinton and Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, plots to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, the Sears Tower in Chicago, Heathrow airport, Big Ben, the New York Stock Exchange, various nuclear power plants, Nato headquarters in Brussels and numerous other targets, both real and imagined. It was one of the most comprehensive confessions of all time.

In February 2008 the US Department of Defence announced that charges had been sworn against six detainees at GuantÃ¡namo â€“ the same group who were charged a few days ago, plus an Arab who had been sent to join the 9/11 hijackers, but who had been refused entry to the US. The military trial actually began in June 2008, witnessed by 35 journalists in an adjoining room who heard KSM decline legal representation for what was looking increasingly like a show trial.

The proceedings dragged on until December 2008 when, in an unexpected move, all the accused told the military judge they wished to plead guilty. Three months later they issued a response to the nine-main charges against them, dismissing most of the allegations and attempting to justify their actions. They all signed the document as the "9/11 Shura Council". Soon after, the military trial was abandoned.

As these chaotic bureaucratic and legal bungles further undermined any prospect of a fair trial, KSM took the opportunity to refresh his image. He now sought to portray himself as a martyr to justice. Despite his incarceration in GuantÃ¡namo, two new photos of him have appeared, released to his family by the Red Cross. Instead of the image of the scruffy-looking man in white pyjamas taken when he was being arrested, the new images show a smiling man with a great bushy beard, looking more like a guru than a mass murderer. KSM, it seemed, was flourishing.

The next event was yet another disaster for American justice. In November 2009, following pressure from the new Obama administration, it was announced that all five men would be transferred to a prison in New York to be tried in a civilian court. At last it looked as if justice would prevail. But it was not to be. Despite the efforts of the new president, a majority of members of the US Congress were determined that none of the GuantÃ¡namo prisoners should have a civil trial on American soil. In January 2011, in a humiliating act, President Obama was forced to sign the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA), prohibiting the use of government funds to transfer detainees from GuantÃ¡namo to the US mainland.

In April last year, a clearly angry US attorney general, Eric Holder , finally announced that once again, the men were to be tried by a military commission at GuantÃ¡namo. Now that trial is about to start. After claims of torture, rendition, confession, aborted military commission and civilian trial, can anyone expect that justice will be served?

Gold9472

04-17-2012, 09:47 AM

Guantanamo Prepares For Media Storm At Trial Of KSM, 9/11 Conspirators

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/guantanamo_ksm_911_trial.php

Ryan J. Reilly April 16, 2012, 3:50 PM

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA â€” Pentagon officials preparing for next monthâ€™s arraignment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other accused terrorists charged with plotting the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are expecting about 600 journalists to apply for the 60 spaces available for members of the media at Guantanamo Bayâ€™s Camp Justice.

The military has not yet begun accepting credentials requests for the KSM arraignment, which is scheduled to begin on May 5, but one Pentagon public affairs official already received 100 inquires from press.

Last weekâ€™s pre-trial hearings for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the Saudi Arabian man accused of plotting the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, served as a sort of dry run for Guantanamoâ€™s media operation, though the five reporters who attended represented just 1/12th of the 60-person capacity.

This wouldnâ€™t be the first time that KSM and his alleged co-conspirators were arraigned at Guantanamo Bay. Back in the summer of 2008, KSM appeared in court for an initial hearing alongside Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi. Later Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the KSM case would be transferred to federal court before reversing his decision last year following intense opposition from the public and members of Congress. The Pentagon announced the May 5 arraignment as reporters headed to Guantanamo for the al-Nashiri trial were on the tarmac last Tuesday morning.

Having so many reporters at Camp Justice for the KSM trial gives the public affairs staff less flexibility and will likely limit the time reporters get to spend away from their desks at Camp Justiceâ€™s tent camp. Officials say theyâ€™re limited by the number of vans and personnel available to escort media around the rest of the base, as media canâ€™t leave Camp Justice on their own. It could mean fewer trips to Oâ€™Kellyâ€™s, the naval baseâ€™s Irish pub frequented by defense lawyers and military prosecutors, and more ordering in from Guantanamoâ€™s Subway sandwich shop. It might make spur-of-the-moment trips to NEX Navy Exchange â€” the closest thing Guantanamo has to a WalMart â€” a bit less likely.

Military officials say theyâ€™re doing all they can to prepare. An eight-person public affairs detachment from Washington state arrived at Guantanamo a week before reporters so they had some experience handling media before the KSM trial gets underway. They and another public affairs unit are supplementing Guantanamoâ€™s regular 16-person public affairs staff.

â€œWe had specifically asked for these guys to arrive before this hearing so that they had some experience before we went into KSM,â€ Navy Commander Tamsen A. Reese, director of public affairs for Joint Task Force Guantanamo told TPM in an interview at a picnic table in the former airplane hanger that serves as GTMOâ€™s media operations center.

Reese has been in the position for 18 months (a 12-month deployment is typical) and will soon hand over operations to Navy Captain Robert T. Durand. He held the same position from 2006 to 2007 and had to handle a variety of events that brought harsher scrutiny on Guantanamo Bay including prisoner hunger strikes and suicides. He said he jumped at the chance to return.

Members of the media who make the trek down to Guantanamo for the KSM trial will also have to figure out who gets one of 10 available seats in courtroomâ€™s small viewing area.

â€œWe look to the media to decide amongst themselves whoâ€™s going in. Our hope is that the media can sort of figure it out on their own,â€ says Reese. â€œItâ€™s interesting, because in my experience, media who havenâ€™t been here before will want to go into the courtroom at least one time, but the ability to watch on closed circuit television and be able to have their computer and write their stories or communicate via email with their editors or producers gives the journalists more flexibility than if they are sitting in the courtroom alone. But different folks look at it differently.â€

Janet Hamlin, a courtroom sketch artist who covered the previous KSM court appearance, is hoping for a few changes this time around. Since the view from the small viewing room for the press only allows observers a distant profile view of the defendants, sheâ€™s requested to either be placed in the courtroom or have access to all of the video feeds so she can get a good view of all the defendants.

â€œIâ€™m not going to hold my breath,â€ Hamlin told TPM. â€œThe most likely scenario is that Iâ€™ll have access to the monitors,â€ adding that the edited stream only offered â€œglancing viewsâ€ of the suspects. But sheâ€™s not entirely sure if KSM will get to request modifications to his court sketch this time around (he said his nose was too big in Hamlinâ€™s original drawing).

â€œIâ€™m assuming [the lawyers] still have the power to ask me to modify,â€ Hamlin said.

Another major change since the last time KSM was arraigned is the addition of a remote location within the U.S. where press can observe the closed circuit feed. The Pentagon expects the ability for the press to watch the feed from Fort Meade in Maryland might accomodate some reporters who would otherwise want to fly to Guantanamo in person. Victims of the attacks and their families will also be able to watch remotely from Fort Meade and from a location in New York.

â€œThe ability to have the remote sites in Fort Meade and elsewhere is really going to help allow the media to cover it, allow victim family members to watch,â€ Durand told TPM. â€œIt will enhance the transparency of the operation, but it will take some of the logistics pressure off the people here, but still available to those who want to make the trip.â€

Still, reporters who regularly cover Guantanamo think the increased media interest might be overwhelming.

â€œItâ€™s going to be very hard,â€ Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg told TPM on the flight back from the base.

â€œPeople who usually come to Guantanamo are foreign reporters who have no idea what itâ€™s like, or a small band of reporters whoâ€™ve been pretty much â€” I donâ€™t want to say broken down, whatâ€™s the word Iâ€™m looking for â€” pretty much exhausted by the experience,â€ said Rosenberg, a seasoned Guantanamo Bay reporter.

â€œWhat the 9/11 thing will do is bring a lot of fresh faces and big egos and I donâ€™t know how the military is going to be able to manage it,â€ Rosenberg said.

Pentagon officials insist everyone will be treated the same way.

â€œI donâ€™t care if you write for Highlights magazine, Cat Fancy or the National Journal. Once youâ€™re approved for travel, everyone gets treated equally,â€ Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a public affairs officer, told TPM. â€œThere will be no special players.â€

Gold9472

04-17-2012, 09:47 AM

Reporting from GuantÃ¡namo: "Trust Us"

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/reporting-guantanamo-trust-us

Posted by Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, Capital Punishment Project at 5:08pm

This week, I've been in GuantÃ¡namo Bay observing a hearing in the first capital case before this latest iteration of military commissions, that of Abd al-Rahim Hussayn Muhammad al-Nashiri. As the hearing has progressed over the last few days, a recurring theme has surfaced: the military commission system will not provide basic legal protections inherent in every other American courtroom. But, the prosecution says, in essence, not to worry: even with these protections swept aside, you can trust us to do the right thing. As I wrote yesterday, the prosecution â€” and perhaps the judge â€” does not believe the Constitution applies to GuantÃ¡namo prisoners. Chief Prosecutor Brig. Gen. Mark Martins emphasized in a press conference yesterday that the GuantÃ¡namo military commissions will be held consistent with our country's values â€” but apparently just not our constitutional values. In court, Judge James Pohl similarly seems to follow a loose notion of "fundamental fairness" but has so far refused to ground that notion in constitutional law. But trust us.

Gen. Martins has been giving speeches across the country insisting that the military commission system is fair, transparent, and independent. Saying it is so does not make it true, and what I have observed this week is a system that is far from fair, transparent and independent. And if the proceedings truly embodied such principles, surely such a public relations campaign would hardly be necessary.

Yesterday's proceedings involved questions about discovery â€” whether the defense should be allowed to see evidence in the government's possession regarding Mr. al-Nashiri â€” and the resources that would be provided to his defense team. Under the commissions' rules, once a judge decides the government can withhold classified evidence from the defense, the defense can never ask the judge to reconsider his decision, no matter what comes out as the case progresses. Mr. al-Nashiri's defense lawyers argued that such a scheme was unconstitutional; it is unique to the military commissions because the Classified Information Procedures Act, the law that governs the use of classified information in federal courts, does not contain this prohibition. In fact, the federal judge in the Scooter Libby trial allowed reconsideration of just such a decision. Judge Pohl was unwilling to reject the unfair rules as unconstitutional, but offered an ad-hoc workaround that relies not on rules or procedure, but entirely on his discretion. Under his scheme, the defense will not be allowed to ask the judge to reconsider his ruling. Rather, Judge Pohl will allow the defense to file â€” at a later date â€” an amended theory of how it will defend Mr. Al-Nashiri's case and thus make the argument that the previously withheld evidence is necessary to the defense. At that point, the judge could decide on his own whether he should reconsider his prior ruling. Trust us.

The court then turned to the defense's funding requests. In the military commissions system, defense counsel must seek resources to prepare its defense through the Convening Authority â€” a political appointee nominated by the Secretary of Defense to be the final word on charges, select a chief judge (Judge Pohl), appoint the chief prosecutor and hand-pick the jury pool. The defense requested resources to have the evidence given to it by the government â€” or at least portions of it â€” translated into Arabic for Mr. al-Nashiri, who cannot read English. The Convening Authority denied the request. When the defense asked Judge Pohl to order the translation services yesterday, he also denied it, saying Mr. Al-Nashiri had no right to read the evidence against him. In other words, Mr. al-Nashiri is not entitled to the translation of evidence that the government may use to take his life.

The defense also sought funds from the Convening Authority for an investigator to travel to Yemen â€” where the bombing of the USS Cole took place. The Convening Authority denied that request too. The defense took it up with the judge. Though none of the defense lawyers speak Arabic or are able to travel freely to Yemen, the prosecution also opposed the funding for the investigator and even questioned the qualifications of the investigator the defense has chosen. Given that the government has been investigating the alleged offense and Mr. al-Nashiri for over 11 years, with multiple agencies and the military at its disposal, its opposition to funding for the defense to send a temporary investigator to Yemen was outrageous.

As a capital defense attorney with the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project, regularly representing indigent defendants facing the death penalty in courts across the country, I know that such opposition would never be permitted in federal or state courts. The United States Supreme Court recognized long ago that an indigent defendant has a constitutional right to seek resources for his defense before the judge alone, without the prosecution weighing in. To have it otherwise would reveal defense strategy and give the prosecution an unfair advantage. The government, of course, never has to ask permission from the judge when it needs resources â€” and the defense would never have an opportunity to question the government's investigative decisions. Nor is the government restricted in the resources at its disposal. As Gen. Martins admitted yesterday at a press conference following the hearing, even in tough fiscal times, the budget for GuantÃ¡namo prosecutors is virtually unlimited. And there is little doubt that the U.S. government spent whatever it needed to spend to investigate the bombing of the USS Cole.

Fortunately, despite the government's opposition, the judge agreed that such an investigator was necessary. However, under military commissions' rules, the Convening Authority, who actually cuts the checks, is not bound by the judge's ruling. So, it is still far from clear whether the defense will actually get to hire the investigator. But, trust us.

This has been my first trip to GuantÃ¡namo, but in talking to other legal observers, members of the press, and Office of Military Commission personnel, many changes are underway here, as the base prepares for commission proceedings to come â€” not only in Mr. al-Nashiri's case but in the case against the alleged 9/11 perpetrators. Over 100 people connected to the GuantÃ¡namo commissions flew down with us early this week for Mr. al-Nashiri's proceeding alone. In anticipation of the 9/11 proceedings, the base is making efforts to make its visitors more "comfortable." But let's be clear: from a legal and fairness perspective, there is nothing comfortable about the military commission system at GuantÃ¡namo.

We should place our trust in an independent, open, and fair system, grounded in the Constitution â€” like our federal courts. Trusting political â€” or simply fallible human â€” players to "do the right thing" is an experiment that history has repeatedly rejected.

Gold9472

04-19-2012, 08:49 AM

No real justice in Guantanamo
Trying accused terrorists before military commissions won't meet international standards.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-brody-guantanamo-torture-20120419,0,2098341.story

By Reed Brody
April 19, 2012

Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, wearing white prison clothes, seemed by turns amused and bewildered as he sat in a bright room last week during a pretrial hearing at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Nashiri is charged with being a key organizer of Al Qaeda's attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole on Oct. 12, 2000, off the coast of Yemen, which killed 17 U.S. servicemen, as well as of two other attacks. He faces the death penalty if convicted in a trial before a military commission that is scheduled to begin in November.

The Nashiri case is seen as a dry run for the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other alleged planners of the Sept. 11 attacks, who will be arraigned in Guantanamo on May 5. But it is also important in its own right. He is accused of dreadful crimes, but even if he is found guilty, his execution would be a deeply disturbing end to a long ordeal of abuse in an archipelago of secret U.S. prisons around the world.

Nashiri was captured in Dubai in October 2002 and secretly transferred to CIA custody. He was reportedly first taken to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan known as the "Salt Pit," then to another secret jail in Bangkok, Thailand.

A report by the CIA's inspector general details a range of abuses to which Nashiri was subjected, including waterboarding. He was sent on to Poland, where he was, according to the report, threatened with a power drill revved near his head while he was hooded but otherwise naked. His captors also cocked a semiautomatic handgun close to his head as he sat shackled, held him in "standing stress positions" and threatened to sexually abuse his mother in front of him.

In 2003, he was flown out of Poland, presumably to other secret CIA jails. It was not until September 2006 that the United States government acknowledged his secret detention and that he was at that time being held in Guantanamo.

Last week's hearing, which I attended, dealt with, among other things, Nashiri's request that his feet be unshackled during meetings with his attorneys. A select number of observers from nongovernmental organizations were permitted to watch from behind a soundproof glass wall at the back of the courtroom. A video and audio feed was piped in on a 40-second delay â€” enough time to censor any classified information that came up.

Nashiri's lawyers had argued that he was so traumatized by years of being shackled in CIA prisons that having to be shackled now, when he meets his lawyers, brings back the trauma and impairs his ability to help them prepare for his trial. The lawyers wanted Nashiri to take the stand to talk about those experiences, but because that information was classified, the judge was expected to close the hearing. Ten news organizations, including the Miami Herald and the New York Times, filed a petition to keep the hearings open, and their lawyer was allowed to address the commission, setting an important precedent regarding the public's interest in open proceedings.

In the end, the judge rendered the issue moot by approving Nashiri's motion to meet with his lawyers unshackled, without calling him to the stand. The chief prosecutor later made it clear that he would not agree in the future to Nashiri's open-court testimony about his detention. So, though we know some details of Nashiri's treatment, we may never know exactly what was done to him. The CIA actually recorded some of Nashiri's waterboarding, but in 2005 it destroyed the tapes and those involving many other detainees, allegedly for national security reasons.

Nashiri's trial before the Guantanamo military commission raises problems that go far beyond the fact that he was tortured. Despite changes made to the commissions since President Obama was elected, they do not meet international fair trial standards. The Defense Department, for instance, handpicks the military judges and juror pool. And there is a massive inequality between the prosecution and the defense in terms of resources.

The rules permit the prosecution to present summaries of classified information, meaning that the accused and his lawyers see only summaries, not the underlying reports, transcripts and other information on which they are based. While similar protection of classified information is available in U.S. civilian courts, the commission rules also allow the introduction of hearsay. These two rules combined allow prosecutors (even unintentionally) to launder evidence obtained from other detainees by torture because they need only present a written summary of the interrogation, not offer the detainee or the interrogator in person, as a witness, or even disclose their identities.

At the end of last week's hearings, several family members of U.S. servicemen and women killed on the Cole spoke movingly at a news briefing about their quest for justice. They deserve a verdict free from doubt, just as the U.S. needs a trial that is accepted around the world as a fair search for the truth. On both counts, the Guantanamo commissions are likely to fall short.

Gold9472

04-20-2012, 08:42 AM

Guantanamo detainee contests court's secrecy rule

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jtwi5khdMEf3qxRntFoYkjIIPvVA?docId=CNG.6ceaa 635acd17ac8d093c69700cae3ec.381

(AFP) â€“ 9 hours ago

WASHINGTON â€” An accused September 11 conspirator filed a motion challenging a rule that keeps statements by the Guantanamo detainees secret, his lawyer said.

Attorney James Connell called for end to "the presumption of classification" that applies to everything the Guantanamo detainees say.

His client, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, is scheduled to be arraigned May 5 at Guantanamo along with four other accused terrorists.

All statements made by the detainees are reviewed by US military judges for national security implications before they are released publicly.

Asked whether his client would plead guilty or not guilty during his arraignment, Connell said he could not answer because everything his client says is "presumed classified."

"Some of the things that the prisoners say are classified, other parts are actually unclassified but even the parts that are unclassified, we are required to treat as if they are classified," Connell told AFP.

The motion Connell filed on behalf of Ali "tries to open up the situation so things that have nothing to do with national security could be discussed," he said.

"Presumptive classification contradicts both our democracy's need for transparency and its rules for protecting national security. It only serves to hide the truth about the torture these men experienced," Connell said in a statement.

"Under federal law, only information relating to nuclear weapons is presumed to be classified; all other information must be reviewed by a government official... before it can be classified," he said.

The motion, which is scheduled to be discussed at the May 5 hearing, is "part of an overall push to make the military commissions open up a little bit so people can find out what's really going on," Connell told AFP.

Connell's court filing follows a request at a Guantanamo hearing last week by a lawyer acting on behalf of the US media that an accused terrorist's testimony about torture he suffered be made public.

Ali, a Pakistani, is scheduled to be arraigned alongside four other co-defendants.

The five are accused of planning and executing the September 11, 2001 attacks against New York and Washington, as well as the downing of a hijacked airplane in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, which killed a total of 2,976 people.

One of the co-defendants scheduled to be arraigned at the May 5 hearing is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

The charges against the defendants carry a possible death penalty.

Gold9472

04-26-2012, 07:41 AM

Defense Counsel File Motions Closed-Door Military Commission Proceedings

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/04/defense-counsel-file-motions-closed-door-military-commission-proceedings/

By Raffaela Wakeman
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 3:03 PM

Defense counsel for the five alleged 9/11 co-conspirators have filed several motions challenging the closed-door nature of some military commission proceedings.

Although the filings havenâ€™t been released (they need to be reviewed and redacted first), the defense attorneys released two statements regarding them.

The first (http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/2012-04-19-Attorneys-challenge-military-commissions-secrecy.pdf), dated Friday, April 19th, says:
Today defense attorneys for alleged 9/11 logistical co-conspirator Ali Abdul Aziz Ali filed a motion challenging a key secrecy rule at the military commissions. â€œGuantanamo Bay applies a rule that everything its prisoners say is â€˜presumpively classified,â€™â€ said James G. Connell, a DoD civilian representing Ali. â€œPresumptive classification contradicts both our democracyâ€™s need for transparency and its rules for protecting national security. It only serves to hide the truth about the torture these men experienced.â€ The motion is scheduled to be heard at the arraignment on May 5.

The motion argues that presumptive classification violates President Obamaâ€™s 2009 Executive Order governing classification, which includes a presumption that information should not be classified unless it meets strict criteria relating to national security. Under federal law, only information relating to nuclear weaponsâ€”called â€œRestricted Dataâ€â€”is presumed to be classified; all other information must be reviewed by a government official called an â€œoriginal classification authorityâ€ before it can be classified.

The motion will not be available to the public until the military commission has reviewed it and made any redactions it feels necessary.The second (http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/2012-04-24-Attorneys-challenge-closed-door-military-commissions-hearings.pdf), released yesterday, April 24th, says:
Attorneys for the accused 9/11 conspirators have challenged the military commissions practice of conducting closed-door hearings on legal issues. â€œThese men have suffered the worst excesses of secrecy,â€ said James Connell, attorney for alleged logistical supporter Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. â€œThis trial needs to be conducted in the open, where victims of the 9/11 attacks, the media, and the world can see what is happening.â€

A set of motions filed today and Friday challenge so-called â€œ802 conferencesâ€ in which the military officer presiding over the military commission discusses issues with attorneys outside the presence of observers. Although the May 5 arraignment will be the first time the 9/11 defendants have appeared in a military commission since 2009, observers of the USS Cole case have noted that the military commission seems to address a number of issues behind closed doors. Colonel James F. Pohl, the military officer presiding over the USS Cole case, has also detailed himself to the 9/11 case.

Cheryl Bormann, attorney for Walid bin â€˜Attash, contrasted the practice of 802 conferences with the rhetoric of â€œtransparencyâ€ from military prosecutors. â€œThe government is opposed to giving the press and public access to what happens behind closed doors. When the Chief Prosecutor claims the new and improved military commissions are transparent, he must not define transparent the same way we do â€“ meaning, the public gets to see the process. We are disappointed that in a case with this much at stake, the prosecution does not mean what it says. We expect more from a fair system of justice than a series of public relations appearances and talking points from the prosecution.â€

This motion is the latest in a series of challenges to secrecy in the military commissions. Earlier this month, a media coalition challenged a proposed closed hearing about torture in the USS Cole case, but Colonel Pohlâ€™s ruling avoided the issue. Last week, attorneys for Ali Abdul Aziz Ali filed a motion contesting â€œpresumptive classificationâ€ at the military commissions, which requires that all statements of Guantanamo prisoners on any topic be treated as classified. Colonel Pohl is expected to address the two most recent motions at the May 5 arraignment.

Gold9472

04-26-2012, 07:47 AM

How to Try Terrorists

http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/how-to-try-terrorists/

By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
4/25/2012

Adis Medunjanin is shown in this courtroom sketch on day one of his trial in Brooklyn federal court in New York, April 16, 2012.Jane Rosenberg/ReutersAdis Medunjanin is shown in this courtroom sketch on day one of his trial in Brooklyn federal court in New York, April 16, 2012.

Next month, more than nine years after he was captured, then thrown into a secret prison, tortured, and finally moved to Guantanamo Bay, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed will finally go on trial under the military commission system.

No matter how hard the judges and prosecutors try to make this trial legitimate, and Iâ€™m sure they will, I doubt the world will ever see it that way. The trial should be taking place in New York City, as Attorney General Eric Holder proposed. But Congress, in its politicized version of wisdom, refused to let that happen; they passed a law forbidding a federal court trial for any Guantanamo inmate, insisting that military tribunals are tougher, and that itâ€™s simply too dangerous to try terrorists in New York City.

The problem with Congressâ€™s argument is that itâ€™s entirely unsubstantiated. There is no evidence suggesting that civilian courts canâ€™t handle terrorist trials. On the contrary, thereâ€™s ample and mounting evidence proving that they can.

Last month, Mr. Holder pointed out that â€œsince 9/11 hundreds of individuals have been convicted of terrorism or terrorism-related offenses in Article 3 courts and are now serving long sentences in federal prison. Not one has ever escaped custody. No judicial district has suffered any kind of retaliatory attack.â€

In fact, as National Public Radio reported yesterday, there is a terrorism trial going on right nowâ€”in Brooklyn, of all places. One of the three men charged with plotting to blow up the subway system in 2009 is facing life in prison without the possibility of parole. (The other two pleaded guilty already.) Amazingly enough, there is no hue and cry.

There is no good reason to believe that the criminal justice system can handle an alleged terrorist who plotted to destroy the subway, but not an alleged terrorist who plotted to destroy the World Trade System. No good reason. The obvious bad reason is politics. Opposing the Mohammed trial was a publicity bonanza for tough-on-terrorism Republicans and a bipartisan group of cowardly members of the New York Congressional delegation.

The secondary bad reason is torture. If the Mohammed trial had taken place in federal court, details about his treatment might have become public, embarrassing lawmakers who either supported or turned a blind eye to prisoner abuse under President George W. Bush, and shaming President Obama, who has done nothing to bring his predecessor to account.

Gold9472

04-29-2012, 08:03 AM

9/11 judge has handled tough cases before
The judge presiding over the trial of the five men accused of orchestrating the 9/11 attacks is a no-nonsense jurist who takes on the toughest cases himself.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/28/2773674/911-judge-has-handled-tough-cases.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

When President George W. Bush proposed razing Iraqâ€™s Abu Ghraib prison in 2004, this American Army judge declared it a crime scene and forbade its demolition. When five years later President Barack Obama asked the GuantÃ¡namo war court to freeze all proceedings, the same judge refused the brand-new commander-in-chiefâ€™s request.

Heâ€™s Col. James L. Pohl, who has appointed himself to preside at the war crimes trial of the five men accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks.

Itâ€™s not that Pohl is unaware of rank after three decades in the Army. Itâ€™s simply not relevant in this colonelâ€™s court.

Hereâ€™s how he scolded a prosecutor when the prison commander, an admiral, was late for court to testify after lunch recess in January: â€œWitnesses should be waiting either in the trailer at the back or outside,â€ the judge bristled, â€œand I really donâ€™t care what their rank is.â€

A soldier since the â€™80s and a judge since 2000, Pohl has had judicial oversight of some of the most notorious Army cases of the post-Sept. 11 era.
He presided at the trials of nine soldiers found guilty of abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
He decided that U.S. Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hassan should get a death-penalty trial for the 2009 shooting spree that killed 13 soldiers and wounded dozens more at Fort Hood, Texas.
In September, however, he found the opposite at a show-cause hearing for Army Sgt. John Russell. Unlike Hassan, Pohl ruled, Russell had â€œan undisputed mental disease or defectâ€ that made it â€œinappropriateâ€ to pursue a capital case for allegedly killing five troops at the combat stress center at Iraqâ€™s Camp Liberty in May 2009.
Pohl also presided at the so-called â€œmercy killingâ€ trial of an Army captain, a tank commander, who killed a critically wounded insurgent in May 2004, and was captured on an aerial droneâ€™s videocam doing it.Now, at a moment when most 60-year-old colonels are retiring from service, Pohl is chief military commissions judge, and has chosen to take on two of the most high-profile trials of his career: the 9/11 trial, and the trial of a man who allegedly engineered al Qaidaâ€™s 2000 USS Cole bombing.

Each case seeks the death penalty. Each is to be heard by a military commission, the tribunals that Bush had created after Sept. 11 and Obama ordered reformed upon taking office.

Saturday, Pohl will face off for the first time with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who bragged that he masterminded 9/11 for al Qaida â€” wading into the case thatâ€™s been a lightning rod for criticism that the court was created to cover up torture.

Serious about the law, but not himself
â€œAll judges should be like him,â€ says Indiana Supreme Court Justice Steve David, a retired Army colonel.

Pohl â€œtakes what he does very seriously but not himself. He is fair and firm with a great sense of humor and a keen mind. If I were prosecuting or defending, he would be a great choice for judge.â€

Heâ€™s by far the most experienced military judge currently in the Army, adds retired Marine Lt. Col. Guy Womack, a veteran military defender of Pohl courts martial from the Green Zone in Iraq, Germany and the United States, notably the Abu Ghraib case.

There, Pohl caused a mini-stir by refusing a guilty plea by Pfc. Lynndie England, the soldier photographed with a detainee on a leash. At her hearing, another soldier testified that England was ordered to pose for that picture, casting doubt on her admission of conspiracy. Pohl ordered a trial. She was found guilty.

Womack also described Pohl as one of the militaryâ€™s most methodical and careful crafters of judicial rulings to make sure they stand up to appellate scrutiny, a skill set he likely acquired in the early 1990s while working at the government appellate division in Falls Church, Va., defending Army convictions.

When he got the Abu Ghraib case, said Womack, Pohl kept â€œall of them, which is typicalâ€ â€” a practice Pohl has repeated at GuantÃ¡namo by handling all the trials of the former CIA captives.

Womack called Pohlâ€™s judicial style â€œdictatorial,â€ and said the judge preferred to meet defense and prosecution attorneys in chambers, out of earshot of the public and off the record, before each day to map out how the session would proceed.

Of the 9/11 trial, said Womack, â€œCol. Pohl would be the judge of choice for this case either because he doesnâ€™t want to be reversed, or because he wants to mean well. You need a strong judge; a weak judge would never get it done.â€

At the same time, he has shunned the spotlight.

Pohl wouldnâ€™t be interviewed for this profile.

He travels incognito, in jeans and polo shirt, no colonelâ€™s uniform for him. And he has stood in line to check in for the war court charter flight from Andrews Air Force Base undetected by reporters, legal observers, enlisted troops, even some lawyers going to GuantÃ¡namo, too.

An ex-Army prosecutor calls him â€œego-less.â€ David calls him â€œhumble,â€ and, oddly for a man so private, â€œsomeone that could do those commercials for Dove soap for men. He is very comfortable in his skin!â€

Omitted from Pohlâ€™s terse court biography is that he was sworn in as a judge on May 19, 2000, after completing the Armyâ€™s â€œMilitary Judge Courseâ€ with perfect scores on his final exams and graded practical exercises. That makes him the longest serving judge currently in the U.S. military. His biography also does not mention that heâ€™s been retained past his retirement date, Oct. 1, 2010, and serves in a special status that requires renewal each year.

At GuantÃ¡namo, itâ€™s hard to spot him around the base, where he mostly splits his time between the court and his quarters. On a sticky evening in April, military lawyers donned crisp uniforms and civilians put on suits and ties to climb a hill to the old tribunal building and meet the judge in his chambers.

They found Pohl in jeans and loafers, no socks, and a pink sports shirt.

By gavel-down the next morning, he was in his Class Bs, the new Army uniform with a gold stripe down the trousers, topped by a black robe â€” commissions business attire.

Sometimes, you can see him at dinner in a corner booth at Oâ€™Kellyâ€™s pub. But, unlike the lawyers and reporters, who mingle and make small talk, he keeps the company of his staff, and he doesnâ€™t linger at the bar.

Judicial independence
Judge Pohl comes to the 9/11 case from the peculiar position of having been passed over for promotion to general and retained past retirement, meaning â€œheâ€™s got nobody he has to please,â€ says retired Lt. Col. Victor M. Hansen, who spent 20 years as an Army lawyer and now teaches at New England Law School.

Hansen says Pohl has the judicial independence to throw out a case for insufficient evidence, no matter how high profile. â€œHe would not bat an eye, and sleep like a baby that night.â€

GuantÃ¡namoâ€™s death penalty cases present Pohl with grave issues in a still-evolving system.

CIA torture is alleged â€” some of the accused were waterboarded, threatened at gunpoint, sleep deprived, hung by their wrists, had their families threatened. A jury of U.S. military officers decides guilt or innocence, life or death. Itâ€™s Pohlâ€™s job to decide what charges go to the jury and to make sure no evidence derived from abuse or worse is used at trial.

Pohl has yet to tip his hand on what heâ€™ll do if heâ€™s confronted with proof that U.S. agents tortured a captive. By international law, itâ€™s a war crime.

He has told defense lawyers itâ€™ll be their job to instruct him on how to regard the treatment, what rules apply, and itâ€™ll be his job â€œto follow the law and the preferences given to me by counsel and as I interpret it.â€

Hansen predicts that Pohl â€œwill take the prosecution through the wringerâ€ to make sure no â€œderivative evidence from coerced confessions comes in.â€

Earlier in their careers, Hansen was an Army prosecutor who worked opposite Pohl, who was taking a turn as defense attorney, typical of the Army legal career track. Hansen predicts the judge will be â€œtough on both sidesâ€ at the 9/11 trial.

â€œHeâ€™s lived as a defense counsel in the Army, when youâ€™ve got the whole prosecution against you. And so heâ€™s very good on keeping the governmentâ€™s feet to the fire.â€

Lawyers whoâ€™ve watched Pohl for years say he sweats the details, and demands the same of those who come to his court.

Privacy, wry wit
Pohlâ€™s an intensely private man.

Friends likewise declined to answer the most innocuous human interest questions. Not even what he does when Army plays Navy, a football rivalry thatâ€™s a rite.

Public records show that James Lancaster Pohl earns $10,557 a month plus a housing allowance. He turns 61 next month.

He has served a stint in Korea, at least five years in Germany and is now based at Fort Benning in Georgia, where he registered as a voter in September 2008.

Heâ€™s voted once since â€” on Nov. 4, 2008, the historic elections that put the first African American in the White House.

Heâ€™s a 1974 graduate of UCLA, where records show he got a bachelor of science degree in psychology. He went up the road to Malibuâ€™s Pepperdine University to get his law degree in 1978, and was admitted to the California Bar after Thanksgiving that year.

Several friends mentioned his hilarious sense of humor, which you only glimpse at court.

Once, a defense attorney invoked the estimate that it costs $800,000 a year per GuantÃ¡namo detainee and called it â€œa monument to waste.â€

Pohl retorted: â€œLetâ€™s say it is robustly resourced.â€

When a Saudi in his court pulled out a poster showing Obamaâ€™s pledge to close GuantÃ¡namo, the judge dryly asked the manâ€™s attorney whether this should be marked as evidence.

â€œFor as many big cases as heâ€™s had, that heâ€™s tried, the man really is ego-less,â€ said former Army Maj. Christopher Graveline, who prosecuted the Abu Ghraib case and left the military in 2006. â€œItâ€™s never about him, itâ€™s about doing the process and trying to reach a fair result.â€

So when Pohl was holding hearings in Baghdad and President Bush remarked back home that the prison should be demolished, the judge ruled for defense attorneys that the place needed protection.

â€œHe gave a restraining order to the president and didnâ€™t bat an eyelash,â€ said Graveline, who called it unprecedented and seemed genuinely dumbfounded by the order even now. â€œIt wasnâ€™t like a chest thumping thing for him. He said, â€˜This is a crime scene and weâ€™re going to allow them to take a look at it.â€™ â€

In the same hearing Pohl ordered numerous officers in the military chain of command, notably the Central Commandâ€™s chief, Army Gen. John Abizaid, to undergo questioning by defense lawyers trying to make the case that the guards were following policy by posing detainees for humiliating photos. (They werenâ€™t and all the soldiers were convicted.)

â€œI was shocked,â€ Graveline said. â€œI was a captain at the time. I had to go back and tell my boss!â€

The judge drew the line, however, when lawyers asked to question Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Stephen Carbone, his undersecretary for intelligence.

Pohl ruled the defense had not drawn a clear enough line to the political hierarchy to merit a subpoena. But, he told them, if they could make a better case for it later, heâ€™d reconsider the request â€” not unlike what heâ€™s been telling defense lawyers in the USS Cole case when their motions fail.

It was his handling of the Cole case that confounded the freshly minted Obama administration.

Just hours in office, Obama sent word to the Pentagon that he was suspending the trials at GuantÃ¡namo to review all the cases.

Obama had campaigned on a promise to close the prison in Cuba, and prosecutors filed motions to delay the arraignment of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, whoâ€™d been waterboarded by the CIA.

Bush-era lawyers approved death-penalty charges in the dwindling days of the administration, and served Nashiri on Christmas Eve. A statutory 30-day speedy trial clock was ticking.

And Pohl ruled against the new president.

â€œThe Commission is bound by the law as it currently exists not as it may change in the future,â€ he wrote. A continuance, he added, would â€œnot serve the interests of justice.â€

The Pentagon had an out: It could withdraw the charges, without prejudice, and preserve the option to try Nashiri later. A Defense official ultimately did that. But not before a mini-maelstrom questioned Pohlâ€™s motives.

Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, blamed Bush administration holdouts for â€œexploiting ambiguities in President Obamaâ€™s executive order as a strategy to undercut the presidentâ€™s unequivocal promise to shut down GuantÃ¡namo.â€ Former USS Cole commander Kirk S. Lippold countered that the judge had delivered â€œa victory for the 17 families of the sailors who lost their lives on the USS Cole over eight years ago.â€

An online bulletin board for the military law community posted the development with the headline, â€œArmy Judge Pohl Sticks it to Obama Administrationâ€

Lawyers who had worked with the judge weighed in, and disagreed.

Pohl had applied the law, as written, to the government motion and could not find a reason to grant it. â€œOn its face, the request to delay the arraignment is not reasonable,â€ he had ruled.

Classic Pohl, it reflects the judgeâ€™s penchant for noting the political and then arguing itâ€™s irrelevant.

At a hearing weeks after Obama was elected, but before he took office, Pohl announced the obvious:

â€œThis court is aware that on Jan. 20 there will be a new commander-in-chief, which may or may not impact on these proceedings.â€ Meantime, he advised, everyone should stay focused â€œunless and until a competent authority tells us not to.â€

GuantÃ¡namo has a court like no other. It gets turned off and on by a charter flight carrying staff, and follows its own rulebook, not the Uniform Code of Military Justice used to try American soldiers. In between court sessions, Pohl issues instructions by email. Heâ€™s announced that heâ€™ll accompany Nashiri prosecutors and defense lawyers to Yemen this summer, as deposition officer overseeing sworn testimony from Yemenis who canâ€™t be subpoenaed to the war court in Cuba.

â€œLocation does not matter to Judge Pohl,â€ said Graveline. â€œI know heâ€™s gone to Afghanistan, heâ€™s gone to Iraq â€” in that sense, heâ€™s very Army.â€ Heâ€™s held court at a forward operating base in Baghdadâ€™s Sadr City, the mostly Shiite slum that often simmered with anti-American unrest.

Once, during an Abu Ghraib hearing, the courtroom building shook with the thud of insurgent mortars striking inside Camp Victory in Baghdad. Pohl told everyone â€œto stop in placeâ€ for a few moments; the attack over, he ordered court to resume.

For next weekâ€™s hearing, the Pentagon is bringing up to 60 reporters.

Pohlâ€™s made clear from the bench that heâ€™s a proponent of transparency but will close the court if the rules require it.

â€œI donâ€™t think he worries about the media scrutiny or the military scrutiny,â€ said Hansen. â€œBut he doesnâ€™t want to make a bad ruling or a rash ruling.â€

Plus, said Hansen. â€œHeâ€™s certainly not afraid to ruffle feathers, to call it like he sees it and not necessarily worry about the long-term consequences.â€

At the end of the day, those who know him say, Pohl will play the role of referee at GuantÃ¡namo through the prism of three decades of service to the Army that honors judicial independence guided by what the rules created by Congress and the White House require.

Says Graveline, the Abu Ghraib prosecutor: â€œJudge Pohl knows what the law is â€” thatâ€™s military law and U.S. law â€” and he follows the law. Thereâ€™s always evolving areas of law, but we try to analogize it to bedrock principles of justice, and it always goes back to, is this a fair process?â€

Defense attorney Womack, who argued opposite Graveline, says that Pohl is capable of delivering that kind of justice. â€œHe knows the law. He has a strong personality. And you canâ€™t have referees that vacillate.â€

Gold9472

04-29-2012, 08:08 AM

Military to show GuantÃ¡namo proceedings at 4 U.S. bases
First responders will get their own New York City screening room to watch the 9/11 trial at Guantanamo. The general public can only go to one site, at Fort Meade, Md., to see a closed-circuit broadcast of the accused 9/11 plotters charged with war crimes

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/28/2772983/military-to-show-guantanamo-proceedings.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

Firefighters and cops who raced to the burning trade World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001 will watch in one room at a Brooklyn Army post while 9/11 victims will watch from another. Media, family members and members of the public can watch on three separate screens at Fort Meade in Maryland.

For next weekâ€™s unusual Saturday military commissions arraignment at GuantÃ¡namo of five men accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon has put four U.S. military bases into service â€” all on the East Coast.

Friday, the Pentagon published an order by Army Col. James L. Pohl, the chief of the GuantÃ¡namo war court, to open viewing sites for the May 5 arraignment â€œdue to the serious nature of the crimes alleged and the historic nature of military commissions.â€

In it, Pohl authorized a total of eight viewing sites set up for different categories of spectators authorized to watch via closed-circuit TV feed when Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged 9/11 accomplices are brought into the GuantÃ¡namo court.

All five are accused of organizing, training and funneling funds to the hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001, and could face the death penalty if convicted at trial.

Two of the sites wonâ€™t be ready in time, so the viewings break down this way:

â€¢ Properly credentialed family members who lost relatives in the 9/11 attacks can watch at Fort Devens in Massachusetts, Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, Joint Base McGuire Dix Lakehurst in New Jersey and Fort Meade in Maryland. Those with credentials signed up through website notices to 9/11 families and have already been vetted. (Five 9/11 family members will to travel to GuantÃ¡namo, each with a companion, to watch from a spectator gallery. The Defense Department choose them by lottery, though they have not been publicly identified.)

â€¢ Reporters who signed up with the Pentagon Office of Public Affairs can watch at Fort Meade, the site closest to the Pentagon, on a separate screen than the one provided for victims. The judge approved a second media viewing site at an unspecified â€œExecutive Branch Federal Buildingâ€ in Washington, D.C. But a government official said Friday that the Washington site has not been set up. (The Pentagon also is providing seats in the courtroom at GuantÃ¡namo and a closed-circuit feed to 60 reporters and support staff at GuantÃ¡namoâ€™s court compound, Camp Justice.)

â€¢ First responders get their own screen. New York police, firefighters and other emergency workers who raced to the burning World Trade Center on 9/11, but didnâ€™t lose relatives, donâ€™t meet the Pentagonâ€™s definition of victim family members. So Pohl approved the establishment of a separate screening site in Manhattan.

Itâ€™s still being set up, said Fort Hamiltonâ€™s spokeswoman, Alison Kohler. In the meantime, theyâ€™ll get a separate screen at Fort Hamilton, in a â€œmulti-purpose-roomâ€ that can seat 460 people and accommodate 150 more in overflow space. Victim families will get the base auditorium that seats 500.

Fort Hamilton is an active military base, Kohler noted, adding that all visitors and their vehicles will be searched. Itâ€™s also home to a special anti-terror unit, called a Civil Support Team.

Some of the Pentagon-paid lawyers whoâ€™ve been assigned to defend the five men are arguing for even greater transparency of the actual trial.

â€œWe want it on C-SPAN,â€ defense attorney James Connell III said from GuantÃ¡namo, where heâ€™s filing motions on behalf of Mohammedâ€™s nephew, who is accused as a conspirator in the attacks for wiring money to some of the 9/11 hijackers.

Wider viewership, Connell argued, might gain more understanding of the diverse roles that the five accused allegedly played in the attacks. In the case of Connellâ€™s client, whoâ€™s known as Ammar al Baluchi, â€œI think if people understand more about him, theyâ€™d be less likely to say â€˜Hey this low-level guy deserves the death penalty.â€™ â€

Attorney General Eric Holder had first decided to hold the 9/11 trial in Manhattan, with a civilian jury hearing the case at the U.S. District Court. Congress blocked that plan through legislation. Holder ultimately authorized the Defense Department to hold the trial by military commission, a jury of U.S. military officers.

Gold9472

04-30-2012, 09:22 PM

US to air 9/11 hearing from Guantanamo at 4 bases in Northeast, rather than planned 6 spots

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/us-to-show-sept-11-hearing-from-guantanamo-at-4-bases-in-northeast/2012/04/30/gIQAiTj9rT_story.html

By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, April 30, 4:48 PM

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico â€” The arraignment of the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks and four other Guantanamo Bay prisoners will be broadcast to only six sites at four military bases in the U.S. Northeast, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday.

A military judge had authorized closed-circuit TV at eight sites in six locations but not all of those spots will be ready for Saturdayâ€™s arraignment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants on charges of helping to plan and carry out the attacks, Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale said.

Families of people killed in the attacks can view the proceedings at Fort Hamilton in New York City; Joint Base McGuire Dix in Lakehurst, New Jersey; and Fort Devens, Massachusetts.

Firefighters and other emergency services personnel who responded to the attacks as well as relatives of the first-responders who were killed can view the proceedings at a separate facility at Fort Hamilton, Breasseale said.

Viewing sites for the general public and media will be at Fort Meade, Maryland.

A planned Fort Meade viewing site for family members of victims wonâ€™t be ready in time for Saturdayâ€™s hearing and an additional site in the Washington area is still under consideration, the spokesman said.

Mohammed and his co-defendants are expected to be arraigned on charges that include terrorism and murder. They could get the death penalty if convicted.

Gold9472

05-01-2012, 11:01 AM

Gitmo trials â€˜not the U.S. at its bestâ€™

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/30/2776177/gitmo-trials-not-the-us-at-its.html

BY DONALD J. GUTER
dguter@stcl.edu

I was in the Pentagon on 9/11. One moment I was chairing a meeting of senior Navy Judge Advocates, the next moment we were all viewing breaking news coverage of the World Trade Center attacks. Then the building shook. American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon. One of my Judge Advocate officers, Mari-Rae Sopper, was on the plane.

For me, the 9/11 attacks are personal. So is the need to bring those responsible to justice. This week, more than a decade after 9/11, I will be sitting a short distance away from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other al Qaida defendants as they stand trial for their alleged involvement in the attacks.

Unfortunately, this will not be a trial in the hallowed U.S federal court system but a tribunal in the beleaguered military commission system at GuantÃ¡namo Bay, Cuba.

There has not been, and will not be, a more important 9/11 trial. As a former Judge Advocate General of the Navy, as an American, I want it to be fair, legitimate and exemplary. Likewise, I want the verdict to be credible, certain and, perhaps above all, final. But the military commission system is still largely untested and constitutional questions remain. When compared to the solid history and foundation of our federal court system, the commissions leave us with only unfounded hope that they will be able to bear the weight of this trial.

Given some politiciansâ€™ insistence that KSM be tried at Gitmo, you would think the military commissions system had a sterling record. In fact, bogged down by ever-changing rules, it has held a paltry seven trials, which have led to five plea bargains.

The impact of the trial will be felt far and wide. The world will be watching, and the system of justice on display will not be the United States at its best. Al Qaida will be watching, too. They will see their members facing wartime trials in a system designed specifically for them. To deny them the martyrdom they seek, the United States should be treating them as common criminals, not warriors.

The constitutionality of the system itself is in doubt. Last month, in a hearing for a separate military commission at GuantÃ¡namo , a lawyer for Abd al Rahim Hussayn Muhammad al Nashiri credibly argued that the system violates the Equal Protection Clause because only noncitizens are subjected to it. Furthermore, some charges in the 9/11 trial arenâ€™t war crimes, making it unclear whether the commissions even have jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court declared the original military commissions unconstitutional; it has not yet ruled on the most recent incarnation. If the Court were to rule that it violates the U.S. Constitution, it would call into question every verdict it has produced.

In response to 9/11, the U.S. government took a number of steps that treated American ideals and the rule of law as liabilities instead of the assets that they are. One of the countryâ€™s major mistakes was to create a separate, inferior system of justice to try foreign terrorist suspects. Now, as the war in Afghanistan winds down, so too should this second tier system of justice. The country should shut down Gitmo and the military commissions along with it.

Itâ€™s not as if we donâ€™t have a proven alternative. The U.S. federal courts have held hundreds of terrorism trials since 9/11, resulting in more than 400 convictions, all the while protecting rights and setting an example of justice before the world. This is the time-tested system the U.S. government is forgoing out of misguided security concerns, fear, and political calculation.

A court system with credibility and a record of success will be nowhere near when I walk into the military tribunal tasked with trying the alleged masterminds of 9/11. Letâ€™s hope that the trial and the verdict hold up better â€” in fact and in perception â€” than we have any reason to believe they will.

Victims of 9/11 have waited more than 10 years for justice. They shouldnâ€™t be made to wait even longer.

Gold9472

05-02-2012, 09:51 AM

Al Hawsawi Files Motion to Dismiss

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/05/al-hawsawi-files-motion-to-dismiss/

By Raffaela Wakeman
Tuesday, May 1, 2012 at 2:38 PM

In the 9/11 military commission case, counsel for Mustafa al Hawsawi has filed a motion to dismiss, which was joined by all of his co-defendants in the trial. Here is the press release that came from al Hawsawiâ€™s counsel, along with the redacted motion.

The text of the press release reads as follows:
Last week, lawyers for Mustafa al-Hawsawi filed a motion, joined by all 9-11 defendants, which asserts that the Military Court lacks authority to proceed with trial due to critical omissions in the past year during the death penalty authorization period, known in the commissions as the pre-referral stage.

The defective referral motion highlights how defense efforts to develop â€œsignificant mitigating factorsâ€ have been thwarted by the ongoing deliberate and systematic interference with attorney client communications. The rules require the charging authority, Mr. Bruce McDonald, to consider those factors before authorizing a death penalty prosecution. Defense preparation efforts have also been crippled due to the lack of access to classified evidence and essential resources, such as cleared personnel, Arabic translators and investigators.

â€œThe odds continue to be silently and deliberately stacked against a fair process. These men are represented on paper only, not in substance. We have been stripped of our ability to communicate and denied essential resources to carry out our duties,â€ said Commander Walter Ruiz, a military lawyer representing Mr. Hawsawi.

Gold9472

05-03-2012, 06:56 AM

9/11 Mastermind Says He Wants to Die; Gitmo Trial May Be His Chance

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/05/ksm-trial-death/

By Spencer Ackerman
May 2, 2012

A year after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the United States has another opportunity on the horizon to take down a major terrorist figure, albeit in a much different way. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, will finally begin a military commission for the murders of 3,000 Americans at Guantanamo Bay on Saturday morning, when heâ€™ll appear at a Guantanamo Bay courtroom for his belated arraignment. But even as the U.S. boasts about the justice its reformed military trials will dispense, those trials might ironically give the man known as KSM the conclusion he sees as a final victory: death.

Itâ€™s been a long time since KSM was last in court. In 2008, during an arraignment for a commission that ultimately got cancelled, he quickly pled guilty to multiple murder counts. â€œThis is what I want,â€ he told the court, in English. â€œIâ€™m looking to be martyr for long time.â€

That case was interrupted for a variety of procedural reasons, and KSM never got his chance. In the intervening years, Congress and the Obama administration reformed the controversial military trials â€” making it easier to seek capital punishment, by providing detainees with so-called â€œlearned counselâ€ lawyers specifically skilled at death-penalty cases, which makes such sentences less likely to be reversed on appeal. Last month, after flipping a key detainee to testify against KSM, the government brought charges against KSM and four alleged accomplices for the 9/11 plot. â€œIf convicted,â€ the Defense Department clarified, â€œthe five accused could be sentenced to death.â€

However much the commission procedures have changed, KSMâ€™s ambitions probably havenâ€™t. â€œHe wants to die because it fits into his massively egotistical narrative,â€ says Josh Meyer, author of the recent book The Hunt for KSM. â€œHeâ€™s like Napoleon. Wasting away in a cell is not his style. Going out in a bang of glory is.â€

That calculation means that the 12 U.S. military officers who will decide if a convicted KSM lives or dies will face more than a narrow legal choice. Theyâ€™ll also, however unfairly for them, have the burden of a policy choice. Should KSM be put to death, it might simultaneously provide a measure of closure for the families of his victims and allow al-Qaidaâ€™s remaining acolytes to portray him as a martyr.

That burden has weighed on military lawyers for years. Some think that KSMâ€™s chief prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, should forgo seeking the death penalty.

â€œThe worst thing we could do to KSM is to keep him alive for as long as possible while making him totally irrelevant,â€ says retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis, one of Martinsâ€™ predecessors as chief commissions prosecutor. â€œNot mattering matters more to him than dying. Iâ€™d hate to see us give him what he wants.â€

That ultimate decision is likely to be a very long time in coming. Even if KSM pleads guilty on Saturday, his lawyers will doubtlessly pursue a number of procedural gambits to tie the commission up ahead of the abbreviated trial that will precede sentencing. If his lawyers enter whatâ€™s called a reserved plea, theyâ€™ll start filing motions to exclude evidence ahead of trial that will mean months, if not years, before the trial can actually begin. Pentagon officials talk of a process that, whatever happens on Saturday at Guantanamo Bay, will not be resolved in 2012.

But before a sentence is handed down, KSM wants something else: a soapbox. Heâ€™s after â€œan opportunity to tell the world, again, what he thinks, why he did it, how heâ€™s really the good guy and a commanding general on par with George Washington, leading an insurgent army fighting the oppressive forces of tyranny and evil,â€ Meyer says. His lawyers have an incentive to stopping any such outburst â€” it will alienate the panel of officers who will decide KSMâ€™s fate â€” and the judge in the commission, Army Col. James A. Pohl, has wide latitude to shut him up.

But even if KSM gets either his soapbox or the martyrdom he seeks, the global terrorist movement may not be so captivated. â€œThis generation of al-Qaida supporters generally know that he played an important role in 9/11, but since al-Qaida never profiled him in its videos, thereâ€™s no in-depth knowledge about the man nor does the global movement hold strong feelings of solidarity with his plight, as they do with men like the Blind Sheikh or Abu Qatada,â€ says Jarret Brachman, author of Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice.

â€œI would anticipate that a death sentence would provoke a flurry of the predictable â€˜we will avenge his deathâ€™ statements from across the al-Qaida world,â€ Brachman adds, â€œbut I donâ€™t foresee it being a very meaningful or enduring rallying flag for al-Qaida.â€

Being forgotten might be the biggest fear for KSM, a well-known narcissist. His original idea for 9/11 wasnâ€™t to knock down the World Trade Center. It was to hijack a plane, land it on a U.S. runway, and then emerge to deliver a diatribe about the perfidies of U.S. foreign policy.

â€œWe used to joke that we should charge all of his co-accused as death-penalty eligible, but not him, just to piss him off,â€ says Morris. â€œThe thought that others are more significant than he is and deserve death, but not him, would annoy KSM to no end.â€

Gold9472

05-03-2012, 10:47 PM

9/11 families prepare for Guantanamo arraignment

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/05/03/911_families_prepare_for_guantanamo_arraignment/

By Meghan Barr
Associated Press / May 3, 2012

NEW YORKâ€”It has been a year of milestones for the families of those killed on Sept. 11, with the death of Osama Bin Laden followed by the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Now another painful chapter is set to begin: the prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of 9/11.

Victims' relatives will gather at military bases along the East Coast on Saturday to watch on closed-circuit TV as Mohammed and four co-defendants are arraigned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they will eventually be tried in front of a U.S. military tribunal. The trial is probably at least a year away.

For some, the arraignment is a long-awaited moment in a case fraught with years of frustrating delays. For others, watching the proceedings holds no appeal at all. They simply want to move on with their lives.

Jim Riches, a retired firefighter from Brooklyn who pulled his firefighter son's body out of the rubble at ground zero, said he plans to watch from New York City's Fort Hamilton.

"I think it will give the whole world a look at how evil these men are and that they deserve what they get," he said. "I think it's going to be very upsetting for some families who haven't seen their act before. I'm sure they'll be walking out crying."

The vast majority of victims' families have never seen Mohammed, aside from a widely disseminated photograph of a disheveled-looking Mohammed in a white T-shirt immediately after his arrest. A small number of them have traveled to Guantanamo and seen him there. Five of them, chosen by lottery, will fly there on Friday to see the arraignment in person.

Mohammed and the others are expected to be arraigned on charges that include terrorism and murder. They could get the death penalty if convicted in the attacks that sent hijacked airliners slamming into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people were killed.

"I just hope for the sake of the 3,000 families that they get what they deserve," Riches said. "Because it's not enough. They were broken into pieces."

It's unclear exactly how many families will watch at military bases. At Fort Meade, between Baltimore and Washington, organizers are preparing for about 150 members of the public. A spokesman for Joint Base McGuire Dix in Lakehurst, N.J., said very few people were planning to go, though he declined to give a number.

Barbara Minervino of Middletown, N.J., whose husband, Louis, an executive at an insurance and investment firm, died in the twin towers, said she will be attending a happy occasion on Saturday instead: a Communion party for a member of the family.

"We're looking toward living," she said. "We're looking toward the future and not the past."

Mary Fetchet, who lost her son Brad at the trade center and founded the support group Voices of Sept. 11, said she has a prior engagement and can't watch arraignment but will be closely following the trial.

Fetchet surveys the 9/11 survivors every year and said she found that they are dealing with the tragedy in vastly different ways, even within the same family.

"Some people will follow it on media reports, and some people just want to put it behind them," she said. "I think the trial is another roadblock in them being able to move forward. I think the thing you have to realize is that everybody goes through it differently, and you just have to respect what the needs of each individual are."

There's a sense of bitterness among many that it took more than 10 years just to get to this point in the case.

"We've had him in custody for so many years, and now we're finally getting to it," said Jim Ogonowski, the brother of John Ogonowski of Dracut, Mass., the pilot of one of the jetliners that crashed into the World Trade Center.

Ogonowski will not join other families on Saturday at Fort Devens, Mass., though he said he might watch later developments, which the Pentagon also plans to show to the public.

"The reality is it's been over 10 years since the 9/11 tragedies. This is not going to bring my brother back or any other victims of that day," he said. "I do want to see justice done, but the fact is, to go watch an arraignment isn't going to bring them back."

Gold9472

05-03-2012, 10:48 PM

ACLU seeks broad public access to secret testimony in 9/11 trial

http://india.nydailynews.com/newsarticle/16358614d769472f76281c0730ce763f/aclu-seeks-broad-public-access-to-secret-testimony-in-9-11-trial

Thursday, May 3rd 2012, 08:00 AM

WASHINGTON _ The public should be allowed to hear the five alleged 9/11 conspirators describe what the CIA did to them in secret overseas prisons, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a motion filed at the Guantanamo war court late Wednesday.

"The eyes of the world are on this military commission," the civil liberties group wrote in its motion. It was posted on the court website uncensored and included graphic references to water torture from a leaked International Red Cross report.

At issue is the court system that employs a 40-second delay of the proceedings, time enough to let an intelligence official hit a white-noise button if any of the men describe what CIA agents did to them after their capture in Pakistan in 2002 and 2003 and before their arrival at Guantanamo in September 2006.

The ACLU called the practice censorship, and said it was premised on "a chillingly Orwellian claim" that the accused "must be gagged lest he reveal his knowledge of what the government did to him."

A court security officer used the white noise at an earlier, aborted effort in 2008 and 2009 to put the five men on trial for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

It was not immediately clear whether the war court judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, would rule on the motion before Saturday's arraignment of alleged 9/11 architect Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other Guantanamo captives.

The ACLU's executive director, Anthony Romero, said Thursday morning that his organization's National Security Project director, Hina Shamsi, was seeking to join a Pentagon flight to Guantanamo on Friday in an attempt to argue the point to Pohl _ before the arraignments on Saturday.

The Pentagon had no immediate comment. "The judge will decide whether the merits of their complaint have standing," said Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale.

The ACLU lawyers also wrote that the 9/11 defendants obtained information about the CIA's secret prison network and techniques only "by virtue of the government forcing it upon them."

They wrote that the government already had declassified parts of an investigation by the CIA's inspector general that concluded that agents subjected their captives to abusive treatment, and that it was in the public's interest to hear the descriptions from the captives.

All five face a death penalty trial by military commission at Guantanamo as the alleged organizers, funders and trainers of the 19 hijackers who commandeered four passenger aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001, and flew them into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon outside Washington, and a Pennsylvania field, killingly nearly 3,000 people.

The brief included an affidavit from a scholar of military commissions who noted that past American tribunals were open, although held at remote locations that made it largely impossible for the public to see them.

Rather than presume information that comes from former CIA captives is classified, the ACLU lawyers wrote, the judge is obliged to review each statement beforehand and "make factual findings on the record before permitting any national-security-related closure."

The argument echoes one made last month to Pohl by a First Amendment lawyer at Guantanamo in the case of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, accused of orchestrating al-Qaida's October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole off Aden, Yemen.

Ten U.S. news organizations sought to challenge plans to have Nashiri testify in a closed pretrial hearing about his treatment by the CIA during overseas interrogation.

The judge did not rule on the issue at the hearing because Nashiri was not called to testify.

Gold9472

05-03-2012, 10:48 PM

Hundreds vie for seats at GuantÃ¡namo's 9/11 trial
Hundreds of observers, members of the media and family members of 9/11 victims applied to attend Saturdayâ€™s arraignment of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and 4 others in GuantÃ¡namo.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/03/2780912/theres-high-interest-in-attending.html#storylink=cpy

WASHINGTON -- About 250 kids and kin of men and women killed on 9/11 vied for six courtroom seats. Around the same number of journalists sought to work at GuantÃ¡namo this weekend. Senior human rights lawyers swept aside staff attorneys and interns for a three-night stay in a six-bunk tent.

Competition has been fierce to secure a weekend spot at Camp Justice, GuantÃ¡namoâ€™s crude war court compound in southeast Cuba where Pentagon prosecutors will once again charge confessed mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four co-defendants with orchestrating the terror attacks by hijacked passenger aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001.

â€œItâ€™s the Nuremberg of our times,â€ said Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, accounting for the crush of press applications to report from GuantÃ¡namo on Saturday when the one-day arraignment hearing restarts the clock on the death penalty trial by military commissions.

Reporters emailed from as far away as Australia and Pakistan, willing to cross the globe at short notice to join the press flight from Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C., to the U.S.-controlled corner of Cuba.

About a dozen German newspapers and broadcasters sought seats, probably because Yemeni defendant Ramzi bin al Shibh, 40, is accused of organizing the cell of hijackers from Hamburg, where he also allegedly helped them apply for Florida flight schools. Only Der Spiegel among the Germans got one of the 60 reporter beds in tent city.

Although nearly 3,000 people were killed in the terror attacks, only about 250 of their survivors submitted their names for a Defense Department lottery for seats set aside for â€œvictim family membersâ€ â€” spouses, siblings, grandparents, parents or children of those killed.

Those chosen include two women who lost their husbands on 9/11, a man who lost his wife, and two sisters who lost their two brothers inside the World Trade Center that day, said Karen Loftus, the Pentagonâ€™s coordinator for Sept. 11 victims.

All are from the East Coast and will decide, at GuantÃ¡namo, whether to tell their stories and make their names public.

Interest in watching the proceedings has been building, said Loftus, who anticipates the lottery pool to expand for any actual trial. Saturdayâ€™s hearing follows years of legal controversies surrounding the court, which was initially closed by the Supreme Court in the Bush years, then twice reformed, most recently by President Barack Obama and Congress.

â€œPeople need to see that itâ€™s really going to happen,â€ Loftus said Wednesday. â€œThe Supreme Court has weighed in, Congress has weighed in, both presidents have weighed in. And this is happening.â€

All four New York City newspapers, site of Ground Zero, got seats as well â€” The Post, The Daily News, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, as well as major television news networks from FOX and CNN to Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya.

First-time journalists include Terry McDermott, author of The Hunt for KSM, just released, and former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Nomani, who was a colleague of murdered Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Pearl and his wife were staying in Nomaniâ€™s rented home in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002 before his kidnapping and beheading, which Mohammed boasted at GuantÃ¡namo he did â€œwith my blessed hand.â€

Nomani will be reporting for Washingtonian magazine. McDermottâ€™s going to file dispatches for Newsweekâ€™s online blog, The Daily Beast.

McDermottâ€™s co-author, Josh Meyer, secured a slot as an observer on behalf of The Medill National Security Journalism Initiative, where he now works. The last time he was there, he reported on the Bush-era efforts to prosecute Mohammed for The Los Angeles Times.

The observers will also include for the first time the Navyâ€™s senior lawyer on 9/11 â€” retired Rear Adm. Donald Guter, who is being sent by the legal group Human Rights First to observe. Guter, who was at work and felt Flight 77 crash into the Pentagon that day, is no fan of the military commissions system.

â€œI think it should be in federal courts,â€ said Guter, calling the U.S. civilian system â€œthe gold standardâ€ of criminal justice.

Even the Obama administrationâ€™s reformed war court system, he says, is too burdened by questions of legal jurisdiction and hearsay exceptions to be credible in many human rights and international law circles.

Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the Pentagonâ€™s chief prosecutor, has urged critics to give the court a chance. â€œIf observers will withhold judgment for a time,â€ he told a gathering at Harvard Law School last month, â€œthe system they see will prove itself deserving of public confidence.â€

But, Guter said in an interview this week, the alleged 9/11 perpetrators donâ€™t deserve the dignity of a military commission.

â€œTheyâ€™re thugs, not soldiers,â€ he said. â€œPut them through the federal system with all the real miscreants there. Weâ€™re giving them a status as real warriors by giving them commissions.â€

Attorney General Eric Holder wanted to hold the trials in New York City, but Congress closed off any possibility of federal trials through legislation.

Other lawyers taking up observer seats offered by the Office of Military Commissions include Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has funded some of the 9/11 defense work; former New York prosecutor and Iran-Contra investigator Ken Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch; Amnesty Internationalâ€™s Tom Parker and Judicial Watchâ€™s Lisette Garcia.

With only sporadic interest in earlier Obama-era proceedings, the 9/11 hearing puts a renewed spotlight on the expeditionary legal compound the Bush administration fast-tracked in 2008 for $12 million by requisitioning supplies from existing Defense Department inventories.

Itâ€™s built atop an abandoned airstrip on a remote corner of the base overlooking GuantÃ¡namo Bay.

Its centerpiece is a pre-fab maximum-security, state-of-the-art courtroom built inside a building that looks like a warehouse, and is surrounded by fencing topped with barbed wire and displaying signs that forbid photography. It was brought in by barge in pieces and can be dismantled and taken away.

Reporters and observers are put up in nearby tents that look like Quonset huts, with drinking water chilled in a $32,000 U.S. Air Force refrigeration container meant to ship the dead home from war. Lawyers get a nearby trailer park while senior court staff and the 9/11 victims get guest officers quarters.

The compound has been sparsely used during the Obama administration, with the tent city only filled to capacity as emergency transition housing for troops and journalists bound for Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

Gold9472

05-03-2012, 10:49 PM

ACLU seeks public access to 9/11 trial at GuantÃ¡namo, secret testimony
ACLU files motion with war court seeking to open 9/11 trial to general public and permit testimony the accused make about their time in secret detention to be heard.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/03/2780931/aclu-seeks-public-access-to-911.html#storylink=cpy

WASHINGTON -- The American people should be allowed to hear the five accused 9/11 conspirators describe what the CIA did to them in secret overseas prisons, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a motion filed at the GuantÃ¡namo war court late Wednesday.

â€œThe eyes of the world are on this military commission,â€ the civil liberties group wrote in the 32-page motion. It was posted on the war court web site uncensored and included graphic references to water torture from a leaked International Red Cross report.

At issue is the war court system that employs a 40-second delay of the proceedings, time enough to let an intelligence official hit a white noise button if any of the men describe what CIA agents did to them after their capture in Pakistan in 2002 and 2003 and before their arrival at GuantÃ¡namo in September 2006.

The ACLU called the practice censorship. And said it was premised on â€œa chillingly Orwellian claimâ€ that the accused â€œmust be gagged lest he reveal his knowledge of what the government did to him.â€

A court security officer used the white noise at an earlier, aborted effort to put the five men on trial for the terror attacks in 2008 and 2009.

It was not immediately clear whether the war court judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, would rule on the motion before Saturdayâ€™s arraignment of accused Sept. 11 architect Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other GuantÃ¡namo captives.

The ACLUâ€™s executive director, Anthony Romero, said Thursday morning that his organizationâ€™s National Security director, Hina Shamsi, was seeking to join a Pentagon flight to GuantÃ¡namo on Friday in a bid to argue the point to Pohl â€” before the men are formally charged at Camp Justice at the U.S. Navy base at GuantÃ¡namo Bay on Saturday.

The Pentagon had no immediate comment. â€œThe judge will decide whether the merits of their complaint have standing,â€ said Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale.

The ACLU lawyers also wrote that the 9/11 accused only obtained information about the CIAâ€™s secret prison network and techniques â€œby virtue of the government forcing it upon them.â€

They added that the government already had declassified portions of an investigation of the CIAâ€™s own inspector general that had found agents subjected their captive to abusive treatment, and that it was in the publicâ€™s interest to hear the descriptions from the captivesâ€™ own lips.

All five face a death penalty trial by military commission at GuantÃ¡namo as the alleged organizers, funders and trainers of the 19 hijackers who commandeered four passenger aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001 and flew them into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killingly nearly 3,000 people.

The brief included an affidavit from a scholar of military commissions who noted that past American tribunals were open, although held at remote locations that made it largely impossible for the public to see them.

Rather than presume information that comes from the mouths of former CIA captives is classified, the ACLU lawyers wrote, the judge is obliged to review each statement beforehand and â€œmake factual findings on the record before permitting any national-security-related closure.â€

The argument echoes one made last month to Pohl by a First Amendment lawyer at GuantÃ¡namo in the case of another waterboarded captive, Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, accused of orchestrating al Qaidaâ€™s October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole warship off Aden, Yemen.

Ten U.S. news organizations sought to challenge plans to have Nashiri testify in a closed pretrial hearing about his CIA treatment during overseas interrogation.

The judge did not rule on the issue at the hearing because Nashiri was not called to testify.

Gold9472

05-04-2012, 09:09 AM

9/11 plot suspects head back to court at Guantanamo

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-guantanamobre8420tl-20120503,0,6967494.story

5/4/2012

MIAMI (Reuters) - The last time Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was in the top-security courtroom at the Guantanamo Bay naval base more than three years ago, the admitted architect of the September 11 attacks was trying to confess, plead guilty and achieve martyrdom.

Before the judge could determine whether the murky rules allowed defendants to plead guilty and be executed, something that is not allowed in regular U.S. courts-martial, President Barack Obama pulled the plug on the Guantanamo tribunals.

If Mohammed is still interested in pleading guilty, he and four co-defendants will get their chance on Saturday when they are arraigned anew on charges that carry the death penalty.

They face seven charges stemming from the 2001 hijacked plane attacks that killed 2,976 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania and propelled the United States into a deadly, costly and ongoing global war against al Qaeda and its supporters.

"The stakes are as high as they can be in any prosecution. These are the prosecutions of the century," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union and a longtime observer and critic of the tribunals.

Since the five defendants last appeared in court in December 2008, the law authorizing the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals has been overhauled and the ambiguity over guilty pleas was resolved.

"The changes to the statutes allow the military judge to accept pleas of guilty in a capital case and make findings accordingly," said a Pentagon spokesman, Army Lieutenant Colonel Todd Breasseale. "If the members (jurors) vote unanimously on a sentence, then an accused who has pleaded guilty to a capital charge could be sentenced to death."

'TERRORISTS TO THE BONE'
Mohammed and the other defendants, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa al Hawsawi, are charged with conspiring with al Qaeda, attacking civilians and civilian targets, murder in violation of the laws of war, destruction of property, hijacking and terrorism.

They said in a 2009 letter to the previous tribunal judge that they were "terrorists to the bone" who considered the accusations against them "badges of honor" that they carried with pride.

Mohammed said in one hearing that "I am looking to be martyred." In November 2008, the defendants sent a note to the judge saying all five were ready to "announce our confessions" and plead guilty.

The Obama administration halted that prosecution and tried to move the case into a New York federal court just blocks from where the Twin Towers fell during the attack, but caved to political pressure and moved the case back into the Guantanamo tribunals.

Formally known as military commissions, the tribunals have been criticized as a second-class system, rigged to convict, since they were first authorized in 2001.

The chief prosecutor, Army Brigadier General Mark Martins, acknowledged in a speech at Harvard University last month that earlier versions were flawed.

"That is not where we are any more," he said. "While appreciating the criticisms and concerns, we believe that these reformed military commissions are fair and that they serve an important role in the armed conflict against al Qaeda and associated forces."

On Saturday at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba, the defendants will be escorted into the cavernous courtroom by Navy guards in camouflage uniforms, and seated with their lawyers and translators at rows of reddish-hued fake mahogany tables.

Most eyes will be on Mohammed, who in earlier hearings sang Koranic verses in Arabic, lectured the judge and insisted that the courtroom sketch artist redraw him with a slimmer nose. Described by those how have dealt with him as egotistical and manipulative, he seemed to relish being the center of attention.

'JIHADI POSTER BOYS'
The judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, will ask him and his colleagues whether they want to plead not guilty and be tried by a panel of at least 12 U.S. military officers, plead guilty and proceed to sentencing by such a panel, or defer entering a plea until later.

The panel would not be chosen until after all the legal and evidentiary challenges are resolved, which could require several hearings over many months or even years.

Defense lawyers have already asked that the charges be dropped because of what they called critical omissions during the process used to refer the case to trial as a death penalty case. They said they did not get translators and experts in a timely manner because of long delays in obtaining security clearances, and that they still had not received interrogation and medical records they requested.

"The odds continue to be silently and deliberately stacked against a fair process," said Navy Commander Walter Ruiz, an attorney appointed to represent Hawsawi.

He said the case was hampered by the "gaping black hole of information" about what happened to his client after his arrest in 2003.

All five defendants were held for more than three years in secret CIA prisons before being sent to Guantanamo in 2006, and all have said they were tortured there. The CIA said Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times.

A sixth defendant, Mohammed al Qahtani, was dropped from the case because the Pentagon appointee previously overseeing the tribunals found that he was tortured during Guantanamo interrogations that included long periods of isolation and exposure to cold, sleep deprivation, nudity and sexual humiliation.

At Saturday's hearing, the judge will ask the defendants whether they want to keep their military and civilian lawyers or act as their own attorneys. In the earlier hearings, the defendants said they did not trust any U.S. lawyers, and the judge ruled that Mohammed, bin Attash and Aziz Ali could represent themselves.

He was still mulling whether Binalshibh, who was receiving psychotropic medication for an undisclosed illness, and Hawsawi were mentally competent to act as their own attorneys when the case was halted.

If the defendants plead guilty this time around or are ultimately convicted at trial, it would likely be many more years before appeals are completed and the sentences are carried out. The secretary of defense would decide how they would be executed.

Critics have suggested that U.S. interests would be better served if the defendants were sentenced to prison for life with no chance of parole.

"It would be a mistake to execute them and make them martyrs for the al Qaeda extremists worldwide," Romero said. "How is converting these five defendants into jihadi poster boys a furtherance of American foreign policy in the Muslim world when modern Western democracies reject the death penalty?"

Gold9472

05-04-2012, 09:10 AM

Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, lead prosecutor in 9/11 case, in fight of his career

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/brig-gen-mark-martins-lead-prosecutor-in-911-case-in-fight-of-his-career/2012/05/04/gIQAtNc50T_story.html

By Peter Finn, Friday, May 4, 8:24 AM

When the biggest terrorism trial in U.S. history resumes this weekend at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Khalid Sheik Mohammed will retake his place at the defense table, the alpha dog among the five defendants accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Across the courtroom from Mohammed, facing him for the first time, will stand the tall, one-star general the Pentagon has entrusted with not only securing a death penalty conviction but also convincing a skeptical world that a military commission can deliver a fair trial.

In 2009, the Obama administration, working with Congress, modified military commissions in an effort to offer more due process to defendants. But more than a decade after the system was originally set up under George W. Bush, much of the human rights community continues to lambaste it as a sham â€” one that should not supplant federal criminal trials for terrorism suspects.

Now, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, who will be the lead trial prosecutor in the Sept. 11 case, wants to bolster support for the modified process, and heâ€™s in the fight of his career.

â€œIf observers will withhold judgment for a time, the system they see will prove itself deserving of public confidence,â€ Martins said last month in a speech at his alma mater, Harvard Law School.

The address, which Martins delivered in full dress uniform, was the third in a series of appeals he has made to the legal community since becoming chief military prosecutor in October. Speaking in the particular language of the law and drawing on history and precedent, Martins has been urging the countryâ€™s lawyers â€” and by extension the larger public â€” to reexamine what he knows is a deeply ingrained belief that the tribunals at Guantanamo can provide only second-class justice.

The hope, proponents of reformed military commissions say, is that the public will come to see the system as one that provides defendants with the resources to mount a robust defense â€” including expert counsel â€” while barring the use of evidence tainted by torture or abuse and treating classified information in much the same way as it is handled in federal court.

â€œMark understands the need for public legitimation, and heâ€™s definitely making inroads,â€ said Jack Goldsmith, a law professor at Harvard who was a senior Justice Department official during the Bush administration. â€œHeâ€™s given [commissions] the appearance and the reality of more transparency.â€

Critics of the system acknowledge that he has brought a new willingness to engage with detractors and a commitment to opening up the proceedings. They are, for instance, now screened for journalists and the public via closed-circuit television at Fort Meade in Maryland.

â€œHe has the power to get things done, and thatâ€™s a change,â€ said a military defense lawyer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a superior officer. â€œIf he says he will do something, it gets done.â€

Martins takes to a broader stage to make his case on Saturday, when Mohammed and his co-defendants will be arraigned at Guantanamo and could indicate whether they plan to defend themselves.

Defense attorneys for the five defendants say their preparations for trial have been â€œcrippledâ€ by government interference with attorney-client communications. They also complain that they have been unable to obtain some classified evidence, and do not have enough Arabic translators and investigators.

â€œThe odds continue to be silently and deliberately stacked against a fair process,â€ said Navy Commander Walter Ruiz, who represents one of the five men, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, in a statement this week. â€œThese men are represented on paper only, not in substance.â€

Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, said she worked with Martins on detention issues in Afghanistan and found him to be â€œreally interested in hearing our comments.â€ And he oversaw improvements in the detention system at Bagram air base, she said.

But Prasow insists that the justice system at Guantanamo is fundamentally flawed and cannot be salvaged by any one individual, no matter how well-intentioned. Federal court simply provides greater due process, she said, adding that any verdict that emerges from a military commission will never have the same legitimacy as one in a civilian criminal proceeding.

Prasow said commission proceedings could allow the admission of intelligence or information whose exact source is unknown â€” and whose origin the government would not have to divulge â€” leaving open the possibility that some of it was obtained through torture. She also said that the commissions appear designed to hide the history of the CIAâ€™s secret overseas prisons and that defendants might not be allowed to testify publicly about any mistreatment.

Martins said that under the Military Commissions Act of 2009, prosecutors are barred from using any evidence derived from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and that cases will be built on a host of other material.

Critics in the human rights community â€œperform an invaluable role of accountability,â€ Martins said in a recent interview, adding that they are sometimes focused on â€œa vision of rightsâ€ that is not attainable. â€œI believe there is a narrow category of cases where military commissions are the appropriate choice and the best choice.â€

He said a hearing would be closed temporarily only to protect â€œsources and methods,â€ not to shield the government from any embarrassment stemming from the past actions of any agency.

â€œI very much see the job in the tradition of the public prosecutor â€” dedicated to implementing the law, not winning at all costs,â€ Martins said. â€œThere is definitely a vigorous debate [about commissions], but Iâ€™m seeing people who are listening. Iâ€™m hearing people say, â€˜I didnâ€™t know that.â€™ â€

Last April, in the face of fierce congressional and local opposition, the Obama administration abandoned plans to move the trial of Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators to Manhattan. Officials at the Pentagon immediately began to scout for what Goldsmith called a â€œgame-changer,â€ a figure with the kind of national security and intellectual chops to engage with the civil liberties establishment.

â€œMark Martins is one of the finest and smartest officers in the U.S. military,â€ said Jeh Johnson, general counsel at the Defense Department. â€œI urged his appointment because Mark was involved in the reforms we developed in 2009, and I knew he would bring the right sense of military justice and care for the credibility of the system.â€

Martins, 51, grew up in the military, the son of an Army neurosurgeon who became the head of neurosurgery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. After a year at the University of Maryland, Martins was admitted to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated at the top of the Class of 1983. He was awarded a Rhodes scholarship and went to Oxford University, where he studied politics, philosophy and economics from 1983 to 1985.

After a couple of years in the infantry and study at Harvard Law School, Martins rose through the ranks.

He served as trial counsel at Fort Campbell, Ky., where he was assigned to a battalion of the 101st Airborne Division â€” at the time commanded by a lieutenant colonel by the name of David H. Petraeus. The two have remained close since, and Martins served with Petraeus, who is now director of the CIA, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a statement, Petraeus described Martins as a â€œtrue national assetâ€ and a â€œonce-in-a-generation officer.â€

After returning to Washington, Martins served on an interagency task force created by President Obama to look at future policy and helped draft the Military Commissions Act of 2009. In August 2009, he went to Afghanistan, where he was deputy commander of a joint task force running detention operations.

â€œIâ€™ve worked a lot of detention policy,â€ said Martins, noting that when his superiors offered him the Guantanamo position, â€œI could not parry the idea that I was well prepared for this.â€

Martinsâ€™s role as chief prosecutor at Guantanamo will be his last military assignment. He would almost certainly have been promoted to a two-star position next year, but he said that leaving before the major trials at Guantanamo were over would be disruptive.

â€œTo place myself beyond suspicion of self-advancing motives and to offer continuity to the prosecution team through at least the end of 2014,â€ he announced at Harvard, â€œI have recently requested ... that I not be considered for promotion.â€

Gold9472

05-05-2012, 11:37 AM

9/11 families viewing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed arraignment

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-05-04/sept-11-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-arraignment/54740846/1

5/5/2012

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba (AP) â€“ The man who called himself the "mastermind" of the Sept. 11 attacks and four comrades were back Saturday before a military judge in Guantanamo Bay to face charges that could lead to their execution.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants are being arraigned under heavy security at the U.S. base in Cuba. The five face charges that include terrorism and 2,976 counts of murder each for their alleged roles planning and aiding the Sept. 11 attacks.

Saturday's hearing is the first time the five have been in court in nearly 3 Â½ years. President Obama put their previous tribunal hold in a failed effort to move the case to civilian court. Mohammed has mocked the tribunal and said in previous court appearances that he welcomed execution.

Family members of some of the victims watched the arraignment via closed-circuit TV on Saturday.

"I want to bear witness that in fact these people are brought to justice," Al Santora, whose firefighter son Christopher died at the World Trade Center, said this week.

Santora and his wife, Maureen, planned to watch the arraignment at Fort Hamilton in New York City, one of four military bases where the hearing was broadcast live for victims' family members, survivors and emergency personnel who responded to the attacks. The others were Fort Devens in Massachusetts, Joint Base McGuire Dix in New Jersey and Fort Meade in Maryland, the only one open to the public.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other defendants were being arraigned on charges that include terrorism and murder, the first time in more than three years that they appeared in public. They could get the death penalty if convicted in the attacks that sent hijacked airliners slamming into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. The trial is probably at least a year away.

At Fort Meade, about 80 people watched the proceedings at movie theater on the base, where "The Lorax" was being promoted on a sign outside.

One section of the theater for victims' families was sectioned off with screens, and signs asked that other spectators respect their privacy.

Once the proceedings began, spectators in the public section laughed at times, including when a lawyer indicated Mohammed was likely not interested in using his headphones for a translator and again, briefly, when one of the defendants stood and the judge said that kind of behavior excited the guards. But the crowd was quiet when the man began to pray.

Six victims' families chosen by lottery traveled to Guantanamo to see the arraignment in person.

Alan Linton of Frederick, Md., who lost his son Alan Jr., an investment banker, at the World Trade Center, said he and his wife put their names in the lottery for the Cuba trip but weren't interested in watching a video feed of the arraignment.

"That's just not the same as being there to me," Linton said. "Going to Fort Meade, it's kind of like watching television."

Whether they watched or not, family members expressed frustration that it's taken so long to bring the Sept. 11 conspirators to justice.

The administration of President Barack Obama dropped earlier military-commission charges against them when it decided in late 2009 to try them in federal court in New York. But Congress blocked the civilian trials amid opposition to bringing the defendants to U.S. soil, especially to a courthouse located just blocks from the trade center site.

Santora said he hopes the trial can proceed quickly once it starts.

"They have tons and tons of evidence and they've already admitted their guilt," he said. "So I don't know why the trial should be long."

Retired firefighter Jim Riches, whose son was also a firefighter who died at the trade center, said some of victims' parents did not live long enough to see the trial.

"We were promised swift justice by Barack Obama," he said. "And we're still waiting."

Gold9472

05-05-2012, 11:37 AM

9/11 "mastermind," others back before Guantanamo judge

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57428546/9-11-mastermind-others-back-before-guantanamo-judge/

5/5/2012

(AP) GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - The self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four accused co-conspirators appeared in public for the first time in more than three years Saturday, when U.S. officials started a second attempt at what is likely to be a drawn out legal battle that could lead to the men's executions.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants were being arraigned at a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay on charges that include that include 2,976 counts of murder for the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

The hearing quickly bogged down before they could be arraigned. One prisoner, Walid bin Attash was put in a restraint chair for unspecified reasons, and lawyers for all defendants complained that the prisoners were prevented from wearing the civilian clothes of their choice.

Mohammed refused to respond to questions, removing his earphone and sitting in silence. His civilian lawyer, David Nevin, said he believed Mohammed was not responding because he believes the tribunal is unfair.

The judge, Army Col. James Pohl, warned that he would not permit defendants to block the hearing and would continue without his participation.

"One cannot choose not to participate and frustrate the normal course of business," Pohl said. "If he refuses to put the earphones in, then he is choosing to become uniformed."

The judge then entered a "not guilty" plea for Mohammed.

Gold9472

05-05-2012, 11:37 AM

9/11 Defendants Disrupt Start of Arraignment

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/us/9-11-defendants-face-arraignment-in-military-court.html

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 5, 2012

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba â€” An arraignment for the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and four other detainees quickly bogged down Saturday as American officials tried for a second time to try the men for the terrorists attacks.

The lead defendant, the self-described architect of the attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, declined to respond to a judgeâ€™s questions and a co-defendant, Walid bin Attash, was put in a restraint chair for unspecified reasons and then removed from it after he agreed to behave. Lawyers for all defendants, who are facing charges related to the terrorist attacks, complained that the prisoners were prevented from wearing the civilian clothes of their choice.

Mr. Mohammed wore a white turban in court; his flowing beard, which had appeared to be graying in earlier hearings and photos, was streaked with red henna.

Mr. Mohammedâ€™s civilian lawyer, David Nevin, said his client was not responding because he believed the tribunal was unfair. The judge, Army Col. James Pohl, warned however that he would not allow defendants to block the hearing and would continue without his participation.

â€œOne cannot choose not to participate and frustrate the normal course of business,â€ the judge said. It was the first time the five detainees appeared in public in more than three years.

Reuters reported that all the defendants refused to wear the earphones that allowed them to listen to the Arabic-English translations of the judgeâ€™s questions, forcing the judge to recess the hearing briefly. It was resumed after an interpreter began providing translation that was audible to the whole court.

Cheryl Borman, a civilian lawyer for Mr. Walid bin Attash, told the court that the treatment of her client at GuantÃ¡namo had interfered with his ability to participate in the proceedings.

â€œThese men have been mistreated,â€ Ms. Borman said, according to Reuters.

But the judge said that until the question of the menâ€™s legal representation was settled, the lawyers had no standing to make motions concerning the defendantsâ€™ treatment, Reuters reported.

In the past, during the failed first effort to prosecute them, Mr. Mohammed has mocked the tribunal and said he and the other detainees would plead guilty and welcome execution. But there were signs that at least some of the defense teams were preparing for a lengthy fight, planning challenges of the military tribunals and the secrecy that shrouds the case.

The arraignment is â€œonly the beginning of a trial that will take years to complete, followed by years of appellate review,â€ a defense lawyer, James Connell, who represents one defendant, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, said before the hearing. â€œI canâ€™t imagine any scenario where this thing gets wrapped up in six months.â€ Defendants in what is known as a military commission typically do not enter a plea during arraignment. Instead, the judge reads the charges, makes sure the accused understand their rights and then moves on to procedural issues. Defense lawyers said they were prohibited by secrecy rules from disclosing the intentions of their clients.

Jim Harrington, a civilian lawyer for Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni prisoner who said at one hearing that he was proud of the Sept. 11 attacks, said he did not think that any defendant would plead guilty, notwithstanding their earlier statements.

Capt. Jason Wright of the Army, one of Mr. Mohammedâ€™s Pentagon-appointed lawyers, declined to comment.

As in previous hearings, a handful of people who lost family members in the attacks were selected by lottery to travel to the base to watch the proceedings. Other family members were gathering at military bases in New York and along the East Coast to watch the proceedings on closed-circuit video.

Family members here said that they were grateful for the chance to see a case they believe has been delayed too long.

The arraignment for the five defendants comes more than three years after President Obamaâ€™s failed effort to try the suspects in a federal civilian court and close the prison at the base in Cuba.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced in 2009 that Mr. Mohammed and his co-defendants would be tried blocks from the site of the World Trade Center attacks in downtown Manhattan, but the plan was shelved after New York officials cited huge costs to secure the neighborhood and family opposition to trying the suspects in the United States.

Congress then blocked the transfer of any prisoners from GuantÃ¡namo to the United States, forcing the Obama administration to refile the charges under a reformed military commission system.

New rules adopted by Congress and the Obama administration forbid the use of testimony obtained through cruel treatment or torture. Gen. Mark Martins, the chief prosecutor, said the commission provided many of the same protections that defendants would get in civilian courts. â€œIâ€™m confident that this court can achieve justice and fairness,â€ General Martins said.

But human rights groups and the defense lawyers say the reforms have not gone far enough and that restrictions on legal mail and the overall secret nature of GuantÃ¡namo and the commissions makes it impossible to provide an adequate defense.

Gold9472

05-05-2012, 11:48 AM

9/11 Plotters: â€˜Accused Refuses to Answerâ€™ in Guantanamo Bay Arraignment

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/911-plotters-accused-refuses-to-answer-in-guantanamo-bay-arraignment/

5/5/2012

FORT MEADE, Md. â€” The arraignment of the five men charged with plotting the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks has gotten off to a chaotic start in a Guantanamo Bay courtroom as they have chosen not to participate in todayâ€™s proceedings. The five men face 2,976 counts of murder that could lead to the death penalty if they are convicted by the military tribunal trying their case.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Penn., has not responded to questions posed to him by Col. James Pohl, who is presiding over the case.

Neither have his fellow defendants Ramzi Binalshibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa al Hawsawi who have also refused to respond to any of the questions posed by Pohl.

â€œAccused refuses to answer,â€ Pohl said repeatedly after he asked procedural questions of each of the defendants to ensure they were comfortable with their legal counsel. Without any responses, Pohl approved their current military and civilian counsels by default.

Once the procedural questions are concluded, if they decided to not reply when asked for a plea, an additional hearing may have to take place.

Mohammed has admitted to having conceived the attacks, the others are charged with having facilitated the attacks financially and logistically.

Saturdayâ€™s court appearance marked the first time in three years that the five 9/11 co-conspirators had been seen in public. Wearing their white prison uniforms, most of the defendants wore white skullcaps, Mohammed wore a white turban he had apparently fashioned himself.

Mohammedâ€™s long beard appears to be brown in color, not grey as had been seen in earlier photographs.

The proceedings began with Pohl quickly noting that it appeared that some if not all of the defendants were not wearing the earphones that would provide them with simultaneous Arabic translation.

Though his client speaks English, Mohammedâ€™s civilian attorney, David Nevin, told Pohl he was not sure if his client would choose to participate at todayâ€™s arraignment given concerns he had about the process.

Pohl eventually had to bring Arabic translators into the courtroom who would translate over a speaker system to ensure that the defendants could understand the proceedings given that they were not wearing their earphones.

Judge James Pohl noted that Walid bin Atash was sitting in restraints at his chair. After a lengthy back and forth, his military attorney was finally able to provide Pohl with enough reassurance that he would behave in court, and Pohl finally the restraints were removed.

The proceedings also came to a halt when Ramzi Binalshibh suddenly stood up to go into his daily prayers. The courtroom fell completely silent as he knelt and stood several times in Muslim prayer.

The defendantsâ€™ behavior was in stark contrast to their 2008 arraignment when the co- conspirators used the opportunity to talk to each other in court. That was apparently the first time they had seen each other since the start of their detentions.

During that arraignment Mohammed had boasted of planning the attacks â€œand said he hoped the legal proceedings would lead to his becoming a martyr.

That case was dismissed in 2009 after President Obama suspended the military commissions process in preparation for closing the detention center at Guantanamo.

Lengthy Legal Proceeding
Saturdayâ€™s arraignment is the start of what is expected to be a lengthy legal proceeding as the trial is expected to begin a year from now.

Observing todayâ€™s legal proceedings behind a glass window in the rear of the courtroom were six family members of victims killed in the 9/11 attacks as well as a small number of journalists.

They had been chosen by lottery among the 250 family members who had applied to watch the proceedings in person.

The Pentagon set up closed circuit viewing locations at various military bases along the east coast for family members who could not attend in person.

The viewing locations were at Fort Hamilton, N.Y.; Fort Devens, Mass.; Fort Meade, Md.; and Joint Base Mcguire-Dix-Lakehurst in N.J.

A separate viewing location for journalists was set up at Fort Meade.

The five 9/11 plotters were all originally held in CIAâ€™s secret prisons and were transferred to Guantanamo in Sept. 2006.

During their CIA detentions they were subject to controversial â€œenhanced interrogation techniquesâ€. The revised military commission process restricts the use of testimony gathered from coerced confessions.

On Friday, Brigadier General Mark Martins, the chief prosecutor in the case, had told reporters â€œThis is a system worthy of the nationâ€™s confidence.â€

Gold9472

05-05-2012, 12:23 PM

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: former military prosecutor denounces trial
Morris Davis says allowing evidence from torture means the world will never see Guantanamo Bay trials as fair

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/04/khalid-sheikh-mohammed-military-prosecutor?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038

Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 May 2012 16.55 EDT

The former chief US prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay has denounced the military trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks due to appear in court at Guantanamo on Saturday, as intended primarily to prevent the defendants from presenting evidence of torture.

Morris Davis, a former colonel who was chief prosecutor when Mohammed was brought to Guantanamo in 2006, said the military commissions will be badly discredited by the use of testimony obtained from waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation" techniques used on the accused men.

Mohammed and his four co-accused â€“ Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash â€“ are to appear at an arraignment hearing before a military commission to plead to charges of 2,976 counts of murder for each of the victims who died on 9/11, terrorism, hijacking, conspiracy and destruction of property. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty for all of the men.

Davis, who resigned over the issue, wanted to see Barack Obama follow through on a commitment to move the trials to more open civilian courts but said that advocates of military tribunals prevailed in large part because the rules of evidence prevent the defendants from giving detailed descriptions of how they were tortured as well as other sensitive information such as details of the CIA's secret detention programme and the co-operation of foreign countries, such as Britain, in their capture and interrogations.

"The truth is the reason the apologists want a second-rate military commission option is because of what we did to the detainees, not because of what the detainees did to us," he told the Guardian. "If you look beneath the layers on why there's even an argument for military commissions, it's really about our mistreatment of detainees â€“ a fairly small number of people for a short period of time that because of what most people would call torture, it makes it a greater challenge to prosecute the cases in our regular courts."

Other senior military lawyers have objected to the trials, including Rear Admiral Donald Guter, the former judge advocate general of the navy, who called the Guantanamo commissions a "circus".

Second trial for Mohammed
This weekend's hearing will be the second attempt to try Mohammed. At a similar hearing in 2008, he tried to plead guilty, saying he wanted to be put to death as a martyr, but the US supreme court later struck down the rules of evidence and the trial was called off.

At the time, Mohammed said: "After torturing, they transferred us to inquisition land in Guantanamo."

Obama came to power a year later promising to scrap the military tribunals and close the Guantanamo prison because they were "a symbol that helped al-Qaida recruit terrorists to its cause", but Congress blocked the move.

The president did oversee important changes to the conduct of the military trials including new rules that do not allow a defendant's own confessions under torture to be used against him. But the statements of others who were tortured can be used which permits the interrogations of the five accused to be used against each other.

The military tribunal rules also forbid discussion of torture and other sensitive information that would be heard in a civilian court. The public and press are kept behind a glass screen at Guantanamo and the proceedings they hear are subject to a 40-second delay so censors can block testimony the government does not want made public.

The five accused were held incommunicado for several years by the CIA which subjected Mohammed to waterboarding 183 times. Other forms of torture used against the men, with legal cover from the Bush administration, included being made to stand naked for days at a time, beatings, being smashed against walls, threats of rape and sleep deprivation.

The International Red Cross described the conditions as inducing "severe physical and mental pain and suffering, with the aim of obtaining compliance and extracting information".

Human rights groups have also criticised the Guantanamo tribunals because the military gets to hand pick the judge and jury, which is made up of men and women serving in the forces fighting al-Qaida. The prosecution has considerable control over defence lawyers' access to evidence and ability to subpoena witnesses.

Davis said the trials will be discredited in the eyes of much of the world.

"My greatest concern is that we give a stamp of approval to this second rate process that in the future, if the shoe's ever on the other foot, if an American GI or citizen are being prosecuted in a second rate procedure somewhere else around the world, we've given up the moral argument that it's inadequate," he said.

"In January, you had an American citizen, Amir Hekmati, convicted in an Iranian court and sentenced to death. Victoria Nuland of our state department in a press conference condemned the conviction and said the procedure was not the same as Iranian citizens get, there was secret proceeding, there was coerced evidence, there was inadequate defence. I'm listening to her talking and I'm thinking that sounds an awful lot like the military commissions in Guantanamo. I think we really give up the right to object when other people do what we're doing."

Lawyers for the defendants are sceptical
The trial faces a barrage of criticism from other quarters. Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch, said it will not have credibility.

"The victims of the horrific 9/11 attacks deserve justice, but using a tribunal that allows coerced evidence will never be seen as fair," he said. "By doing so, President Obama has both compromised prospects for a credible trial and undermined inquiry into Bush-era interrogation practices. That is a gift to terrorist recruiters and a danger to US security."

The US administration has defended the reconfigured military commissions by saying they are much more open than before, including now permitting the defendants to have civilian lawyers. The new rules also offer protections against self-incrimination, ex post facto laws, double jeopardy and introduce a right of appeal.

The chief military prosecutor, Brigadier General Mark Martins, urged critics to give the tribunal a chance.

"If observers will withhold judgment for a time the system they see will prove itself deserving of public confidence," he said at Harvard law school last month.

But some of the lawyers for the defendants are sceptical.

"You can take a $5 mule and put a $10,000 saddle on it and call it reformed," said Commander Walter Ruiz, a military lawyer for al-Hawsawi. "You still have a $5 mule. It just has a fancy saddle."

'We've screwed this process up for so long'
Davis was chief military prosecutor when Mohammed arrived at Guantanamo in 2006.

"He's such an arrogant guy that we joked about charging his co-accused as capital cases eligible for the death penalty but not him. We thought it would aggravate the hell out of him that we thought somebody was more important than he was. It would really offend him that somebody else got the death penalty and he didn't, they were a bigger player than him," he said.

"That's what he wants. He wants to be a martyr. His trial is his last chance to stand up and address the world, and then he wants to be executed and be a martyr. My view is why give him what he wants? His view of hell would be a long and healthy life spent being totally irrelevant."

But a year later, Davis said he turned against the military commissions because he was being pressured to use evidence obtained through torture.

"For nearly two years I was the leading advocate for military commissions and for Guantanamo. I honestly believed that we were committed to having full fair and open trials," he said.

Davis said that it was originally agreed that no statements tainted by torture would be used but that changes among more senior officers led to a shift in policy.

"My immediate boss who came in in the summer of '07 said: President Bush said we don't torture, so if the president says we don't torture who are you to say we do? We've got all this information we collected using these techniques so you need to use it," he said.

"It's really ironic. When KSM was arraigned in 2008, he said he wanted to plead guilty, he wanted to stand up and tell what he did, and he wanted to be executed and be a martyr for the cause. Then you've got the prosecution who want to convict him for what he did, establish what he did, and then execute him for what he did. The two sides are in agreement about what they want to do. It's how do you get there? We've screwed this process up for so long that I just don't think there's any way to rehabilitate the evidence of a military commission where the world's going to look at it and say that's a credible and fair process."

Gold9472

05-05-2012, 07:37 PM

9/11 Defendants Ignore Judge at Guantanamo Hearing

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/911-defendants-put-off-pleas-gitmo-hearing-16287179

By BEN FOX Associated Press
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba May 6, 2012 (AP)

They knelt in prayer, ignored the judge and wouldn't listen to Arabic translations as they confronted nearly 3,000 counts of murder. The self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four co-defendants defiantly disrupted an arraignment that dragged into Saturday night in the opening act of the long-stalled effort to prosecute them in a military court.

More than seven hours into the hearing, the judge at the U.S. military base in Cuba hadn't yet read the charges against the men, including 2,976 counts of murder and terrorism in the 2001 attacks that sent hijacked jetliners into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted 9/11 architect, and the four men accused of aiding the 9/11 conspiracy put off their pleas until a later date.

Earlier, Mohammed cast off his earphones providing Arabic translations of the proceeding and refused to answer Army Col. James Pohl's questions or acknowledge he understood them. All five men refused to participate in the hearing; two passed around a copy of The Economist magazine and leafed through the articles.

Walid bin Attash was confined to a restraint chair when he came into court, released only after he promised to behave.

Ramzi Binalshibh knelt in prayer alongside his defense table with Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali in the middle of the hearing, then launched into an incoherent tirade about the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and declared he was in danger. "Maybe they will kill me and say I committed suicide," he said in a mix of Arabic and broken English.

The detainees' lawyers spent hours questioning the judge about his qualifications to hear the case and suggested their clients were being mistreated at the hearing, in a strategy that could pave the way for future appeals. Mohammed was subjected to a strip search and "inflammatory and unnecessary" treatment before court, said his attorney, David Nevin.

It was the defendants' first appearance in more than three years after stalled efforts to try them for the terror attacks, in which hijackers steered four commercial jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a western Pennsylvania field. Nearly 3,000 people were killed.

The defendants' behavior outraged 9/11 family members watching on closed-circuit video feeds around the United States at East Coast military bases. One viewer shouted, "C'mon, are you kidding me?" at the Fort Hamilton base in Brooklyn.

"They're engaging in jihad in a courtroom," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles, was the pilot of the plane that flew into the Pentagon. She watched the proceeding from Brooklyn.

The Obama administration renewed plans to try the men at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay after a bid to try the men in New York City blocks from the trade center site faced political opposition. It adopted new rules with Congress that forbade testimony obtained through torture or cruel treatment, and argued the defendants could be tried as fairly here as in a civilian court.

Human rights groups and defense lawyers say the secrecy of Guantanamo and the military commissions, or tribunals, will make it impossible to defend them. They argued the U.S. kept the case out of civilian court to prevent disclosure of the treatment of prisoners like Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times.

Nevin said he believed Mohammed was not responding because he believes the tribunal is unfair. Jim Harrington, representing Binalshibh, said his client would not respond to questions "without addressing the issues of confinement."

Cheryl Bormann, a civilian attorney for bin Attash, appeared in a conservative Islamic outfit that left only her face uncovered and she asked the court to order other women present to wear "appropriate" clothing so that defendants do not have to avert their eyes "for fear of committing a sin under their faith."

Pohl warned he would not permit defendants to block the hearing and would continue without his participation.

"One cannot choose not to participate and frustrate the normal course of business," Pohl said.

Pohl brought translators into the courtroom to interpret the proceedings live once the men refused to use earpieces attempted to stick to the standard script for tribunals, asking the defendants if they understood their rights to counsel and would accept the attorneys appointed for them.

The men were silent.

In the past, during the failed first effort to prosecute them at the U.S. base in Cuba, Mohammed has mocked the tribunal and said he and his co-defendants would plead guilty and welcome execution. But there were signs that at least some of the defense teams were preparing for a lengthy fight, planning challenges of the military tribunals and the secrecy that shrouds the case.

Defendants typically do not enter a plea during their arraignment but are offered the chance to do so. Lawyers for the men said they were prohibited by secrecy rules from disclosing their clients' intentions.

Army Capt. Jason Wright, one of Mohammed's Pentagon-appointed lawyers, declined to comment on the case.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced in 2009 that Mohammed and his co-defendants would be tried blocks from the site of the destroyed trade center in downtown Manhattan, but the plan was shelved after New York officials cited huge costs to secure the neighborhood and family opposition to trying the suspects in the U.S.

Congress then blocked the transfer of any prisoners from Guantanamo to the U.S., forcing the Obama administration to refile the charges under a reformed military commission system.

Mohammed, a Pakistani citizen who grew up in Kuwait and attended college in Greensboro, North Carolina, has admitted to military authorities that he was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks "from A to Z," as well as about 30 other plots, and that he personally killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Mohammed was captured in 2003 in Pakistan.

Binalshibh was allegedly chosen to be a hijacker but couldn't get a U.S. visa and ended up providing assistance such as finding flight schools. Bin Attash, also from Yemen, allegedly ran an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan and researched flight simulators and timetables. Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi is a Saudi accused of helping the hijackers with money, Western clothing, traveler's checks and credit cards. Al-Aziz Ali, a Pakistani national and nephew of Mohammed, allegedly provided money to the hijackers.

Gold9472

05-05-2012, 07:37 PM

9/11 trial: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four accused make a statement with silence

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1173772--9-11-trial-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-and-four-accused-make-a-statement-with-silence?bn=1

5/5/2012

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBAâ€”The five men accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks made their statement Saturday by saying little, signalling their disdain for Guantanamoâ€™s war court by refusing to answer the judgeâ€™s questions, flipping through an Economist magazine and taking off their earphones providing Arabic translation.

The normally verbose Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has boasted of being the architect of the Sept. 11 attacks and is proficient in both Arabic and English, sat mute in front of Army Judge James Pohl when asked if he would accept his American attorneys.

Only Yemeni Ramzi bin al Shibh spoke publicly at the Saturday arraignment, shouting suddenly that the prison camp commander here was like the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

â€œMaybe they are going to kill us and say that we are committing suicide,â€ he said during the outburst.

At another point he simply stood, interrupting one of the defence lawyers, spread out his prayer mat and began to bow, kneel and prostrate as Judge Pohl looked on silently. The court recessed twice during the day to observe prayer times.

Walid bin Attash, the 33-year-old Yemeni the Pentagon alleges has a long history with Al Qaeda reaching back to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, was wheeled in by three guards into court early Saturday on a restraint chair.

A fourth guard brought in his prosthetic leg separately about a minute later.

Bin Attash, who lost his leg in Afghanistan in 1997, was eventually released from the restraints and seated in a regular chair at the request of his military lawyer.

Cheryl Borman, bin Attashâ€™s civilian lawyer, who surprised spectators by appearing in court in a black hijab and body-covering abaya, suggested later in the day that women on the prosecution team should dress modestly.

â€œI am not suggesting everyone in the room wear what I am wearing,â€ said the Illinois attorney, but said the accused would â€œcommit a sinâ€ if they looked at the female attorneys dressed in military uniforms and skirt suits.

Saturdayâ€™s hearing was the start of the war crimes prosecution against the five accused, jointly charged with the murders of the 2,976 people who died Sept. 11, 2001. The Pentagon has accused them of training, advising and financing the 19 hijackers who crashed flights into New Yorkâ€™s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

All face the death penalty if convicted.

Aside from bin al Shibhâ€™s outburst, the five men sat placidly during the proceedings. Mohammed looked quite different from his last public appearance four years ago as his black and grey beard was red, apparently dyed with henna.

While the body language and actions of the accused â€” who chatted amicably with each other and some of their attorneys during court breaks â€” were closely scrutinized Saturday, as anticipated, it was how they had been held and Guantanamoâ€™s legal process that was on trial as much as the men.

Both Borman and Mohammedâ€™s attorney, David Nevin noted during their submissions that â€œthe world was watching,â€ as they tried to raise issues about their clientsâ€™ treatment.

Just 30 minutes into the hearing that extended into Saturday evening, the judge cut the audio feed so that observers sitting behind a double Plexiglas gallery in the courtroom and seven viewing sites in the U.S. could not hear the proceedings for about a minute.

The security measure is to avoid what the military lawyers refer to as â€œspillageâ€ â€” the release of classified evidence. There is also a 40-second delay in transmitting the audio for the same reason, which makes for a jarring viewing experience from the courtroomâ€™s gallery, akin to watching a badly dubbed movie.

Although it was not revealed what precisely was said during the censored minute, Nevin later protested to Judge Pohl.

â€œThe warning light went off because the â€˜tortureâ€™ word was used,â€ he said, explaining that he had been arguing Mohammed didnâ€™t want to use earphones for the translation due to past experiences.

Mohammed, the self-professed architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, had been interrogated at a covert overseas CIA site before being transferred here in 2006. It has been revealed that he had been waterboarded 183 times among other coercive interrogation tactics.

Lawyers for the five men protested the conditions they face defending Guantanamo detainees, complaining they have inadequate resources, their attorney-client privilege is repeatedly violated and they could not vow to represent their clients adequately when they believe the system is stacked against them.

Critics of Guantanamoâ€™s military commissions, which has twice been revised â€” once after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional and then again after U.S. President Barack Obama took office in 2009 â€” says Saturdayâ€™s hearing was proof of the systemâ€™s inherent flaws.

â€œIt wasnâ€™t even an hour into the proceedings and the word â€˜tortureâ€™ came up,â€ said the ACLUâ€™s executive director Anthony Romero, during a court break.

â€œTheyâ€™ve made the commission less transparent and accessible to try to hide the torture part, which has made the due process problem worse.â€

Others argue that defence lawyers are strategically delaying the processing and raising issues of torture to appeal to the court of public opinion rather than Guantanamoâ€™s court.

The hearing continued Saturday evening.

Gold9472

05-05-2012, 07:38 PM

Statement of September 11th Advocates Regarding Guantanamo Bay Military Tribunals ... No Justice for 9/11 Victims Found Here

For Immediate Release
May 4, 2012

It would seem that the U.S. Government found itself in a conundrum when they allowed prisoners, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), to be tortured in secret prisons around the world. Once tortured, any confession or testimony from KSM, or others, could not be deemed reliable. Furthermore, the focus of the eventual proceedings would become a trial about the practice of torture, instead of being a trial about alleged terrorist crimes. That would have been untenable for the U.S. Government, which wants to avoid any and all accountability for their own crimes of torture.

In order to bypass potential discussion of torture, the latest Chief Prosecutor for the Military Commissions, Brig. General Mark Martins, found a willing witness in Majid Khan, a fellow GITMO inmate to KSM. Khan himself was not involved in the 9/11 plot. He supposedly got his information from time spent behind bars at GITMO with KSM. Kahn will be allowed to give this hearsay evidence against KSM in return for a reduced sentence. However, Khanâ€™s sentencing wonâ€™t take place for four years. It seems the Prosecution is pinning their hopes and dreams on Khanâ€™s upcoming performance. None of this lends credibility to an already suspect system.

Additionally, with campaigning for the upcoming Presidential elections heating up, the timing of this latest attempt at justice for 9/11 is exploitive at best.

###

Patty Casazza
Monica Gabrielle
Mindy Kleinberg
Lorie Van Auken

Gold9472

05-05-2012, 07:39 PM

Heights of Hypocrisy: The Universal Use of 9/11 in Politics

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-breitweiser/heights-of-hypocrisy-the-_b_1473853.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HP%2FPolitics+%28Politics+on+ The+Huffington+Post%29

Kristen Breitweiser
5/3/2012

A year ago, I wrote a blog about the death of Osama bin Laden, "Today is Not a Day of Celebration for Me."

I wrote the blog after witnessing so many Americans celebrating, fist-pumping, dancing, and reveling in the streets about the death of bin Laden.

Seeing so many Americans acting like that was too much of an uncomfortable reminder of those who celebrated in the streets during the attacks of 9/11 while men like my husband either burned alive, were crushed alive, or horrifically jumped to their deaths.

A year ago, what drove me to write was my sadness in bearing the sight of Americans celebrating the death of anyone -- even the man largely responsible for the murder of my husband.

Now one year later, I am once again driven to write due to witnessing President Obama resort to the same campaign tactics as George W. Bush.

Frankly, for what it's worth, it sickens me; and it saddens me.

President Obama, have you lost your way so much that you now believe that the murder of anyone should be your most defining moment? A moment for which you want to earn votes?

Respectfully, Mr. President, perhaps you should relinquish your Nobel Peace Prize.

In the end, I guess I should not be surprised.

President Obama, when it comes down to many things, you are not much different than George W. Bush. To name a few: You drew back on your promise to close GTMO. You did away with the use of Article III courts and our Constitution in favor of military tribunals. You kept the Patriot Act. You expanded Executive power. You didn't release the 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry of Congress' Report regarding possible Saudi complicity in 9/11. And, in one area, drone attacks, you've actually far exceeded the realms of both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, combined. You really must be so proud.

And to all those Democrats and progressives out there who are now celebrating this campaign ad, those who are supporting its use, saying that its about time Democrats fight dirty like the Republicans; level the playing field so to speak. Congratulations. You, too, must be so proud.

What great heights we've all soared to in the past 10 years.

A friend once said that it's hypocrisy that ultimately does a candidate, a person, (and maybe even a country) in.

I guess we'll find out if he's right.

Gold9472

05-06-2012, 10:13 PM

9/11 defendants charged in Guantanamo court

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/World/9-11-defendants-charged-in-Guantanamo-court/Article1-851470.aspx

Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base, Cuba, May 06, 2012
First Published: 07:37 IST(6/5/2012)

The five men accused of plotting the deadly September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States were formally charged on Saturday with crimes that include murder and terrorism.

Confessed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the four other accused opted to plead neither innocent nor guilty, but rather to defer their plea to a later date.

The special military tribunal charged Mohammed, 47, and the four others with "conspiracy, attacking civilians, murder and violation of the law of war, destruction, hijacking, terrorism" for their role in the strikes in which Al-Qaeda militants flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.

If found guilty, the five face the death penalty for their role in the attacks that killed 2,976 people.

Mohammed was charged along with his Pakistani nephew Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi; Mustapha al-Hawsawi of Saudi Arabia; and Yemenis Ramzi Binalshibh and Walid bin Attash.

After a hearing lasting more than nine hours, Mohammed and the co-defendants -- in a much-anticipated first public appearance in three years -- opted to defer their plea.

"Maybe you're not going to see us any more," Binalshibh shouted out in a dramatic moment at the arraignment hearing in the US base in southeastern Cuba, telling Judge James Pohl, "You are going to kill us."

Dressed in white jumpsuits, with some wearing white turbans, the men mostly watched the proceedings in silence, refusing to engage with the officials.

Binalshibh interrupted however by suddenly standing to pray, and then alternately kneeling and standing.

He also shouted out: "The era of Kadhafi is over but you have Kadhafi in the camp ... you are going to kill us and say that we are committing suicide."

Only one, bin Attash, was handcuffed when the group was brought into court, but Pohl ordered the manacles removed after being assured he would "behave appropriately."

The arraignment, one of the last steps before a so-called "trial of the century" takes place, marks the second time the United States has tried to prosecute the 9/11 suspects.

During the procedures the five men mostly kept their eyes fixed on the ground. Two of them were reading a book which appeared to be the Koran, while they were also passing a copy of The Economist magazine among themselves.

"Accused refused to answer," Pohl repeated over and over again, each time an accused defiantly refused to respond to questions.

Mohammed, dubbed KSM for his initials, remained calm, his long, flowing beard appearing to have been dyed with red henna.

Mohammed's lawyer David Nevin said his client, who three years ago confessed to the 9/11 attacks "from A to Z," probably would not speak at the hearing because he is "deeply concerned by the fairness of the process."

The accused men also refused to wear headphones to hear the simultaneous translation of the proceedings, which were being held in English. Their lawyers said it reminded them of their harsh interrogations.

Bin Attash's civilian attorney Cheryl Borman, the only woman on the defense team, was dressed in black and wore a hijab. "Because of what happened to them ... during the last eight years, these men have been mistreated," she argued.

The hearing comes about one year after President Barack Obama ordered the US Navy SEALs raid that killed Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

The five men have been held for years at the US naval base in southeastern Cuba while a legal and political battle has played out over how and where to prosecute them. Debates have also raged over their treatment.

Mohammed was arrested in 2003 and spent three years in secret CIA jails where he was subjected to harsh interrogations, including waterboarding, and confessed to a series of attacks and plots.

The Pentagon opened four military bases in the United States to allow families of the 9/11 victims to watch the case unfold on a giant screen.

The trial could still be years away, unless Mohammed pleads guilty to be put to death sooner and become a "martyr" for al Qaeda.

Gold9472

05-06-2012, 10:13 PM

9/11 defense attorneys denounce Guantanamo court system as 'rigged,' 'unjust'

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/06/3597648/911-defense-attorneys-denounce.html

By Carol Rosenberg
Miami Herald

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- The five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks used their weekend war court appearances to stage â€œpeaceful resistance to an unjust systemâ€ being used for political reasons, defense lawyers said Sunday â€” a day after the 9/11accused turned the judgeâ€™s plans to hold a simple arraignment into a 13-hour marathon of prayer and protest.

â€œThe system is a rigged game to prevent us from doing our jobs,â€ argued criminal defense attorney David Nevin, accusing the prison camp commander of making it impossible to learn from alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed how the CIA waterboarded him 183 times and used other since-outlawed techniques to break him.

Mohammed, his nephew and three other men allegedly trained, advised and financed the 19 hijackers who crashed airliners into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing 2,976 people. All could get the death penalty, if convicted.

â€œThe government wants to kill Mr. Mohammed,â€ Nevin said, â€œto extinguish the last eyewitness to his torture.â€

Nevin other attorneys met with the media Sunday morning to discuss the proceedings that lasted until 10:30 p.m. Saturday. â€œWeâ€™re here for a political reason,â€ said Nevin, who also referred to Attorney General Eric Holderâ€™s plan to take the case to New York until Congress overruled him.

But the Pentagonâ€™s chief prosecutor predicted no speedy resolution to the trial, due to start a year from now at the soonest. â€œWeâ€™ve got to do this methodically and patiently. Itâ€™s going to take time,â€ said Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, deflecting a reporterâ€™s question on whether the Pentagon was preparing an execution site at this remote outpost in the Caribbean.

The military commissions can cope with â€œdeplorable and disappointingâ€ episodes of torture or cruel treatment, Martins said. But he said he disagreed with critics of the prosecution that â€œsome instance of mistreatment or torture pollutes everything in the case.â€

â€œThe remedy is not to dismiss all charges. Everything is polluted and tainted? Everybody goes free? Thatâ€™s not justice,â€ he said. â€œWe have to submit that to our courts methodically.â€

During Saturdayâ€™s hearing, however, both the accused and their attorneys did their best to frustrate the methodology that the judge had scripted.

Each of the accused steadfastly refused to answer basic questions posed to them by Army Col. James L. Pohl, the war courtâ€™s chief judge, on whether they accepted their Pentagon-appointed attorneys. Instead, they periodically disrupted the proceedings with demonstrations of Muslim prayer and protests of prison conditions.

Ramzi bin al Shibh, 40, a Yemeni who allegedly organized a cell of 9/11 hijackers in Germany, likened the GuantÃ¡namo detention center to that of the brutal regime of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Fellow Yemeni Walid bin Attash, 33, who allegedly trained some hijackers in hand-to-hand combat, took off his shirt to try to display scars his lawyer said resulted from abuse by the guards at GuantÃ¡namo. The judge barked at him to put it back on.

â€œThese men have endured years of inhumane treatment and tortureâ€ that will â€œinfect every aspect of this military commission tribunal,â€ attorney James Connell III warned Sunday morning. On Saturday, he said, â€œThe accused participated in peaceful resistance to an unjust system.â€

Connellâ€™s client, Pakistani Ammar al Baluchi, affected an air of disinterest, leafing through a magazine. During a recess, he handed it to Saudi co-defendant Mustafa al Hawsawi, 43, who like Baluchi is accused of wiring money to the hijackers.

Criticism didnâ€™t come from only the defense attorneys. Retired Rear Adm. Donald Guter, the Navyâ€™s top lawyer on Sept. 11, 2001, declared Sunday, â€œI am convinced more than ever that this belongs in federal court.â€ He came to GuantÃ¡namo to watch the proceedings for Human Rights First, as a critic of commissions.

It wasnâ€™t just the 13-hour proceeding that ended with a reading of the charges that discomfited critics but also the tug-of-war over fundamental issues â€” from prison camp conditions to restrictions on communications between the accused and their defenders. Hawsawiâ€™s attorney, Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz, struggled throughout the arraignment to get the judge to hear arguments on why the defense is hobbled by limited resources, and why the case should be dismissed as improper.

Pohl said heâ€™d address those issues at the next hearing June 12-15. He stuck to a script of approving the legal teams, then taking questions from the defense teams about his background and potential conflicts at trials. The defense lawyers postponed until later whether they would challenge the judgeâ€™s ability to preside at the first capital trials of his career.

Pohl sought to waive the reading of the 87-page charge sheet, but Bin Attash asked for them it be read, a single defendantâ€™s prerogative, extending the arraignment into the night.

â€œThe participants were raced up to the coliseum for the pleasure of the masters,â€ Ruiz told reporters bitterly.

Gold9472

05-06-2012, 11:43 PM

9/11 families angered over behaviour of alleged plotters at GuantÃ¡namo hearing
Arraignment marked by near-farcical defiance sets stage for lengthy trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendents

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/06/9-11-families-angered-guantanamo-trial?newsfeed=true

Ed Pilkington in New York
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 6 May 2012 13.50 EDT

Family members of those killed in the 9/11 attacks have expressed anger over displays of defiance shown by the alleged plotters during an arraignment hearing at GuantÃ¡namo Bay.

The hearing, which was expected to last two hours, stretched to 13 hours as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants refused to accept the start of trial proceedings in a controversial "military commission" inside the US naval base in Cuba.

The hearing was marked by near-farcical scenes in which the defendants prayed, read the Economist, talked among each other and ignored the judicial events around them.

Eddie Bracken travelled from Staten Island in New York to GuantÃ¡namo, having won, by lottery, one of six places set aside for 9/11 family members at the arraignment hearing. His sister Lucy Fishman died in the Twin Towers in New York.

"I felt very angry," he said, referring to the silence maintained by the five accused through most of Saturday. "They are complaining [about the trial] but our families can't complain no more. They took my sister's life. I wouldn't care if they were on a bed of nails, but it's our justice system and they have rights."

Bracken said that he had been particularly aggrieved when some of the defendants ignored the court proceedings and began talking among each other. "That wasn't right. My sister who was lost can't converse with anybody.

"When they get put to death or locked down for the rest of their lives they shouldn't be allowed to converse with anybody ever â€“ solitary life forever."

Family members watched Mohammed, who has not been seen in public for about three years, from behind a thick glass wall. The alleged architect of 9/11 sat silently through most of the hearing stroking his henna-dyed beard, wearing a white turban and tunic. Walid bin Attash, a Yemeni accused of having researched flight simulators for the 9/11 hijackers, refused even to attend the hearing and was brought into it against his will strapped into a restraint chair.

"They're engaging in jihad in a courtroom," said Debra Burlingame, who watched the arraignment as it was shown by live feed in a special facility in Brooklyn. Burlingame's brother, Charles, was pilot of the plane flown into the Pentagon.

Family members said that listening to the details of 9/11 reinvoked by the hearing brought back painful memories. "It brought back all the memories of that day," Bracken said.

The arraignment underlined what observers of the 9/11 prosecutions have long suspected â€“ that this is going to be a very drawn out and contentious affair. The military judge at the proceedings â€“ Army Colonel James Pohl â€“ indicated that it would be at least a year before the trial began.

Once it does get going, it might then drag on for several years. Army Brig Gen Mark Martins told reporters on Sunday that with the defence having filed hundreds of motions challenging the specifics of the military commissions there would be no speedy end.

"I am getting ready for hundreds of motions because we want them to shoot everything they can shoot at us," he said.

The idea of subjecting the alleged mastermind of 9/11, Mohammed, to military justice has been hotly disputed from the start. The Obama administration had preferred to try him under civilian law, but backed off when the idea of holding a trial in New York close to Ground Zero generated massive local opposition.

Martins tried to justify the military trial system, insisting it would extend to the five defendants their full legal rights. "We are giving them every fairness as a matter of statute and a matter of fairness."

He added that the process would balance a fair trial with the need for public access to the proceedings and defence of national security. "I believe transparency is absolutely critical in this issue because we have a lot of contentious issues and I want as many people as possible to understand them," Martins said.

One of the most contentious of those issues is torture. Defence lawyers at the arraignment attempted to raise the question but were slapped down by Pohl who said: "We'll get to it when I said we'll get to it".

It is known that Mohammed alone was subjected to simulated drowning, or waterboarding, 183 times.

Speaking after the arraignment, defence lawyer James Connell said the behaviour of the five defendants had amounted to "peaceful resistance to an unjust system". He said the scenes in the courtroom had demonstrated "that this will be a long hard-fought but peaceful struggle against secrecy, torture and the misguided institution of the military commissions".

In addition to Mohammed and Bin Attash, the defendants include Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi.

Gold9472

05-07-2012, 10:05 AM

U.S. begins prosecution of 9/11 suspects; tentative trial date set for next year

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/05/us_begins_prosecution_of_911_s.html

Published: Monday, May 07, 2012, 9:06 AM Updated: Monday, May 07, 2012, 9:06 AM

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba â€” The U.S. has finally started the prosecution of five Guantanamo Bay prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, but the trial won't be starting anytime soon, and both sides said Sunday that the case could continue for years.

Defense lawyer James Connell said a tentative trial date of May 2013 is a "placeholder" until a true date can be set for the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the attacks, and his co-defendants.

"It's going to take time," said the chief prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, who said he expects to battle a barrage of defense motions before the case goes to trial.

"I am getting ready for hundreds of motions because we want them to shoot everything they can shoot at us," he said.

Saturday's arraignment lasted 13 hours, including meal and prayer breaks, as the accused appeared to make a concerted effort to stall the initial hearing, which didn't end until almost 11 p.m.

"Everyone is frustrated by the delay," Martins said on Sunday. He noted that the civilian trial of convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui took four years, and he pleaded guilty in 2006 before being sentenced to life in prison.

On Saturday, Mohammed and his co-defendants refused to respond to the judge or use the court's translation system and one of the men demanded a lengthy reading of the charges. Connell called the tactics "peaceful resistance to an unjust system."

The arraignment, Connell said, "demonstrates that this will be a long, hard-fought but peaceful struggle against secrecy, torture and the misguided institution of the military commissions."

The defendants' actions outraged relatives of the victims.

"They're engaging in jihad in a courtroom," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles, was the pilot of the plane that flew into the Pentagon. She watched the proceeding from Brooklyn on one of the closed-circuit video feeds around the United States.

A handful of those who lost family members in the attacks were selected by a lottery and flown to watch the proceedings at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, where Mohammed and his co-defendants put off their pleas until a later date.

They face 2,976 counts of murder and terrorism in the 2001 attacks that sent hijacked jetliners into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The charges carry the death penalty.

The detainees' lawyers spent hours questioning the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, about his qualifications to hear the case and suggested their clients were being mistreated at the hearing, in a strategy that could pave the way for future appeals. Mohammed was subjected to a strip search and "inflammatory and unnecessary" treatment before court, said his attorney, David Nevin.

It was the defendants' first appearance in more than three years after stalled efforts to try them for the terror attacks.
911-trial-judge.jpgJanet Hamlin/Miami Herald/MCTArmy Col. James Pohl, the military commission judge overseeing the case against five accused co-conspirators in the 9/11 terrorist, appears in this courtroom sketch in a courtroom at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Saturday, May 5, 2012.

The Obama administration renewed plans to try the men at Guantanamo Bay after a bid to try the men in New York City blocks from the trade center site hit political opposition. Officials adopted new rules with Congress that forbade testimony obtained through torture or cruel treatment, and they now say that defendants could be tried as fairly here as in a civilian court.

Nevin said it would be impossible to present testimony against his client that wasn't corrupted by treatment that he says amounted torture. "It's not possible to untaint the evidence any more than it is to unring a bell."

Eddie Bracken of Staten Island, New York, was one of the victims' relatives allowed to attend the hearing, and said it was important to him to see the people accused of killing his sister, Lucy Fishman, a Brooklyn mother of two who worked in the World Trade Center.

He said he came away impressed by the military justice system, with defense lawyers putting up an aggressive defense.

"If they had done this in another country it would have been a different story," Bracken said Sunday. "But this is America."

Human rights groups and defense lawyers say the secrecy of Guantanamo and the military tribunals will make it impossible for the defense. They argued the U.S. kept the case out of civilian court to prevent disclosure of the treatment of prisoners like Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced in 2009 that Mohammed and his co-defendants would be tried blocks from the site of the destroyed trade center in downtown Manhattan, but the plan was shelved after New York officials cited huge costs to secure the neighborhood and family opposition to trying the suspects in the U.S.

Congress then blocked the transfer of any prisoners from Guantanamo to the U.S., forcing the Obama administration to refile the charges under a reformed military commission system.

Mohammed, a Pakistani citizen who grew up in Kuwait and attended college in Greensboro, North Carolina, has admitted to military authorities that he was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks "from A to Z," as well as about 30 other plots, and that he personally killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Mohammed was captured in 2003 in Pakistan.

Ramzi Binalshibh was allegedly chosen to be a hijacker but couldn't get a U.S. visa and ended up providing assistance such as finding flight schools. Walid bin Attash, also from Yemen, allegedly ran an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan and researched flight simulators and timetables. Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi is a Saudi accused of helping the hijackers with money, Western clothing, traveler's checks and credit cards. Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, a Pakistani national and nephew of Mohammed, allegedly provided money to the hijackers.

During the failed first effort to prosecute the men at the base in Cuba, Mohammed mocked the tribunal and said he and his co-defendants would plead guilty and welcome execution. The lawyers' statements indicate that plan has changed.

Gold9472

05-07-2012, 10:05 AM

9/11 defense team says Guantanamo tribunal is unjust
Civilian lawyers argue that the military system is rigged to put Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his four codefendants to death. A prosecutor defends the process.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gitmo-lawyers-20120507,0,1138407.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Fnationworld% 2Fnation+%28L.A.+Times+-+National+News%29

By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau
May 6, 2012, 8:22 p.m.

U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba â€” The defense team for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, now formally charged with capital murder in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, on Sunday angrily called the military commission legal process a political "regime" set up to put him and his four accused collaborators to death.

David Nevin, Mohammed's civilian attorney, said new rules imposed under the Obama administration barred the lawyers from discussing with their clients whether they were mistreated by U.S. authorities and, in the case of Mohammed, tortured after their arrests eight years ago.

"We are operating under a regime here," Nevin said. "We are forbidden from talking to our clients about very important matters.

"And now the government wants to kill Mr. Mohammed. They want to extinguish the last eyewitness so he can never talk about his torture. They want the political cover so he'll be convicted and executed."

According to CIA accounts and other documents, Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding 183 times at a classified CIA "black site" before he was moved to the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

On Saturday, he and four Sept. 11 codefendants were formally arraigned on conspiracy, terrorism and murder charges. They deferred entering pleas of guilt or innocence, with the government planning to ultimately seek five death sentences. The trial is tentatively set to begin in May 2013.

Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the chief prosecutor, said Sunday that the public should remember Sept. 11, 2001, and what happened that morning when nearly 3,000 people died at New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon outside Washington and a field in western Pennsylvania.

"The enemy force was sophisticated, patient, disciplined and lethal," he said.

But Martins also vigorously defended the military tribunal process, saying it was fair to both sides.

"However long the journey â€” and the arraignment was only the start of a legal process that could take many months â€” the United States is committed to gaining accountability for those who attacked and killed innocent people," he said.

Martins said defense lawyers could talk to their clients but could not show them classified documents that disclosed harsh treatment. Otherwise, he said, "they can talk to their clients about anything."

He added that even if there was some form of torture, it should not "pollute" the entire case.

"The remedy is not to just dismiss all the charges," he said. "It does not mean that everybody goes free, that everybody is free of accountability just because somebody else did something wrong. That's not good."

Rather, he said, it is important for the case to proceed and the public to decide its fairness.

"This will be in the highest traditions of our country," Martins said. "It's important that people realize that this will be done methodically and patiently. Justice in every society is methodical, determined and patient."

On the accusation that prosecutors are purposely seeking the death penalty, Martins said their goal was simply to submit the case to a jury of 12U.S. militaryservice members.

"That's what we want," he said. "That's justice, I believe. It will be a real jury, and we will trust this thing with them. These people will be impartial, and that's what's going to happen.

"This death penalty stuff is premature. We are trying to put this through the process."

Martins also defended women on his prosecution team who he said were dressed appropriately at the arraignment Saturday. He was responding to complaints from Cheryl Bormann, a Chicago defense attorney for Walid bin Attash who wore a long black abaya to court.

On Sunday, she said her client was offended by women who did not dress in conservative Islamic attire, feeling that it caused him to sin. "It is distracting to him to see a woman who has anything bare other than her face," she said.

She added that she had met with her client a dozen times and always dressed respectfully. "He is that conservative," she said.

James Connell, civilian attorney for Ammar al Baluchi, also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, noted that the five defendants coordinated a silent protest at the arraignment, refusing to answer the judge's questions. Except for one short outburst, their behavior was sharply different from their last public hearing four years ago, when they shouted that they hoped their executions would win them martyrdom.

"The accused participated in peaceful resistance to an unjust system," Connell said of their silent, defiant behavior Saturday. "These men have endured years of inhumane treatment and torture. This treatment has had serious long-term effects and will ultimately infect every aspect of this military commission tribunal."

He said issues of torture and cruel treatment should be litigated before the case went forward. "These proceedings may turn out to be the only public examination of the torture years," he said.

Gold9472

05-07-2012, 10:05 AM

The Ten Strangest Things about the 9/11 Arraignment

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/05/the-ten-strangest-things-about-the-911-arraignment.html?mbid=gnep

Posted by Amy Davidson
5/6/2012

â€œWhy is this so hard?â€ Colonel James Pohl, the judge presiding over the military prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 defendants, said at their arraignment yesterday. At that point, it was already well into the hearing, which would careen on for more than thirteen hours, including breaks for lunch and prayer and shouting. The actual arraignment began about nine hours in; the defendants deferred entering a plea, and the next hearing was set for June 12th. The prosecutors read the eighty-seven-page charge sheet in shifts.

About a dozen relatives of people who died on 9/11 watched from behind a plexiglas partition, as did, separately, a contingent of reporters; there were also a few pool reporters in the courtroom, and a closed-circuit feed to a number of military bases, where other family members watched. What they saw shouldnâ€™t inspire much faith in the ability of the military tribunal system to handle a trial of this complexity.

It also included some moments that were genuinely strange, if not outright surreal. Hereâ€™s a countdown to the strangest, from the dispatches and tweets of reporters who were there.

10. The Leg: Walid bin Attash, who is accused of training the hijackers, was brought into court in a restraint chair by three guards. As Michelle Shephard, of the Toronto Star, describes it, â€œA fourth guard brought in his prosthetic leg separately about a minute later.â€

9. The Beard: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was last seen with a salt-and-pepper beard. Saturday, he had a red beard. During a break, a Navy spokesman, Captain Robert Durand, told Carol Rosenberg, of the Miami Herald, that the prison â€œdoes not provide detainees with hair dye.â€

8. â€œBite-sized chunksâ€: The defendants wouldnâ€™t put their earphones in for the simultaneous translation. The court brought in interpreters who would just repeat the proceedings in Arabic for everyone to hear. This got noisy, confusing, and long, with overlapping talk. After some trial and error, Pohl instructed the lawyers to speak in â€œbite-sized chunks.â€ The interpreters ended up interpreting complaints about the quality of their interpretation.

7. The Audio Feed: On a forty-second delay, because of classified information, it cut out a few times, once apparently because of the mention of tortureâ€”which has long since ceased being a secret.

6. The Judgeâ€™s Reading Material: Defense lawyers questioned Pohl about his fitness to run the trial, asking about his religion (he declined to answer) and reading list (â€œThe Black Banners,â€ by Ali Soufan and about ten pages of the 9/11 Commission report, among other things). Pohl said that he thought journalists tended to get things wrong. (â€œGitmo media center groans,â€ tweets Rosenberg.)

5. The Defendantâ€™s Reading Material: â€œOne detainee, Ali Abd al Aziz Ali, had a copy of the Economist magazine, which he appeared to be reading and later handed to a detainee sitting behind him, Mustafa al Hawsawi, who leafed through it,â€ Charlie Savage, of the Times, reported. It appears to have been the April 21st issue, with articles on hunger in Yemen and couples sharing housework.

4. What Was That About Qaddafi?: â€œThe era of Qaddafi is over but you have Qaddafi in the camp,â€ Ramzi Bin al-Shibh yells. Alive and well and living in Gitmo? Apparently, the line was meant metaphorically. Al-Shibh also says he might be murdered and made to look like a suicide.

3. The Shirtless Defendant: Bin Attash, the one-legged defendant, took off his shirt, in order, he said, to show scars on his arms. â€œNo, no, no,â€ Pohl said. â€œYou will put your shirt on.â€

2. The Covered Lawyer: â€œIâ€™m not suggesting everyone in the room wear what Iâ€™m wearing,â€ bin Attashâ€™s lawyer, Cheryl Bormann, said. She was wearing a black abaya and hijab, and talked about how distracting it would be for the defendants if the women on the prosecution team didnâ€™t dress modestly. According to reporters there, all of those women were dressed perfectly professionally, in skirt suits or military dress.

And, above all,

1. The Venue: What should be the most important trial of our time is being improvised in a newly cobbled-together fake court, in which no side seems to have figured out the most basic rules. This was a big reason why everything took so long, with everything disputed, and went so quickly off the rails. Yes, the 9/11 defendants were always going to try to make a spectacle of things. Defendants have tried to do that for centuries, which is why our federal courts have a wealth of jurisprudence for dealing with that issue, as well as with problems of classification and evidence and the many intricacies of terrorism and conspiracy prosecutions. Instead, our government has decided that itâ€™s preferable to make this one up as it goes along. On Saturday, it showed.

Gold9472

05-07-2012, 06:37 PM

GuantÃ¡namo's 9/11 show trials
When evidence about torture is suppressed as 'contraband information', let's not pretend that the US is dispensing justice

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/07/guantanamo-911-show-trial?newsfeed=true

Anthony Romero
guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 May 2012 16.08 EDT

I have been going to GuantÃ¡namo Bay since 2004 to observe the military commissions originally established by the Bush administration to try accused terrorists. It was painfully apparent on Saturday that despite some improvements, not enough has changed.

The commissions remain a cynical tool to obfuscate the fact that the US sanctioned the use of torture at the highest level of government. The world knows the CIA subjected the 9/11 defendants to years of shameful abuse, including waterboarding, extended sleep deprivation, debilitating stress positions, and other so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques". Yet, the US government seeks to classify any information about the torture, and suppress it from the public.

Less than an hour into the hearing, the word "torture" came up â€“ and the censors immediately cut off the commission audio feed. The context was the defendants' refusal to wear earphones for an Arabic translation of court proceedings. David Nevin, counsel for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, explained that Mohammed didn't want to use earphones because of "past experiences". Presumably, this was a reference to when the defendants were forced to wear headphones and subjected repeatedly to loud music blasted into their ears.

Prosecutors later said the government would provide an unredacted transcript of what was said, but this de facto government censorship of the public's right to access judicial proceedings is prohibited by our first amendment of the US constitution and has no place in an American courtroom.

Last week, the ACLU filed a motion challenging the government's censorship of torture and abuse in the 9/11 defendants' case. Although the judge did not rule on our motion Saturday, we hope he will give us a hearing when the case resumes in mid June.

From the start, it was obvious the Obama administration â€“ like the Bush administration before it â€“ has not provided adequate resources to the defense. One military defense lawyer told the court his client has not had a translator for over a year, despite repeated requests. That defendant has also been denied a civilian lawyer of his own choosing with extensive experience in death penalty cases.

The basic protections of attorney-client confidentiality â€“ necessary for lawyers to represent their clients â€“ are not possible under the GuantÃ¡namo regime. The commander at GuantÃ¡namo has forbidden any written communications between defendants and their lawyers about "information contraband", which includes discussions about any US personnel who may have tortured the defendants. That those torture sessions were illegal is an inconvenient truth that the US government would like to ignore.

Defense lawyers are caught in an impossible dilemma: either they abide by the GuantÃ¡namo rules and violate their ethical obligations as lawyers, or they abide by their ethical obligations and violate a direct military order, jeopardizing their security clearances and access to their clients.

The commissions system is so stacked against the defense that when the defense lawyers took an oath on Saturday to represent the interests of their clients and uphold the constitution, each felt compelled to add "to the best of my abilities". They are in an untenable situation.

These proceedings have all the makings of a show trial â€“ the kind we condemn in other countries. Improvements to the military commissions in 2009 did little to change that. The rules still permit the judge to admit, under certain circumstances, evidence that has been coerced out of witnesses. Hearsay evidence, second- and third-hand information, which is normally banned in federal courts because it is inherently unreliable, are presumptively permitted in the GuantÃ¡namo commissions.

The rules also permit the prosecution to provide the defense summaries only of secret, classified information and limit the defense's right to challenge the basis for secrecy if new information comes to light. No wonder America's allies think so poorly of the GuantÃ¡namo commissions that they refuse to turn over terrorism suspects or intelligence if either might end up in the commissions.

I have now been to GuantÃ¡namo six times. Eight years after my first visit, nothing has changed my view that the military commissions are a second-tier system of justice where the outcome â€“ in this instance, convictions that result in death sentences â€“ is all but guaranteed. Everyone, no matter how serious the allegations, deserves a fair trial. And the public deserves justice, which can only be achieved with fair trials.

The devastating truth is that the most important terrorism trials ever held by our nation are being conducted in a system that is incapable of providing fair trials for the defendants â€“ or justice for the victims of the 9/11 attacks.

Gold9472

05-10-2012, 07:43 AM

Missing words from 9-11 tribunal: CIA and "big-boy pants"

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/10/us-usa-guantanamo-idUSBRE84901O20120510

By Jane Sutton
MIAMI | Wed May 9, 2012 9:03pm EDT

(Reuters) - The Pentagon revealed on Wednesday what was said when an over-cautious court security officer blocked the sound during Saturday's arraignment of five Guantanamo prisoners charged with plotting the September 11 attacks.

It was a snide reference to Bush-era CIA interrogators, a transcript showed. Air Force Captain Michael Schwartz was explaining why defendant Walid Bin Attash was refusing to cooperate during the hearing in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal.

"The reason for that is the torture that my client was subjected to by the men and women wearing the big-boy pants down at the CIA, it makes it impossible ..." Schwartz said during the blocked portion of the arraignment.

That was a dig at Jose Rodriguez, the former director of the CIA's National Clandestine Services, who described in a recent interview with the CBS television show "60 Minutes" how the agency obtained legal authorization from the Bush White House to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" on suspected al Qaeda captives.

"We needed to get everybody in government to put their big-boy pants on and provide the authorities that we needed," Rodriguez said in the interview.

Spectators in the top-security courtroom at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base did not hear Schwartz's remark during Saturday's hearing. They sit behind a glass wall and listen to the courtroom conversation via an audio feed that is delayed by 40 seconds.

When it appeared Schwartz was venturing into classified territory about the CIA treatment of his client, the court security officer blocked the audio feed with 'white noise' static.

The Pentagon office in charge of the tribunals conducted a review and decided nothing secret had been disclosed. The agency released a transcript of the muffled portion on Wednesday, which covered less than a page.

Bin Attash and his co-defendants, including the admitted mastermind of the 2001 hijacked plane attacks on the United States, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were formally arraigned during the hearing on death penalty charges that include murdering 2,976 people.

The defendants are alleged al Qaeda operatives who were held in secret CIA prisons for about three years before being sent to Guantanamo in 2006. All have said they were tortured and the CIA has acknowledged subjecting Mohammed to the simulated drowning technique known as water boarding 183 times.

Rodriguez said in the interview that the interrogation methods produced valuable information that helped save lives.

Guantanamo defense attorneys say it was torture, and will argue that it is a mitigating factor that should prevent the 9-11 defendants from being executed if they are convicted.

Their trial is not expected to start for at least a year.

Gold9472

05-11-2012, 01:15 PM

What Constitutes a Fair Trial?

http://townhall.com/columnists/judgeandrewnapolitano/2012/05/11/what_constitutes_a_fair_trial

5/11/2012

The trial of the alleged masterminds of 9/11, which began last week at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will address some of the most profound issues of our era. Are natural rights truly inalienable, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, or can the government take them away from those it hates or fears? Does the Constitution protect the rights of all persons who come in contact with the government, or does it protect only certain Americans, as the government argues? Can the government deny a person due process by changing the rules retroactively, or is the Constitution's guarantee of due process to all persons truly a guarantee?

These are all questions that the government does not want to answer. But it should know better, because by structuring the trial after the crime was committed and by establishing retroactive rules -- which are prohibited by the Constitution -- that have never before been used in any American civilian or military court, Congress has created and the Obama administration will conduct a trial that will resemble none in our history.

The trial is being held in Cuba because President Obama caved to political pressure from New York City politicians who did not want the trial at the location where the murders took place. In one of the few rules of criminal procedure laid down in the Constitution itself, the Framers required all trials to be held in the same judicial district where the alleged crime took place. They were familiar with the British practice of trying colonists in London for alleged crimes committed in New York. But today New York politicians and their allies in Congress and the president think they can pick and choose which parts of the Constitution to uphold and which parts they can ignore.

The Constitution guarantees the right to confront evidence and witnesses. The colonists were all too familiar with Star Chamber, a British trial system in which evidence against an accused was summarized by a clerk of the court, rather than presented by witnesses with personal knowledge or revealed in documents for all to see. In trials at Gitmo, the government may summarize evidence for the court, and it may keep documents it plans to use away from the defendants.

The rules for this trial also permit hearsay: basically, anonymous accusations that were also the hallmark of Star Chamber. They permit the Secretary of Defense, who is the boss of both the prosecutors and the judge, to replace the judge if the secretary is displeased by his rulings. This is a procedure that is taken right out of the Communist Party playbook in Stalinist Russia.

Perhaps the most radical departure from American due process and pronounced return to Star Chamber is the congressional authorization for the admission of evidence obtained under torture. There is no question that these defendants were tortured. The CIA has admitted publicly that it waterboarded one of them 183 times and then destroyed the videotapes of the torture so jurors could not see how horrific this procedure is.

Torture is so abhorrent to American values that its use by rogue cops has resulted in what is known as the "shocks the conscience of the court" rule. This principle, which has been in place since colonial times, permits the court to dismiss the charges -- no matter how grave -- when the government's behavior shocks the conscience of the court. And all intentional torture is in that category.

I understand the emotions that are fueling these prosecutions, and I understand the pain and loss suffered by those whose loved ones were murdered on 9/11, and I understand the horrific nature of the crimes for which these defendants have been charged. But in America, we still have the rule of law. And that means that no one is above the law and no one is beneath it. Everyone is subject to the law, and the government may not exclude anyone from its protections. That is the essence of our system of justice. It is mandated by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and its preservation is the reason we have fought our just wars.

This trial may have dire unforeseen consequences. From the president who opposed all this when he was a senator but now effectuates it, to members of Congress who enacted the Military Commissions Act that authorizes incarceration after acquittal (a procedure even the Soviets did not utilize), to the victims' families who surely would not want this rough justice visited upon their children; all these people now crying for blood could one day see the ruination of due process in America, with this case as precedent.

What constitutes a fair trial is the due process of American justice, which is guaranteed and required by the Constitution itself. If we deviate from the moral values of that system for the people we hate, woe to us for making law retroactively and based on hatred.

Gold9472

05-11-2012, 01:16 PM

Chaos at GuantÃ¡namo as the 9/11 Trial Begins

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/05/10/chaos-at-guantanamo-as-the-911-trial-begins/

Andy Worthington
5/5/2012

Saturday, the eyes of the world were on GuantÃ¡namo, as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of planning and facilitating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 â€” Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash â€” appeared in a courtroom for the first time since December 2008. All were dressed in white, apparently at the insistence of the authorities at GuantÃ¡namo, and most observers made a point of noting that Mohammedâ€™s long gray beard was streaked red with henna.

For the Obama administration and the Pentagon, the five menâ€™s appearance â€” for their arraignment prior to their planned trial by military commission â€” was supposed to show that the commissions are a competent and legitimate alternative to the federal court trial that the Obama administration announced for the men in November 2009, but then abandoned after caving in to pressure from Republicans. The five defendants face 2,976 counts of murder â€” one for each of the victims of the 9/11 attacks â€” as well as charges of terrorism, hijacking, conspiracy and destruction of property, and the prosecution is seeking the death penalty.

Unfortunately for the administration, the omens were not good. The military commissions have been condemned as an inadequate trial system ever since the Bush administration first resurrected them in November 2001, intending, in the heat of post-9/11 vengeance, to use them to swiftly try and execute those it regarded as terrorists. However, after long delays and chaotic hearings, this first reincarnation of the commissions was struck down as illegal by the Supreme Court in June 2006. The commissions were then revived by Congress a few months later, and were then tweaked and revived by President Obama in the summer of 2009, despite criticism from legal experts.

However, in all these years, just seven cases have been decided. Under Bush, there was a plea deal for the Australian David Hicks; a short sentence for Salim Hamdan, who drove a car for Osama bin Laden; and a life sentence for Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, who made a video for al-Qaeda, and refused to participate in his trial. Since Obama revived the commissions another four cases have been decided by plea deal â€” those of Ibrahim al-Qosi, a cook; Omar Khadr, a child at the time of his capture; Noor Uthman Muhammed, a training camp instructor; and Majid Khan, an alleged accomplice of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Another case â€” that of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged bomber of the USS Cole â€” is also proceeding to trial, but it is fair to say that the 9/11 trial is the barometer of whether or not the commissions are credible, or whether they are a second-tier judicial system, and the proceedings are little better than show trials.

On that basis, Saturdayâ€™s arraignment rather spectacularly failed to fulfil the administrationâ€™s hopes. As the Guardian noted, the hearing â€œdescended into chaos,â€ as the defendants â€œrefused to acknowledge the judge and their lawyers repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of the court.â€

At the last appearance of the five men in 2008, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had tried to plead guilty, and to become a martyr by being executed, but on Saturday he was more in the mood for quiet resistance, undermining the proceedings by refusing to acknowledge the judge. As the Washington Post described it, â€œThe normally loquacious Mohammed refused to speak publicly throughout Saturdayâ€™s hearing, a stance that was largely adopted by all the other defendants, who tend to follow his lead.â€

Also noteworthy was the behavior of Walid bin Attash, an amputee, who was brought to the courtroom strapped into a restraining chair, after some kind of altercation outside, and only had his restraints removed when he promised to behave, and the behavior of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, whose mental health has long been called into question by his lawyers.

At one point bin al-Shibh and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali interrupted the proceedings by praying, at at another point bin al-Shibh shouted out, comparing GuantÃ¡namo to the prisons of Muammar Gaddafi, the former dictator of Syria. â€œEra of Gaddafi is over but you have Gaddafi in [GuantÃ¡namo] camp,â€ he said, adding, â€œMaybe they are going to kill us and say that we are committing suicide.â€ This was a sign, perhaps, that he had heard of the dubious circumstances in which five prisoners died at GuantÃ¡namo: three in June 2006, and two others in 2007 and 2009, and had even, perhaps, heard about the dubious death, in a Libyan prison in May 2009, of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the emir of a training camp in Afghanistan who had also been held in CIA â€œblack sites,â€ and had been rendered to Egypt, where, under torture, he had falsely confessed that there were connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, which, nevertheless, were used to justify the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The arraignment took 13 hours to complete, although that was largely because of the menâ€™s defense lawyers, who persistently attempted to question the credibility of the commissions, and made the most of their opportunity to question the judgeâ€™s impartiality, through the process known as voir dire. While this was happening, the defendants were mostly silent, and passed around the latest copy of the Economist, which may or may not have provided a boost to the London-based weekly magazineâ€™s appeal. According to the Washington Post, throughout the hearing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed â€œwhispered messages to his comrades, and they chatted and joked with one another during a short recess.â€

By the end of the arraignment, none of the defendants had entered a plea, and the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, adjourned proceedings until June 12, and tentatively set a trial date of May 2013, although, as the Guardian explained, he â€œacknowledged that there are likely to be more delays.â€ Throughout the day, he had tried to maintain his composure, but occasionally appeared rattled. When it became clear that the accused were going to refuse to participate in the proceedings, he stated that a plea of not guilty would eventually be entered on their behalf, adding, â€œOne cannot choose not to participate and frustrate the normal course of business,â€ and at another point he asked in exasperation, â€œWhy is this so hard?â€

Leading the defenseâ€™s complaints on Saturday, Khalid Sheikh Mohammedâ€™s lawyer, David Nevin, told the court that â€œthe world is watchingâ€ the proceedings, and when the accused removed their headphones, through which they were receiving a translation of what Judge Pohl was saying, he explained that, in Mohammedâ€™s case, â€œThe reason heâ€™s not putting the headphones in his ears is because of the torture imposed on him.â€ Nevin then â€œasked to be allowed to elaborate,â€ as the Guardian described it, but Judge Pohl refused.

Nevinâ€™s attempts to raise the question of the menâ€™s torture in secret CIA prisons for up to three and a half years before their transfer to GuantÃ¡namo in September 2006 was the most explicit attempt to allow discussion of how the men have been treated, although as was noted in the Daily Beast by Terry McDermott (the author, with Josh Meyer, of The Hunt for KSM: Inside the Pursuit and Takedown of the Real 9/11 Mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed), Judge Pohl deflected almost all the defenseâ€™s arguments, telling the lawyers that there would be time for them to raise whatever they thought was important at the next hearing in June. As McDermott explained, â€œHe indicated he would eventually allow defense lawyers to argue every issue they wanted.â€

In his perceptive article, McDermott noted that, after Walid bin Attashâ€™s attorney, Cheryl Borman, had told Judge Pohl that her client had been â€œrepeatedly beaten by guards at GuantÃ¡namo,â€ he was obliged to point out that the treatment of the prisoners was something over which he â€œhad little or no control,â€ although he stated that he â€œwould investigate with the relevant authorities.â€ For McDermott, his â€œrelative powerlessness over events beyond the courtroomâ€ provided a vivid demonstration of the â€œcentral contradictionâ€ of the commissions, which he described as â€œthe attempt to conduct trials granting nearly all rights enjoyed in US courts when the defendants are prisoners in one of the most heavily controlled prisons in the world â€” held, usually in solitary confinement, under extreme security with almost all access to the outside world eliminated.â€

As McDermott added:
Their lawyers are thousands of miles away and require special flights just to get to GuantÃ¡namo. Even when there, the lawyers are unable to talk with their clients about anything the American military decides is classified. This includes all issues having to do with the prisonersâ€™ treatment. Thus, defense lawyers canâ€™t talk in court about the specifics of their clientsâ€™ complaints.Just before the hearing began, the ACLU submitted a motion (PDF) calling for the judge â€œto reject the governmentâ€™s attempts to censor any statements by defendants in the 9/11 military commission proceedings about their detention and treatment in US custody.â€

As the ACLU explained:
[T]he government has asked or will ask this Commission to issue a protective order accepting the governmentâ€™s claim that any statements made by the defendants concerning their â€œexposureâ€ to the Central Intelligence Agencyâ€™s (â€œCIAâ€) detention and interrogation program are presumptively classified and must be kept from the public. The government has also asked or will ask the Commission to accept its assertion that defendantsâ€™ statements concerning their personal knowledge and experience of their imprisonment and treatment in Department of Defense (â€œDODâ€) custody are classified and must be suppressed.The ACLU also asked the judge not to accept the governmentâ€™s insistence that there must be â€œa 40-second delay in the audio feed the government makes available to the public, media, and representatives of non-governmental organizations who observe the tribunal,â€ in order to â€œpermit a courtroom security official to cut off the audio feed whenever the defendants describe their detention and interrogation in US custody.â€

The 40-second delay was only used briefly on one occasion on Saturday, apparently when Walid bin Attash said something that prosecutors wanted suppressed, but how secrets are dealt with is central to the 9/11 trial and its claim to credibility, and it remains to be seen whether Judge Pohl will genuinely acknowledge the tensions between the absolute secrecy surrounding the Bush administrationâ€™s torture program and the need for something that resembles a fair hearing in the menâ€™s trial by military commission.

What is clear, at present, is that, in the five years and eight months since Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, his co-defendants and nine other â€œhigh-value detaineesâ€ arrived at GuantÃ¡namo from the CIAâ€™s secret prisons, the only words that any of them have uttered that have been made available to the public are the words they said at their pre-trial hearings â€” in the cases of KSM and his co-accused, what they said in June, September and December 2008, and on Saturday. Everything else â€” every single word that has been exchanged between these 14 men and their lawyers â€” is presumptively classified.

This not unusual in the sense that every word exchanged between the other prisoners in GuantÃ¡namo and their lawyers is also presumptively classified, but in the cases of the other prisoners, at least parts of these exchanges have been unclassified after being reviewed by a team of Pentagon censors known as the privilege review team. In the cases of the â€œhigh-value detainees,â€ however, every single word remains classified.

The only possible reason for this is to prevent any discussion of of the torture to which these men were subjected in CIA â€œblack sitesâ€ from leaking out of GuantÃ¡namo.

This is something that was noted last week in an article for Salon by the commissionsâ€™ former chief prosecutor, Col. Morris Davis, who resigned in October 2007, when he was placed in a chain of command under William J. Haynes II, the Pentagonâ€™s General Counsel, who insisted that information derived through the use of torture would be used in the commissions.

Dismissing the administrationâ€™s spurious claims that military commissions are necessary because soldiers on a battlefield cannot spend their time worrying about reading rights to prisoners in wartime, Col. Davis stated:
[T]he reason the apologists want a second-rate military commission option is because of what we did to the detainees, not because of what the detainees did to us. This is not about the exigencies of the battlefield and the problems our soldiers face trying to fight a war; this is about torture, coercion, rendition and a decade or more in confinement without an opportunity to confront the evidence â€” abuses that would have us up in arms if done to an American citizen by some other country â€” that make the tarnished military commissions uniquely suited to try and accommodate the small category of cases where we crossed over to the dark side.And that, in short, is the key problem with the commissions that dare not speak its name, and that Judge Pohl will have to decide whether or not to tackle â€” whether the search for justice is even possible when those who are supposed to be subjected to it were also the victims of Americaâ€™s journey to â€œthe dark side.â€

Gold9472

05-11-2012, 01:16 PM

Justice and the Guantanamo trial

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/11/3605917/justice-and-the-guantanamo-trial.html

Posted on Fri, May. 11, 2012 07:59 AM

The following editorial appeared in the Miami Herald on Thursday, May 10:

In a series of remarkable speeches this year, the Pentagon's chief war crimes prosecutor in Guantanamo, Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, has been arguing that the controversial military commissions established to try the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 represent a justice system that is "fair and legitimate" and deserving of confidence.

Gen. Martins' addresses, first at the New York City Bar in January, and later at Harvard Law School, represent the government's most elaborate and lucid defense of a judicial system that has been widely condemned as grossly unfair by civil liberties advocates at home and abroad. The prosecutor believes the critics themselves are being unfair.

First, he acknowledges that the original commissions established in 2001 by presidential order and in 2006 "were flawed," but that the current version ordained under President Obama is a vast improvement over the original. In that, he is largely right.

The amended 2009 law improves the ability of defendants to obtain witnesses and evidence, gives them greater leeway in using classified material to prepare a defense, and requires adherence to rules of evidence and accepted legal principles.

Gen. Martins insists that the malign impact of "command influence" - the intrusion of higher authorities to undermine a fair trial - has been largely erased. Here, he seems to have a valid point.

Far from being docile, military defense lawyers have offered repeated objections to the proceedings and put up a vigorous defense. They believe the commission's rules unfairly restrict the rights of the accused, and they haven't been shy about saying so.

Closed circuit transmission of the trials, verbatim transcripts, and other "transparency improvements" outlined by Gen. Martins have also improved the Guantanamo process.

Yet the general's argument - that federal courts are equipped to handle terrorist trials but not cases involving violations of the law of war - will not meet the objections of civil libertarians who argue that the terrorists are not soldiers in any conventional sense and therefore not subject to a judicial system designed for uninformed combatants.

The larger problem is that the elaborate Guantanamo system attempts to square the circle - ostensibly offering a "fair trial" to the accused who have been tortured, held in secret jails, and subjected to years of detention without charges. For these defendants, the USS Fairness sailed long ago.

No wonder the defendants refused to play along and disrupted the recent hearings. No wonder the trials probably won't start for at least another year.

It is too late to rectify the mistakes of the past, but if Gen. Martins wants to create greater confidence in the military commissions, he should ask the government to declassify what was done to the accused 9/11 mastermind and his four fellow defendants while in "black site" custody.

What the CIA did to prisoners now at Guantanamo was wrong. We know that from partially released CIA Inspector General's reports on torture, one under President Bush, and the other under President Obama. For the process to have a shred of the credibility Gen. Martins is seeking, the world must not only know what the terrorists did to America, but also what America did to them during their detour to the dark sites on their way to Guantanamo justice.

Gold9472

05-12-2012, 12:38 PM

How Did Alleged 9/11 Mastermind KSM Dye His Beard Red?

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/05/how-did-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-dye-his-beard-red

By Adam Serwer
Thu May. 10, 2012 9:13 AM PDT

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's beard is top secret.

You're not supposed to be able to tell when someone has been using Just For Men, but the average graying man's bathroom isn't as well surveilled as a high-security cell at Guantanamo Bay. So when the alleged chief plotter behind the 9/11 attacks appeared at Guantanamo Bay's military commission last Saturday with his beard dyed red, it raised a question:

How did KSM get (probably henna-based) beard dye while locked up in one of the world's most secure facilities?

Reporters covering the 9/11 trials wondered about KSM's ability to obtain hair care products. But, it turns out, this is a classified matter. The Defense Department says that Guantanamo Bay officials are "aware" of how KSM obtained the dye, but they're not spilling the beans. And Mohammed's defense attorney, David Nevin, says he isn't allowed to talk about it.

"I have an idea about that, but unfortunately I can't talk about it because it bears on conditions of confinement, and that's one of the areas that's treated as top secret," Nevin says. "It's frustrating, there's so many of these things that do not implicate national security in the slightest."

Security at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility is extremely tight, and high-value detainees like KSM are held in even more restrictive "SuperMax" conditions at the facility's secretive Camp 7. Reporters aren't allowed to tour that part of the facility, and the camp itself was a secret until 2007.

One US official told Mother Jones about three possible ways KSM might have gotten his hands on the henna. The detainee could have gotten the dye from a lawyer, but because Nevin can't talk about his client's grooming, that's hard to confirm. Family or friends could have sent KSM the dye and had it delivered by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which occasionally visits the camp. It's also possible, although less likely, that KSM could have made the dye from materials already available at the camp.

As for why KSM dyed his beard? Former State Department counterterrorism adviser Will McCants says that KSM is probably trying to emphasize his commitment to Islam. KSM grew his long, flowing beard only after he was imprisoned at Guantanamoâ€”previous photographs show him with a trim beard or a thick mustache.

"KSM is following the practice of the Prophet Muhammad, who recommended dyeing a grey beard red," McCants says, calling it "a sign of devotion, particularly after looking like Ron Jeremy all those years."

But how did KSM go from the porn-star look to more of a Gimli? Apparently, it would damage national security if we knew.

Gold9472

05-14-2012, 06:53 PM

Husband of 9/11 victim goes to Gitmo to spare plotters from death sentence

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/just_because_life_hurt_does_not_VqkA88XngAI5AXI6Ta D7TI/0

By JOSH MARGOLIN
Last Updated: 7:08 AM, May 14, 2012
Posted: 12:57 AM, May 14, 2012

The husband of a woman killed on 9/11 went to Guantanamo Bay on a shocking secret mission â€” to try to save the lives of the al-Qaeda monsters who planned the murder.

Blake Allison â€” one of 10 relatives of victims to win a lottery for tickets to the arraignment of confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his evil accomplices â€” had told people he was making the trip because â€œI wanted to see the faces of the people accused of murdering my wife.â€™â€™

But while there, the 62-year-old wine-company executive held a clandestine meeting with the terroristsâ€™ lawyers, in which he offered to testify against putting their clients to death.

A vocal critic of capital punishment, Allison wants to convince the US government to spare the lives of KSM and his minions even if a military commission convicts them of a slew of death-penalty charges.

â€œThe public needs to know there are family members out there who do not hold the view that these men should be put to death,â€ Allison told The Post.

â€œWe canâ€™t kill our way to a peaceful tomorrow.â€

Allisonâ€™s 48-year-old wife, Anna, was a software consultant on her way to visit a client in Los Angeles when her plane, American Airlines Flight 11, was smashed into World Trade Center Tower 1 on Sept. 11, 2001.

In a lengthy conversation from his home in New Hampshire, Allison explained his controversial view â€” one he admits is not shared by his late wifeâ€™s relatives or by the other family members of victims he met at Guantanamo.

â€œMy opposition to the death penalty does not say I donâ€™t want the people who killed my wife and [the other 911 victims] brought to account for their crimes,â€ he said.

â€œBut for me, opposition to the death penalty is not situational. Just because I was hurt very badly and personally does not, in my mind, give me the go-ahead to take a life.â€

He said that â€œ9/11 was a particularly egregious and appalling crime,â€ but added, â€œI just think itâ€™s wrong to take a life.â€

Allison, who has remarried, is under no illusion that the terrorists have reformed â€” and would not gladly kill more Americans.

After staring at the fiendish faces of KSM, Ramzi bin al Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Mustafa al-Hawsawi and KSM nephew Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Allison said he is certain they have â€œno apparent remorse and would do it again.â€

Still, he said, â€œIâ€™ve been opposed to the death penalty for decades, before my wife was murdered on 9/11.

â€œIâ€™m still opposed to it.â€

He said he spoke to other family members at Guantanamo and came to realize he was alone in his view.

â€œI know theyâ€™re sincere in their beliefs,â€ he said.

â€œThey want what they perceive as justice for their loved ones. I would never tell anybody in my position what they should feel.â€

The defense lawyers were pleased, but probably not terribly surprised to see him.

Allison had previously testified on behalf of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui â€” the so-called 20th hijacker â€” who had faced the death penalty but was sentenced to a life term, which heâ€™s serving in the Supermax prison in Colorado.

Allison said his hourlong meeting with the defense lawyers took place May 4, the day before the terror thugs were arraigned.

He quoted one of the attorneys as telling him, â€œWe want you to understand now that there are probably going to be some things we do that are really going to upset you. But believe me, we are not doing anything with the intention of hurting you.â€™â€™

He believes they were alerting him to the â€œgamesmanship involved in their courtroom tactics.â€

He singled out defense attorney Cheryl Borman, who dressed in traditional Muslim garb, leaving only her face uncovered, and who asked that all women in the courtroom be ordered to dress modestly for the sake of the five defendants.

â€œShe looked like the angel of death, this black shrouded figure, as she got up and walked up and back in the courtroom,â€ Allison recalled.

KSM and his cohorts employed a variety of tactics to turn the proceedings into a circus.

They refused to wear earphones so they could hear an Arabic translation of the hearing. Then they would not respond to questions from the judge or even cooperate with their attorneys.

They shouted out, stood up, bowed down and prayed.

In a particularly sick and tasteless gesture, bin Attash made a paper airplane and interrupted the session by resting it on a microphone.

He later ticked off the judge by tearing off his shirt to show scars he said he suffered in beatings from guards at Gitmo.

All the while, their lawyers questioned the judgeâ€™s credentials and the validity of the military commission, and kept bringing up accusations of torture.

But none of that kept Allison from wanting to help.

He said his opposition to execution is rooted in his Episcopalian faith.

â€œWhen Martin Luther was being asked to recant by the hierarchy of the Roman church for all his Protestant actions, he said, â€˜Here I stand. I canâ€™t do otherwise.â€™

â€œThatâ€™s the way I feel. First and foremost, I donâ€™t think itâ€™s right to take a life. Itâ€™s grounded in my religious faith. The New Testament is very clear about this.â€

Allison also said he is not convinced that the military-commission system is a legitimate way of trying accused terrorists.

He said he would have been more comfortable if the men were put on trial in a federal courthouse, as President Obama originally proposed.

â€œIâ€™m going to try to keep an open mind about this process. Iâ€™m very skeptical about this. I know there have been changes to the commission but Iâ€™m going to keep an open mind,â€ he said.

Allison said he also worries whether military prosecutors will carry out a pledge to keep out all evidence obtained through torture.

â€œCan the prosecutors credibly say that their evidence remains free of taint?â€ he asked.

Gold9472

05-15-2012, 07:16 PM

US officials sought for Guantanamo Sept. 11 trial

http://www.wqow.com/story/18429667/us-officials-sought-for-guantanamo-sept-11-trial

Posted: May 15, 2012 6:48 PM EDT Updated: May 15, 2012 6:48 PM EDT

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Defense lawyers in the Sept. 11 case at Guantanamo are asking a military judge to order testimony from senior U.S. government officials in a motion to dismiss charges.

Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz says the motion filed with the military tribunal requests testimony at the U.S. base in Cuba from eight top officials in the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

Ruiz declines to name the officials, and the motion has not been released pending a security review.

The filing was disclosed on a Pentagon website Tuesday.

The motion was filed on behalf of three of the five men charged with helping carry out the Sept. 11 attacks. It seeks to dismiss charges because of what the defense calls improper political interference.

Gold9472

05-17-2012, 09:08 AM

Justice and the 9/11 defendants
A military tribunal is not the best way to demonstrate America's commitment to the rule of law.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-ksm-guantanamo-commission-20120517,0,969251.story

May 17, 2012

When Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. announced in 2009 that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other accused Sept. 11 conspirators would be tried in a civilian federal court, we said that his decision "makes an eloquent statement about the Obama administration's determination to avenge the victims of terrorism within the rule of law." But the five never made it to civilian court; instead, thanks to domestic politics, they are being tried for murder and other charges before a military commission in Guantanamo Bay.

The commission is not, as some of its detractors assert, a kangaroo court rigged to guarantee the conviction and execution of the defendants. But both substantively and symbolically, it is an unacceptable alternative to a civilian trial of the kind that has successfully convicted other terrorists.

The commission's proceedings began inauspiciously when the defendants refused to enter pleas and staged a silent protest against the legitimacy of the tribunal. Defense lawyers have complained that they are being restricted in talking with clients about their treatment by CIA interrogators, and the ACLU is challenging a "protective order" proposed by the government that would treat the defendants' statements about their interrogation as "presumptively classified" and thus subject to censorship.

There is no guarantee that the defendants wouldn't behave in a similarly obstructive way in a civilian trial. Nor would the prosecutors in a federal court be prevented from asking the judge to withhold classified information. And civil libertarians who see the prosecution of the self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind and his confederates as an opportunity to ventilate the CIA's use of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation methods might find a civilian judge just as reluctant as a military one to put the CIA on trial.

That said, the differences between the two kinds of proceedings are important. The current military system, revised by Congress in 2009, is more credible than the commissions unilaterally established by theGeorge W. Bushadministration. It requires proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, prohibits double jeopardy and, most important, bars the admission of evidence obtained as the result of torture or "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment." (Mohammed was repeatedly waterboarded.) Yet in other respects it is less protective of defendants than a civilian trial. While evidence resulting from torture is inadmissible and confessions are required to be voluntary, critics say other sorts of "coerced" statements â€” particularly from third parties â€” could be allowed. The commission system is also more accepting of hearsay evidence.

As important as these particular defects is the fact that the trial of the Sept. 11 defendants is taking place under the aegis of the same military that is imprisoning them, and which has held them without successfully putting them on trial for almost a decade. Regardless of improvements in the commission system since the Bush administration, it simply doesn't afford the defendants the gold standard of American justice. If Mohammed were sentenced to death after a civilian trial, the United States could point to the fact that it had provided full due process even to someone who murdered nearly 3,000 innocent people. It can't credibly make that claim about a military commission. And while, understandably, the families of Sept. 11 victims might not care about international opinion, the Obama administration recognized that it was in this country's interest â€” especially after revelations about torture and the imprisonment of accused terrorists at "black sites" â€” for Mohammed and the others to receive a trial that was not only fair but perceived to be fair.

That is not going to happen. Much of the blame belongs to Congress, which effectively thwarted the administration's original plan for a civilian trial by barring the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States. But the administration also committed errors. In announcing that the trial would be held in New York City, Holder provoked a backlash from residents and public officials who feared the city would again become a target for terrorists. It would have been politically wiser if the administration had proposed a civilian trial at a more remote and protected site. Later, after the hardening of opposition to a civilian trial anywhere, the president decided not to expend political capital pressing for his original plan.

A civilian trial for Mohammed and the others would have dramatized Obama's commitment at the beginning of his administration to depart decisively from Bush administration policies in the war against terrorism. The president should have fought harder for his original vision of justice.

Gold9472

05-19-2012, 01:15 PM

Guantanamo tribunal weighs separate 9/11 trials

http://india.nydailynews.com/newsarticle/50a514acb13665b009aa382f139aed01/guantanamo-tribunal-weighs-separate-9-11-trials

Saturday, May 19th 2012, 03:48 AM

A special US military tribunal at Guantanamo is weighing whether to hold separate trials for five accused plotters of the September 11 attacks, a defense lawyer said.

The men, who are being held at Guantanamo Bay, were formally charged earlier this month with crimes that include murder and terrorism. They face the death penalty if convicted for their roles in the Al-Qaeda attacks that claimed 2,976 lives in New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

"The Guantanamo Bay military commission issued an unusual order for the prosecution to show cause why defendants in the 9/11 case should not be severed," James Connell, who represents Pakistani defendant Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, said in a statement.

"Prosecutors generally favor a joint trial because it makes their case easier."

Connell said he requested the testimony of the man who ran the CIA's interrogation program at black sites for the tribunal's next session in June.

Jose Rodriguez has acknowledged that his team "went to the border of legality" in interrogating Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 2001 attacks.

Mohammed, a Kuwait-born Pakistani, was subjected 183 times to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding during the three years he was held at secret CIA prisons after his 2003 capture in Pakistan. He was eventually transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.

"Mr Rodriguez has important information on that topic and there is no good reason the government should prohibit him from testifying," Connell said. "The government is using every available tactic to suppress evidence of torture."

Three of the lawyers for the accused plotters have requested that eight "top officials" from the administrations of President Barack Obama and his predecessor George W. Bush also take the stand, said Commander Walter Ruiz, who represents Mustapha al-Hawsawi of Saudi Arabia.

He declined to name the individuals in question but noted they were from the "highest levels of the government."

Gold9472

05-19-2012, 01:16 PM

Judge in 9/11 case at Guantanamo weighs splitting up defendants and holding multiple trials

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/judge-in-911-case-at-guantanamo-weighs-splitting-up-defendants-and-holding-multiple-trials/2012/05/18/gIQA9q3bZU_story.html

By Associated Press, Published: May 18

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico â€” A military judge is considering whether to split off one or more of the defendants and hold separate trials for five Guantanamo Bay prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 attacks, a lawyer for one of the men said Friday.

The judge, Army Col. James Pohl, proposed the change in a written order in part because of the difficulty trying to schedule hearings for five defendants and multiple lawyers at the U.S. base in Cuba, said James Connell, a civilian attorney for defendant Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali.

Pohl also questioned whether one trial for all five defendants would create a conflict with evidence that could help one defendant while hurting another, Connell said.

The judgeâ€™s order is sealed. As part of the order, the prosecution was ordered to show cause why the cases should not be severed.

The Pentagon will not release the order until it has passed through a security review, said Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a spokesman for the Guantanamo military commissions.

â€œThere are some very specific ethical constraints that prohibit the prosecution from litigating cases in the press,â€ Breasseale said.

Previously, Connell had said he wanted his clientâ€™s case severed from that of the others, who include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, and the prosecution wanted them all tried together. Both sides are barred by the rules from disclosing their wishes at this point and will be filing legal motions by the end of the month.

The five men were arraigned together on May 5 on charges that include murder and terrorism. They could be sentenced to death if convicted. The next pretrial hearing in the case is scheduled for June but lawyers for several defendants have requested a postponement.

Gold9472

05-22-2012, 11:25 AM

Accused 9/11 planners might get separate GuantÃ¡namo trials
The judge in the legal proceeding against five men accused of having roles in the 9/11 terror attacks is considering whether to separate the trials.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/21/2810824/accused-911-planners-might-get.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

Scheduling conflicts and legal issues might be reasons to split up the military trial of the five GuantÃ¡namo men accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks, the Army colonel presiding at the case wrote in a court order made public Monday.

Judge James L. Pohl instructed the 9/11 prosecutors to answer him by Thursday on whether separate military juries should hear the death penalty terror trials of alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four accused co-conspirators.

Military and Justice Department prosecutors have been preparing a joint prosecution for years. During the Bush administration, the Pentagon built a special courthouse at GuantÃ¡namo capable of trying up to six defendants before a single jury.

Now the judge has asked the prosecutors whether they want to stick with that plan. In his order, written last week but held under seal until Monday, the judge wrote that he envisioned potential conflicts at the death penalty phase of the trial, if the men are convicted.

As of Monday afternoon, the prosecutors were preparing their response, said Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a Pentagon spokesman.

But, â€œjoint trials of alleged co-conspirators are often the best way to ensure a networkâ€™s entire conduct is properly and fully considered,â€ Breasseale said.

The judgeâ€™s two-page order made no mention of the chaotic arraignment of the men May 5, a Saturday hearing that stretched across 13 hours in part because the five men staged choreographed protests in the court. Each man refused to answer the judgeâ€™s questions and accepted each offer of three prayer breaks in the daylong hearing.

Rather, the issue is coming to a head now because the judge had set June 12-15 for the next hearings in the case.

Defense lawyers for some of the men have sought delays, citing conflicts. Notably, Mohammedâ€™s lawyer, David Nevin, has to be in Boise, Idaho, at that time â€” if not seeking clemency from the governor then attending the execution of another client. Heâ€™s Richard A. Leavitt, convicted of the July 1984 murder and sexual mutilation of a Blackfoot, Idaho, woman, and scheduled to die by lethal injection June 12.

Had all five of the accused agreed to a delay, the issue might have been averted at this early stage of the case, at least a year before the actual trial.

But Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz, defending Saudi Mustafa Hawsawi, said his client wanted the hearing June 12 and did not waive a so-called speedy trial clock requirement in the case.

At the May 5 arraignment, Ruiz had pressed the judge to tackle several fundamental pre-trial motions, notably early challenges to the legitimacy of the case itself as well as a long-festering issue on the prison campâ€™s reviewing mail between the attorneys and their clients. Pohl said those motions would be taken up June 15.

In his order to the prosecutors, the judge did not instruct them on whether they should consider five separate trials for the men or smaller joint prosecutions. He gave the defense lawyers a May 31 deadline to weigh in on whether they want separate trials.

The timeline casts doubt on whether he would still seek to hold a joint hearing the week of June 12.

Defense attorneys for one of the accused, Ammar al Baluchi, had earlier argued unsuccessfully to a Pentagon official to have that case split off on grounds the allegations against Baluchi, Mohammedâ€™s nephew, implicated him largely in money transfers not other aspects of the conspiracy.

Baluchiâ€™s lawyer, James Connell III, described the order itself as â€œunusual because the military commission itself raised the issue of severance.â€

Under the military commission formula for a death penalty trial, a panel of 12 or more U.S. military officers hears the case, renders a verdict and, in the event of a conviction, then decides punishment. Before they deliberate whether to impose the death penalty, lawyers for the men can bring in evidence on why they shouldnâ€™t order an execution.

The judge wrote in his instruction to the prosecution to consider splitting up the trial that he â€œis concerned with the capital sentencing phase, if any, in this case. It is conceivable that the mitigation evidence for one accused could possibly be considered aggravation evidence for another.â€

But Cheryl Bormann, defending an alleged trainer of the 9/11 hijackers, Walid bin Attash, said Monday she had not received sufficient court resources to know whether splitting the trial was in her clientâ€™s best interest.

Prosecutors had yet to turn over the evidence against her client, called discovery, she said. Plus, she said, seven months had passed and the Pentagon still had not yet granted a security clearance for her mitigation expert to meet with Bin Attash. Heâ€™s Tim Semmerling, who is similarly serving as a mitigation expert in the case of Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, accused of killing 13 people in a Nov. 5, 2009 shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas.

The judge, said Bormann, is â€œasking us for input before we have the tools for which we could actually analyze the situation and make a determination.â€

Gold9472

05-23-2012, 10:31 PM

Obama, Bush testimony sought in 9/11 case at Gitmo

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hx4-bn5ufQKscTrDCk9-GDi2_2eA?docId=15d056bbaec94075a107dddf065a0e5f

By BEN FOX, Associated Press â€“ 3 hours ago

Defense lawyers in the Sept. 11 case at Guantanamo are seeking the testimony of former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama in a motion to dismiss charges, according to a legal motion released Wednesday.

Lawyers for three of the five defendants charged with planning and helping carry out the attacks say the charges should be dismissed because Bush, Obama and other top officials have made many statements that could influence potential jurors in their eventual trial before a special tribunal known as a military commission, according to the motion.

They have exerted what is known as "unlawful influence," over the case with such statements as calling the defendants "terrorists," and saying they must be brought to justice, the lawyers argue.

"Under these facts, it is impossible for any objective, disinterested observer, with knowledge of all the facts and circumstances, to believe these men can receive a fair trial by military commission," they wrote.

Also among those called to testify are Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Eric Holder and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has been active in detainee policy, as well as several Pentagon officials.

The motion was filed May 11 but was only just released on a Pentagon website following a security review. It will be up to the military judge to decide whether to call any of the witnesses to the stand at the U.S. base in Cuba and such an outcome would seem unlikely. The judge may just require written briefs in what is one of many pretrial motions pending in the case.

Prosecutors have not filed a response.

The five defendants, including the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were arraigned at Guantanamo on May 5 on charges that include terrorism and murder. They could get the death penalty if convicted.

The brief was submitted by the defense lawyers for three of the men: Ramzi Binalshibh of Yemen; Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi of Saudi Arabia; and Pakistani national Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali.

A prohibition on improper influence is an important tenet of the military justice system, intended to prevent higher ranking officers from attempting to sway a case being tried by people over whom they have command.

"For the past 10 years, through the administrations of two presidents, these accused have consistently been described as 'thugs,' 'murderers' and 'terrorists' who 'planned the 9/11 attacks' and must 'face justice,'" the lawyers wrote. "It can easily be understood by members of the public that this system of military commissions exists solely for the purpose of imposing a death sentence upon these accused."

Gold9472

05-24-2012, 08:10 AM

Accused 9/11 planners want Obama, Bush to testify at Guantanamo trials

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/24/149991/accused-911-planners-want-obama.html

Carol Rosenberg | The Miami Herald

Defense attorneys seeking to derail the trial of five men accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks are asking a military judge to order President Barack Obama and former president George W. Bush, Vice President Joe Biden, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Attorney General Eric Holder to testify at the GuantÃ¡namo war court.

At issue in the motion unsealed Wednesday evening at the Pentagon is whether accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators can get a fair capital murder terror trial from a military jury of 12 or more U.S. officers.

Attorneys for the accused argue they cannot, citing â€œwidespread pretrial publicity that has included unending prejudicial statements from the highest public officials in the U.S. government.â€ They are asking the military judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, to acknowledge the political influence in the process and, if not throw out the case entirely, â€œremove death as a potential sentenceâ€ â€” even before the case is presented to a jury at least a year from now.

â€œFor the past 10 years, through the administrations of two presidents, these accused have consistently been described as â€˜thugs,â€™ â€˜murderers,â€™ and â€˜terroristsâ€™ who â€˜planned the 9/11 attacksâ€™ and must â€˜face justice,â€™ â€ the lawyers argued.

â€œIt can easily be understood by members of the public that this system of military commissions exists solely for the purpose of imposing a death sentence upon these accused.â€

Unlawful command influence motions are not unusual at the GuantÃ¡namo war court, which Bush had set up within months of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Obama criticized them as a senator and candidate, then reformed them as president. At least one motion has succeeded in excluding a Pentagon official, a brigadier general, from involvement in a Bush-era case, after a military judge ruled the general was biased toward the prosecution and obtaining a conviction.

Attorneys filed notice of the motion last week. But it was only on Wednesday that the Pentagon finally made public the list of eight upper-echelon witnesses the lawyers for the alleged terrorists are asking the judge to compel to testify to bolster their argument.

A Pentagon spokesman did not have an immediate comment on whether the judge even had the authority to order testimony from the current or former commander in chief. Moreover, testimony at past commissions has not always been in person at the GuantÃ¡namo court, which has video-teleconferencing capabilities to hear witnesses from overseas.

Grahamâ€™s office said it would not be known until Thursday whether the senior Republican senator who has been influential in the creation of commissions had been told of the request, and whether he would voluntarily comply.

The defense lawyers also want the judge to compel testimony from the senior Pentagon official now responsible for oversight of the war court, retired Navy Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, whose title is convening authority for military commissions; Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson, Defense Secretary Leon Panettaâ€™s most senior lawyer; as well as the chief prosecutor, Army Brig Gen. Mark Martins.

One of the most damning quotes attributed to Obama in the 42-page motion â€” â€œKhalid Sheik Mohammed is going to meet justice and heâ€™s going to meet his makerâ€ â€” actually came from the lips of then-White House spokesman Robert Gibbs in remarks to CNN in January 2010. Gibbs is now an advisor to the re-election campaign.

Defense attorneys argue that Pohl, who is outranked by even the chief prosecutor on the case, â€œis duty-bound to ensure that the accused are afforded process that will guarantee them that a death sentence will not be imposed due to the passions and prejudices injected into the proceedings by the President of the United States, political appointees, or elected representatives.â€

Gold9472

05-25-2012, 10:22 AM

Prosecutors urge Guantanamo judge not to split up 9/11 trial

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/05/24/2535787/prosecutors-urge-guantanamo-judge.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG â€” McClatchy Newspapers
Posted: 1:00am on May 24, 2012; Modified: 7:01pm on May 24, 2012

Pentagon prosecutors argued in a motion Thursday against splitting up the joint death-penalty prosecution at Guantanamo of the five men accused of orchestrating the 9/11 attacks.

The chief war court judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, sought the opinion last week after encountering scheduling conflicts for a motions hearing scheduled for June 12-15 at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba. It was to be the first hearing following the marathon, 13-hour May 5 arraignment of alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other alleged accomplices in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But the criminal defense attorney for Mohammed notified the court he cannot get to Cuba on June 12 because he's representing a convicted killer facing execution by lethal injection on that same day in Boise, Idaho.

Three other Sept. 11 defense teams agreed to the delay. But the attorney for a Saudi man charged in the conspiracy argued he was prepared to go forward with the June 12 hearing, creating a conundrum for the war court's so-called "speedy trial clock."

The 9/11 prosecutors wrote in a court filing Thursday that early scheduling conflicts did not necessitate splitting the five-man prosecution.

"Severance of this jointly referred capital commission would be an extraordinary action that should not be regarded by the military judge as 'appropriate relief' in these circumstances," the prosecution wrote, in an extract obtained by McClatchy Newspapers.

The filing itself was under seal undergoing a security review, which at the war court gives intelligence agencies up to 15 business days to scrub military commissions documents filed with the military commissions clerk.

The Pentagon spokesman for Guantanamo issues, Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, would not provide a comment on the prosecution position.

Prosecutors also argued in their brief that "no defense counsel or accused" had sought a speedy trial. Nor had any of the alleged Sept. 11 plotters "articulated any prejudice that any accused might suffer by proceeding jointly."

Rather, the prosecution wrote that the Pohl, as presiding judge, has the authority to delay the scheduled June 12-15 session "to accommodate reasonable scheduling issues of defense counsel." Or, they wrote, he could order the delay "in the interest of justice."

Gold9472

05-25-2012, 10:22 AM

New photos of alleged 9-11 mastermind may have been spirited out of 'Gitmo'

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/120524-Khalid-Sheik-Mohammed-11a%20.photoblog600.jpg

http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/24/11864341-new-photos-of-alleged-9-11-mastermind-may-have-been-spirited-out-of-gitmo?lite

5/25/2012

U.S. military officials are investigating whether new images of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of al-Qaidaâ€™s 9-11 terror attacks, posted on a jihadist website were smuggled out of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

The photos, which show a relaxed and often smiling Mohammed, were published Wednesday by "Al-Ebdaa," an jihadist media group, and documented by Flashpoint Partners, a global security company run by NBC News terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann.

Kohlmann said the images appear to have been taken at GTMO, the U.S. Navy base and detention facility in Cuba, where Mohammed is currently facing a military tribunal with four other alleged al-Qaida members on murder and terrorism charges in connection with the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York Cityâ€™s World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Pentagon officials told NBC News on Thursday that investigators were attempting to determine if the photos were in fact taken at GTMO or had been photo-shopped. If it is determined that they are photos from GTMO, the investigators would attempt to determine how the photos could have left GTMO.

Under GTMO regulations, unauthorized photos of detainees are not permitted to be taken or distributed.

Mohammed and his fellow defendants, who defiantly refused to enter pleas in their initial appearance before the tribunal early this month, face a possible death penalty if they are found guilty of organizing the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

Gold9472

05-26-2012, 09:13 AM

Photo of 9/11 mastermind manipulated: Pentagon

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iof-lwnOSUDjwZRwz_RSU35NuBOA?docId=CNG.c4205918d3bd468 1539e7aca67f35284.e11

(AFP) â€“ 15 hours ago

WASHINGTON â€” A photograph of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed architect of the 9/11 attacks, that has recently circulated on the Internet has been digitally manipulated, Pentagon officials said Friday.

The picture, which shows Mohammed with a long bushy gray beard holding an open book and smiling, had raised concerns about both its authenticity and how it came to be smuggled out of the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

US authorities ban the taking and distribution of any non-authorized photos from Guantanamo, where Mohammed and his four co-accused are awaiting trial on charges of killing 2,976 people in the 2001 attacks on the United States.

The photo of the Pakistani suspect was published on an Internet site, Al-Ebdaa, and showed a different visage to the one of Mohammed last seen during his last court appearance on May 5 when his beard appeared to have been dyed red with henna.

"The recent photos of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, et al, that have surfaced on the Internet represent a very poor effort at digital manipulation," Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Todd Breasseale said in an email to AFP.

He said they had been manipulated from authorized pictures by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The pictures were "clearly using the official work of the ICRC -- approved for release by the US government -- in order to deceive and rally those inclined toward radicalism."

The ICRC is the only organization which is allowed to regularly visit the Guantanamo inmates. Some of its pictures were approved for publication in 2009.

Gold9472

05-30-2012, 10:48 AM

Next 9/11 Guantanamo hearing postponed to August 8

http://dawn.com/2012/05/30/next-911-guantanamo-hearing-postponed-to-august-8/

AFP | 11 hours ago

WASHINGTON: The next preliminary hearing for five men accused in the September 11 terror strike on US targets, which was scheduled for June 12, has been postponed to August 8, a Pentagon spokesman said on Tuesday.

Attorneys for two of the accused asked military Judge James Pohl, who is in charge of the case, to push back the hearing on a number of defense appeals to August 8-12, said James Connell, lawyer for Pakistan national Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali. Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Todd Breasseale confirmed the delay.

Confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 47, has been charged along with Ali, his Pakistani nephew, who is also known as Ammar al-Baluchi; Mustapha al-Hawsawi of Saudi Arabia; and Yemenis Ramzi Binalshibh and Walid bin Attash.

The five face the death penalty if convicted for their roles in the terror attacks in which hijacked civilian airliners were used to strike New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing 2,976 people.

The defendants were charged with â€œconspiracy, attacking civilians, murder and violation of the law of war, destruction, hijacking and terrorismâ€ in connection with the attacks, the most lethal on US soil in modern history.

The 9/11 case marks the second time the United States has tried to prosecute the suspects under the military commissions system, after the proceedings were put on hold as President Barack Obama sought to bring the case to a federal court in New York.

But Obama faced stiff opposition in Congress, where lawmakers prevented his administration from transferring detainees from the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in southeastern Cuba to the United States. The stalemate also scuttled Obamaâ€™s plans to shutter the detention center, where 169 detainees remain.

Gold9472

05-31-2012, 09:49 AM

Judge sets hearings for Ramadan, 9/11 anniversary
Judge grappling with attorney conflicts postpones the next Sept. 11 pre-trial hearing at Camp Justice for a Wednesday to Sunday in August, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/30/2824314/judge-sets-guantanamo-hearings.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

A military judge overseeing the Sept. 11 conspiracy trial at GuantÃ¡namo has set the next hearing in the case for five days during Ramadan, and says the month when Muslim fast during the day is no excuse for a delay.

Army Col. James L. Pohl, the judge, made note of the holy month, in a scheduling order that grappled with the complexities of mounting the joint capital trial of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged accomplices at the base in southeast Cuba..

He set the hearing for Aug. 8-12, a first ever war court session that would convene on both a Saturday and a Sunday. Members of the five separate defense teams had reported conflicts for June and July.

Pohl also set the subsequent hearing to straddle both a weekend and the 11th anniversary of the terror attacks, Sept. 8-12, in a two-page order unsealed by the Pentagon on Wednesday.

The Pentagon in the past has convened military commissions sessions at GuantÃ¡namo during Ramadan, presenting a bit of a logistical challenge to the prison campsâ€™ staff that shuttle the accused several miles across the base from the detention center to the bay-front compound where the trials are held.

During Ramadan, the military has typically upended its schedule to provide meals to the prison camps at night and meet the captivesâ€™ religious needs.

Earlier this month, when Pohl presided at the arraignment of the 9/11 accused, on a Saturday, the hearing spanned 13 hours and included three scheduled prayer breaks for the accused. The men unfurled their prison-approved prayer rugs on the floor of the maximum-security courtroom, and worshipped on the spot.

â€œNo defense counsel has raised any concernsâ€ about convening a hearing during Ramadan, the judge wrote in the order, which predicted the month that starts with the sighting of a sliver of a moon would run from July 21 to Aug. 20. Pohl added that he â€œwill not consider any adjustment in its order based on a conflict with Ramadan.â€

Military lawyers say courts martial that continue through a weekend are not unusual, particularly in cases convened in the field rather than at U.S. bases that follow more traditional Monday-Friday schedule.

At GuantÃ¡namo, where the site of the war court compound is called the Expeditionary Legal Complex, the base and prison camp do reduce the pace of work activity on weekends when concerts by visiting entertainers and beach parties surge.

Gold9472

06-02-2012, 01:52 AM

9/11 defenders send mixed message on whether to split up GuantÃ¡namo trial
Only one of five defense teams argued in favor of splitting off an accused 9/11 conspirator from the joint prosecution of alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. And they represent Mohammedâ€™s nephew.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/01/2827883/911-defenders-send-mixed-message.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

Defense attorneys are split on whether to break up the joint capital trial of the five GuantÃ¡namo prisoners accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks.

Not all five legal teams had filed responses by Judge James L. Pohlâ€™s May 31 deadline to advise him on whether he should split off the prosecution of alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed from any of the other four accused 9/11 conspirators.

But James Connell III, the Pentagon-paid attorney for Mohammedâ€™s nephew, Ammar al Baluchi, said Friday he urged the judge to try the nephew separately.

â€œIndividual justice has been the norm in capital terrorism cases in the United States,â€ said Connell, who casts his client as a bit player in the government charge sheet and undeserving of a death-penalty prosecution.

Baluchi, 35, allegedly wired money to some of the 9/11 hijackers and helped in some of their U.S.-bound travel.

To bolster his position on separate trials, Connell invoked the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing cases. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were tried separately, he noted, and McVeigh was sentenced to die and executed June 11, 2001 while Nichols is serving a life sentence.

In contrast, defense attorney James Harrington said Thursday his submission to the judge argued â€œitâ€™s prematureâ€ to say whether his client Ramzi bin al Shibh should have a solo trial. Bin al Shibh, 40, allegedly organized the Hamburg cell of Sept. 11 hijackers while four times failing to obtain a U.S. visa and become one.

Pentagon prosecutors donâ€™t want the judge to split up the complex terror prosecution.

They argue that it is â€œin the interests of justiceâ€ that all five should be tried together for the murders of 2,976 people on Sept. 11, 2001. They also attached a copy of a memo signed by all five accused in 2008, two years after they got to GuantÃ¡namo from secret CIA custody, in which the accused described the allegations against them as a â€œbadge of honor.â€

Lawyers for alleged al Qaida lieutenant Walid bin Attash, 34, wrote that they had insufficient information â€” notably they hadnâ€™t been furnished case evidence â€” to take a position on whether to sever.

Lawyers did not file responses for either alleged Saudi money mover Mustafa al Hawsawi nor Mohammed, whose legal teams got extensions until June 8 and June 15 to represent each manâ€™s position.

The defense filings were under seal at the Pentagon on Friday to give U.S. intelligence agencies up to 15 business days to scrub them before release to the public.

The judge on his own, without a request from a defense lawyer, sought all sides opinions on whether to split up the case following the marathon 13-hour arraignment of the five alleged organizers, trainers and funders of the hijackers on May 5. Pohl, an Army colonel, had intended to hold the next 9/11 pre-trial hearing June 12 but was confronted with scheduling conflicts among lawyers on the five separate legal defense teams.

He also questioned whether a joint trial would be a problem if there were a conviction because the same jury decides whether to hand down a death sentence. â€œIt is conceivable that the mitigation evidence for one accused could possibly be considered aggravation evidence for another,â€ Judge Pohl wrote in his May 17 order to the lawyers to brief him on whether severance is appropriate now.

Prosecutors said it was too soon to address that issue and called severance for that reason an â€œextraordinary action at this premature point.â€

But the prosecutors pointed out that, if all five still sought the â€œmartyrdomâ€ spelled out in their 2008 â€œbadge of honorâ€ memo, it would be â€œwholly inconsistentâ€ to be arguing over aggravation and mitigation.

The judge now has time to work out whether to split up the trial.

He set the next two pre-trial sessions for Aug. 8-12 and Sept. 8-12, during Ramadan and the 11th anniversary of the terror attacks respectively. The next two sessions also fall during hurricane season, which began June 1, a time when tropical storms but rarely hurricane winds lash Camp Justice, the war court compound at GuantÃ¡namo.

Gold9472

06-05-2012, 08:52 AM

Red Cross to take new photos of Guantanamo detainees

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/06/05/2550322/red-cross-to-take-new-photos-of.html

Published: June 5, 2012 Updated 38 minutes ago
By Carol Rosenberg â€” The Miami Herald

The International Committee of the Red Cross is arranging with the Pentagon to take fresh photos later this year of the captives at GuantÃ¡namo for their families.

The development comes as old Red Cross photographs of the alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, are circulating anew on Islamist websites â€” renewing attention on the program that permitted GuantÃ¡namo captives to pose in traditional garb for family members who hadnâ€™t seen them for a decade or more.

Now, U.S. Navy Rear Adm. David Woods disclosed the ongoing discussions in a letter to some GuantÃ¡namo defense lawyers included in a court filing in the USS Cole bombing case.

Woods predicted that the international agency that visits prisoners and their families around the globe would be allowed to take fresh photography in October, three years after a Red Cross photographer was allowed to make the last batch of portraits.

In Washington, ICRC spokesman Simon Schorno said the new photography later this year is â€œsomething we intend to do.â€

Only photos with â€œthe expressed approval of the U.S. authoritiesâ€ are allowed to leave the Navy base, Schorno added.

The disclosure came up in the Cole case because defense lawyers want to show the alleged architect, their client, Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a video they made with his parents via Skype from Saudi Arabia. In it, they send â€œgreetings, blessings and expressions of love that one would normally expect parents to convey to a distant child,â€ his lawyers write.

Also, the lawyers want to take a still photograph of Nashiri to send to his parents, and to show potential witnesses in preparation for the trial that is expected to start next year.

Woods refused both requests.

The admiral said that the Saudi-born Nashiri refused to sit for his Red Cross portrait in 2009, the last time it was offered. Woods told the lawyers to â€œencourageâ€ their client to participate in the next round, in October.

Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed in al Qaidaâ€™s October 2000 suicide bombing of the warship, and the Pentagon says Nashiri was the architect of the attack and is seeking his execution.

Now Nashiriâ€™s lawyers are asking the chief war court judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, to let them both take the photograph and show the video during recesses at the next Cole pre-trial hearing, next month.

â€œThe accused â€™s family has not seen him in anything other than a sketch format for many years as a result of his detention with the CIA â€” where he was tortured â€” and his subsequent detention in GuantÃ¡namo,â€ the lawyers write.

U.S. forces captured Nashiri in the United Arab Emirates in 2002 and interrogated him overseas in the CIAâ€™s secret prison network, out of reach of the Red Cross.

While held, according to declassified reports, he was interrogated with waterboarding, at the point of a pistol and revving drill, to get him to spill al Qaida secrets. President George W. Bush had him moved to the U.S. Navy outpost in Cuba in September 2006, for the trial by military commission.

Woods controls what goes on at the detention and interrogation center, where Nashiri is held in a secret lock-up for ex-CIA captives called Camp 7.

Pohl has sovereignty over the court compound, called Camp Justice, while hearings are under way.

At the Pentagon, Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a spokesman, would not confirm Woodsâ€™ remarks about the ongoing talks for new detainee portraits.

But Breasseale said a brief brouhaha over whether unauthorized photos had been smuggled from the prison camps was resolved last month when the military concluded that what appeared to be fresh photos of the alleged 9/11 mastermind were actually old, approved Red Cross images. Some had apparently been altered, he said.

The photography fits in with the Red Cross priority of â€œre-establishing and maintaining family links between detainees held at Guantanamo and their families,â€ the Red Crossâ€™ Schorno said in Washington.

A Red Cross delegate with official access to GuantÃ¡namo took the last batch, permitting each detainee to don traditional attire, if he chose, rather than the Pentagon-issued prison camps uniforms. From those, the captive was allowed to select which images he wanted sent to his family member with a Red Cross message, each of which was subjected to censorship by the U.S. military.

The portraits are â€œnot meant to be used in the public realms,â€ said Schorno. â€œHowever, the ICRC is not in a position to control their usage after they have been received by the families of the detainees.â€

Gold9472

06-05-2012, 04:37 PM

AG Holder considered quitting over 9/11 trial

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/05/2833779/book-ag-holder-considered-quitting.html

By Seth Stern
Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder considered resigning in 2010 after facing criticism for his decision to prosecute terror suspects in civilian court, according to a book being published Tuesday.

Holder â€œsank into a depressionâ€ following the death of his mother and a public backlash against his plans to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, in federal court in New York, according to â€œKill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidencyâ€ by Daniel Klaidman, a reporter for Newsweek and the Daily Beast.

The Obama administration subsequently abandoned Holderâ€™s plan to try Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators in civilian court. Instead, the attorney general announced in April 2011 that the 9/11 cases would return to the military commission at the U.S. Navy base at GuantÃ¡namo Bay, Cuba, where they it is currently being prosecuted..

â€œHolderâ€™s sense of isolation within the administration had turned his job into a grind,â€ according to the book. â€œHe woke up on many mornings with a knot in his stomach, not sure if heâ€™d be able to make it through the day.â€

Holder enjoyed a close personal relationship with President Barack Obama even as he clashed with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and White House political adviser David Axelrod over his handling of terror detainees and speeches early in the administration on gun control and race relations, according to the book.

Holder ultimately decided to stay at the urging of presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, who told him that if he quit, â€œthis will not be good for you and it will not be good for your friend, the president,â€ according to the book.

Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, didnâ€™t immediately respond to an e-mail requesting comment.

Gold9472

06-13-2012, 07:15 PM

9/11 mastermind wants a uniform for Gitmo trial
The accused terrorist asks for a camouflage field jacket, camouflage turban with traditional Pakistani clothing.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/54298904-68/clothing-wear-mohammed-military.html.csp

By BEN FOX
The Associated Press
6/13/2012

San Juan, Puerto Rico â€¢ The man who has called himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks is seeking to wear military-style clothing at his upcoming war crimes trial in Guantanamo, one of his attorneys said Wednesday.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has asked to wear a camouflage field jacket and camouflage turban with traditional Pakistani clothing as he goes on trial with four other men at the U.S. base in Cuba on charges that include murder and terrorism.

Mohammed wanted to wear the items at his May 5 arraignment but prison officials refused to allow it. They also rejected some clothing requested by other defendants as inappropriate for the military tribunal.

But his defense team is asking the judge to overrule that decision, arguing in newly released court papers that Mohammed is seeking to wear items customarily worn by members of a militia and that it violates his right to a fair trial and historical precedent by forbidding him to do so.

"Heâ€™s being prosecuted for violating the laws of war in the context of hostilities," said Army Capt. Jason Wright, a member of Mohammedâ€™s Pentagon-appointed defense team. "War crimes defendants during the Tokyo and Nuremberg tribunals apparently had a right to wear military-style clothing, and itâ€™s unlikely that the U.S. had a problem about Mr. Mohammadâ€™s particular clothing when he was part of the U.S.-backed mujahadeen in Afghanistan who fought the Soviets."

The defense also argues that denying him the right to wear the clothing of his choice is attempt to break him down psychologically, a continuation of the harsh interrogation, including being waterboarded 183 times, that he endured in the CIAâ€™s clandestine prison system before he was brought to Guantanamo in September 2006.

"This appears to be another attempt by the U.S. government to continue one of the aims of the CIAâ€™s now-condemned torture program as an attempt to psychologically disintegrate these so-called enemy prisoners from their individual and social personalities," Wright said in an interview.

Mohammed and his four co-defendants could receive the death penalty if convicted of charges that include nearly 3,000 counts of murder for their alleged roles orchestrating and aiding the Sept. 11 attacks. Mohammed has previously stated he was the "mastermind" of the attacks and indicated he would plead guilty but he and his co-defendants have not yet entered pleas in the case.

Their May arraignment dragged on for nearly 13 hours as the men refused to respond to questions from the judge and wouldnâ€™t listen to Arabic translations in a protest that seems to have been sparked by the militaryâ€™s refusal to allow the clothing of their choice.

Defendant Walid bin Attash, who also wanted to wear a camouflage field jacket, was placed in a restraint chair at the start of the hearing. Another of the men, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, had sought to appear in an orange jumpsuit similar to those worn by the first prisoners who were brought to Guantanamo and which are now often worn by protesters around the world at demonstrations calling for the closure of the prison.

"Mr. Hawsawi wished to wear the orange prisoner jumpsuit as a silent reminder of Guantanamoâ€™s legacy of torture and in peaceful defiance of a system that is built to kill," said his lawyer, Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz.

In a legal motion released Tuesday, prosecutors ask the judge in the case not to overrule the prison camp officials who deemed the clothing items unsuitable for sessions of the court, known as a military commission.

"The detaineeâ€™s attire should not transform this commission into a vehicle for propaganda and undermine the atmosphere that is conducive to calm and detached deliberation and determination of the issues presented and that reflects the seriousness of the proceedings," the prosecutors wrote.

The detention center commander, Rear Adm. David B. Woods says in an affidavit accompanying the motion that he forbids "excessive clothing" for security reasons because it could allow prisoners to hide contraband more easily or make it harder for the guards to gain control if necessary.

Woods also says the prison forbids "clothing that is inconsistent with the decorum and dignity of a court proceeding whether in the United States or the Middle East, and which could undermine good order and discipline."

Lawyers for the defendants say that camouflage should not conflict with the decorum of the court since guards inside the courtroom and prison officials wear military fatigues.

The judge is expected to hold a hearing on the clothing issue at the next court session, scheduled for August.

Gold9472

06-14-2012, 09:10 AM

What not to wear â€” GuantÃ¡namo edition
Newly unsealed documents reveal details of a dispute over what the men accused of planning the 9/11 attacks wanted to wear to the war court last month.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/13/2847903/fashion-worlds-clash-at-guantanamo.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

Accused 9/11mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed wanted to wear paramilitary-style woodland-patterned camouflage clothing to court.

His nephew wanted to sport the same cap he used to pose for a Red Cross photo.

A series of documents unsealed at the Pentagon this week reveal a source of tension at the May 5 arraignment of the Sept. 11 accused at GuantÃ¡namo â€” the men sought to wear what the prison camps commander considered alternately unsafe, culturally inappropriate or disruptive attire. And he forbade it.

Now, lawyers for the five men who face a death-penalty trial are appealing to the chief military commissions judge to stop the camps commander, Rear Adm. David B. Woods, from interfering with their clientsâ€™ court wardrobe.

The challenge to the authority of Woods, who runs the camps that houses 169 prisoners, is the latest in a series by defense attorneys who argue that the career Navy officer, whose speciality is intelligence jamming, has interfered with the court process by having his forces go through the captivesâ€™ attorney-client mail. Woods, who will be replaced at the U.S. Navy base later this month, has countered that security is paramount.

Now, in an affidavit, the admiral explains how he and the colonel in charge of the prison camp guard force went through the accusedâ€™s proposed wardrobe â€” provided by their Pentagon attorneys, most uniformed officers â€” and rejected everything but the white gowns and prison camp uniforms that they wore to court for the unusual Saturday arraignment.

As a result, the most traditionally clad person in court was a secular attorney â€” Cheryl Bormann from Chicago â€” who donned a black abaya, a shapeless headscarf and gown that covered her hair and left only her face exposed.

Bormann, paid by the Pentagon to defend accused al Qaida deputy Walid bin Attash, said she was respecting her clientâ€™s Muslim sensibilities and at one point scolded women on the Pentagon prosecution team to watch their hemlines.

The hearing spanned 13 hours and began with attorneys bitterly complaining that the five men accused of organizing, training and funding the Sept. 11 hijackings were refused their choice of attire.

In the instance of the alleged mastermind, Woods wrote, Mohammedâ€™s lawyer presented a jacket, hunting vest and fabric for a proposed turban all made of â€œwoodlands camouflage printâ€ â€” shown with a label calling it a â€œRangerâ€™s Vestâ€ in a court document. Woods said he forbade it because of â€œsecurity and good order and discipline concerns, and because they were inappropriate courtroom attire.â€

War crimes defendants at World War II tribunals at Tokyo and Nuremberg were able to wear military-style clothing to their trials, said Mohammedâ€™s attorney, Army Capt. Jason Wright. Mohammed sought to wear â€œmilitia-styleâ€ clothing in the Laws of Armed Conflict sense of the term, as a paramilitary organization.

Two of the accused sought to wear traditional Afghan caps and vests â€” no camouflage, purchased at a Virginia shop called Halalco that specializes in Muslim products. And in each instance Woods rejected that choice of attire because â€œsuch vests are traditionally only worn during the winter or in colder climates.â€

James Connell III, the attorney for Mohammedâ€™s nephew, known as Ammar al Baluchi, said the cap that his client wasnâ€™t allowed to wear to court was the same as the one he wore to pose for photographs that were taken by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Those photos have turned up on websites sympathetic to al Qaida. Neither contained any messages, he said, describing Baluchiâ€™s proposed wardrobe as â€œbanal.â€

All five of the men who got to GuantÃ¡namo in 2006 from CIA custody were allowed to wear their skullcaps to court, Woods said in the affidavit, â€œin recognition of their cultural and religious significance.â€

And they were allowed to bring their prayer rugs with them, unfurling them inside the maximum-security courtroom during breaks.

But Woods wrote he was forbidding â€œclothing that is inconsistent with the decorum and dignity of a court proceeding whether in the United States or the Middle East.â€

Plus, no vests allowed. Or anything with pockets, â€œa potential means of removing unauthorized items from the courtroom.â€

â€œExcessive clothing could potentially complicate the guardsâ€™ ability to gain control of a detainee.â€

Guards brought four of the Sept. 11 defendants to court unshackled. Bin Attash was brought in a restraint chair like those once used for forced feedings of prisoners, with his prosthetic leg detached due to an unspecific episode prior to the hearing. Eventually he was freed.

Bin Attash lost a leg in fighting in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks and also planned to dress paramilitary style for court. His lawyers got him a â€œfoul-weather jacket of the Desert Camouflage Uniform print,â€ similar to those warn by U.S. Coast Guard members at the war court, according to Woodsâ€™ affidavit. â€œIt was not culturally appropriate courtroom clothing,â€ Woods said.

Woods spokesman did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment, including whether the admiral consulted with the judge, an Army colonel, on what would constitute â€œculturally appropriate clothingâ€ in his court.

At the May 5 hearing, the judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, said he was willing to take up the issue. â€œThe rule is they are entitled to wear appropriate non-prison garb attire,â€ Pohl said, adding that if Woods made â€œsome arbitrary and capricious decision on that, let me know about it and I will revisit it.â€

The motion seeks to do just that. It argues that the men are still suffering from their treatment in CIA custody â€” Mohammed was water boarded 183 times â€” and that Woodsâ€™ â€œarbitrary, unpredictable and standardless denial of the detaineesâ€™ right to wear appropriate clothingâ€ to court â€œreplicated the psychologically disruptive nature of the CIA procedures.â€

Also, they argue that Woods is prejudicing the case against them by forbidding them â€œto wear items of clothing customarily worn by belligerents within the context of hostilities under the laws of armed conflict reverses the presumption of innocence.â€ Mohammed is the self-described former chief of operations of al Qaida and has called himself a revolutionary just like George Washington.

At the prison camps they are held as the enemy. But at the war court they are afforded a presumption of innocence, according to the Pentagon, one reason why earlier judges have urged defendants not to wear their prison camps uniform to court. But one of the accused, Saudi Mustafa al Hawsawi, wanted to wear an orange jumpsuit to court, which Woods forbade, citing â€œinstitutional and security concerns.â€

Only certain captives are kept in orange jumpsuits, the admiral wrote, and Hawsawi is not among them.

But orange jumpsuits have been seen at the war court before: Afghan teen Mohammed Jawad, since released after a federal judge ruled him unlawfully detained, was arraigned in March 2008 in an orange jumpsuit and ankle shackles, demonstrating he was uncooperative with his captors. And two years earlier Binyam Mohamed donned a traditional Pakistani tunic and trousers, a shalwar khameez, that his lawyer had had dyed jumpsuit orange in London for his arraignment. Mohamed has since been released to live in Britain, and cleared of all charges.

Hawsawiâ€™s attorney, Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz, said the Saudi wanted to wear the orange jumpsuit because it â€œmore accurately reflects his status as a political prisoner in relation to war hostilities rather than the softer and less accurate â€˜detainee.â€™â€ It was provided, he said, by a founder of the Code Pink anti-war group, Medea Benjamin.

Gold9472

06-25-2012, 09:31 PM

KSM Response On Separate Trials in the 9/11 Case

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/06/ksm-response-on-separate-trials-in-the-911-case/

By Wells Bennett
Sunday, June 24, 2012 at 11:36 AM

The Department of Defense has unsealed Khalid Sheik Mohammedâ€™s response to Judge Pohlâ€™s show cause order â€“ in which the commission had asked the government to explain why the 9/11 defendants should not be tried separately. (At the moment, the case is proceeding on a joint basis, with all five accused to face trial together.) The caseâ€™s best known defendant says he neither opposes nor supports severance.

Thus far only one defendantâ€™s response, from Ammar al-Baluchi (aka Ali Abdul Aziz Ali), specifically had asked for a separate trial. As support for the request, he cited his plan to demonstrate a lesser level of culpability relative to the four other accused coconspirators. By contrast, attorneys for three other defendants took no position on the severance issue, arguing among other things that impingements on the attorney-client relationship and their inability thus far to review information in the prosecutionâ€™s possession together precluded them from doing so.

Now Mohammed, better known as â€œKSM,â€ has followed this latter approach â€“ while making a few unique points of his own. According to his lawyersâ€™ filing, the â€œDefense is unable to make an informed and competent response to the Prosecutionâ€™s Response, and otherwise to address the primary concerns raised by the Commission in its Show Cause Order.â€ KSM therefore specifically asks the Commission to delay resolution of the severance matter until the defense can review information necessary to formulate a position.

His attorneys also highlighted a few specific obstacles to such a review. Their mitigation expertâ€™s application for a security clearance remains pending, despite having been filed in September of 2011. The delay by definition has precluded the expert from reviewing any classified materials furnished in the prior military commission case against the 9/11 defendants. (KSMâ€™s attorneys also note that they do not yet have access to discovery materials â€“ classified and unclassified â€“ in the pending commission case.) And because of onerous JTF-GTMO rules, Mohammedâ€™s lawyers â€œmay not bring into client meetings relevant news articles on potential mitigation themes for discussion and exploration without waiving the attorney client privilege,â€ and also cannot show Judge Pohlâ€™s show cause order and the governmentâ€™s response to Mohammed. Instead, the lawyers say, the must memorize these materials, apparently in order to summarize them for Mohammed orally.

Gold9472

06-27-2012, 03:43 PM

UN asked to probe Guantanamo torture of 9/11 chief

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hEJA0O0xtqcP0-mtlW_EEZUQGs0A?docId=CNG.4d6ea04ac89b3de3a0db537e0 6e23d6e.181

(AFP) â€“ 17 hours ago

WASHINGTON â€” Lawyers for self-confessed September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed revealed they have asked the UN to investigate their client's alleged torture at Guantanamo Bay military jail.

On the UN's International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, Mohammed's defense team revealed they had sent a "Letter of Allegation" to Juan Mendez, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.

The letter was sent on May 5 from Guantanamo, on the eve of Mohammed's arraignment on charges for which he faces the death penalty.

The first confessions of the Pakistani national, alias KSM, who has claimed responsibility for the 2001 attacks, were obtained under torture, after 183 instances of waterboarding and 7.5 straight days of sleep deprivation in a secret CIA prison, according to a US intelligence report.

The letter asks that the special UN rapporteur "initiate a full, fair and impartial inquiry" into both US conduct and that of "any other potentially complicit state party to the Convention (against Torture)."

"After subjecting Mr. Mohammed to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment following his capture on March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, the US government has silenced him," reads the letter, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

"No one without a top secret security clearance is allowed to meet with him or speak to him. His defense attorneys are told to treat his every word as 'presumptively top secret,'" the letter adds, inviting Mendez to meet the most famous detainee at Guantanamo.

"The US government seeks to close this painful and dark chapter in our Nation's history by killing Mr. Mohammed after a show trial," it claims.

"No human being should be tortured," wrote Captain Jason Wright, a military lawyer assigned to Mohammed, wrote in today's release.

"In the period since 9/11, the US has misplaced its moral compass. Through accountability, we can hopefully find our way again, and pursue a path of rediscovery and redemption."

Gold9472

07-10-2012, 11:05 AM

Why Not Try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed by Video?

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/07/why-not-try-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-by-video/259532/

By Andrew Cohen
Jul 9 2012, 11:10 AM ET

As long as President Obama is listening, Daniel Klaidman is writing, and Washington seems interested, U.S. District Judge William G. Young reckons it's as good a time as any to pitch an idea he's been tinkering with for a few years. It's a bold suggestion, designed to solve one of the most difficult problems raised by the war on terror, and to work it would require leaps of faith and policy that seem far beyond the cognitive ability of the current crop of public officials. But surely it's worth the conversation. Nearly 11 years after 9/11, perhaps its time to listen carefully to a serious judge with a practical plan.

A 1985 appointee of President Ronald Reagan, Judge Young, as you will see below, already has earned himself a measure of immortality in the world of terror law. And now he's back with an earnest pitch: Why not prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terror suspects in federal civilian court at the American prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? If Mohammed can't be brought to the federal courts, how about bringing more of the federal courts to Mohammed? Judge Young believes that foreign terror suspects may safely, efficiently and constitutionally be tried in an Article III civilian court without ever leaving Gitmo. Here are the broad contours of his plan:
Why don't we try him by video conference? He will stay in Guantanamo, a criminal jury will be empaneled in the normal way, in an appropriate way, all crimes save for impeachment should be tried by jury. Trial takes place in Gitmo. Witnesses must go to Gitmo. Judge must go to Gitmo. Our video conference hookup is sophisticated. Jury could see him and every witness but KSM could not see jurors. When all the evidence is over, the lawyers would come back to New York and give closing arguments. KSM could see the final arguments.

Judge Young concedes that a federal criminal trial has never before been done by video conference. But he says he is unaware of any insurmountable "constitutional infirmities" that would preclude it. The technology already is in place (last year, for example, a group of Yemenis at Gitmo were allowed to video conference with their families). No offense to the military officials who are currently presiding over the commissions, Judge Young adds, it's just that federal trial judges in New York, Boston, Washington, and elsewhere have centuries of combined experience controlling their courtrooms in terror cases.

THE PRESIDENT
Why does Judge Young's opinion matter more than the average federal trial judge? Klaidman tells us. His latest set piece, Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency, starts off with a bang. It is January 2010, and President Obama and his top advisors are in the White House Situation Room trying to decide how to react to the stab in the back just administered to them by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Originally supportive of a federal civilian trial for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Bloomberg by now has changed course and opposes a big terror trial in the city, a venue that has safely, for centuries, hosted hundreds of such terror trials.

As the meeting degenerates into what Klaidman calls "squabbling," the president picks up from the table in front of him a copy of a federal judge's remarkable speech made in open court in Boston in early 2003. It is the now-legendary smackdown given to Richard Reid, the so-called "shoebomber," who in December 2001 had tried to detonate a bomb aboard American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami. The courtroom orator, U.S. District Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee with a long history of outspoken, trenchant opinions, was responding to a pro-Al Qaeda outburst made by Reid following his guilty plea.

Here is the full text of the January 30, 2003 speech -- then and now one of the most eloquent statement of American values uttered by a public official since September 11, 2001. To his credit, Klaidman reproduces the entire speech as well. And why not? After reading Judge Young's speech aloud to his audience, the president reportedly asked: "Why can't I give that speech?" before quickly and wordlessly leaving the Situation Room. Why not, indeed. Thirty months after the president asked his rhetorical question, the case for federal civilian trials for terror suspects somehow has lost political ground.

THE SPEECH
THE COURT: Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you. On Counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General. On Counts 2, 3, 4, and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutive one with the other. That's 80 years. On Count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years consecutive to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you on each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 for the aggregate fine of $2 million.

The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines. The Court imposes upon you the $800 special assessment. The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need not go any further. This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence. Let me explain this to you.

We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here. And I say that to everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court where we deal with individuals as individuals, and care for individuals as individuals, as human beings we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much stature. Whether is it the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You're a big fellow. But you're not that big. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense Trooper Santiago had it right when first you were taken off that plane and [placed] into custody, and you wondered where the press and ... TV crews were, and [he] said, "you're no big deal." You're no big deal.

What your counsel, what your able counsel and what the equally able United States Attorneys have grappled with, and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today? I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing.

And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you. But as I search this entire record it comes as close to understanding as I know. It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious.

You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not to believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely.

It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, [and] will go on in their ... representation of you before other judges. We care about it. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake, though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden, pay any price, to preserve our freedoms.

Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it will be forgotten. But this, however, will long endure. Here, in this courtroom, and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done.

The very president of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged, and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice. See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag still stands for freedom. You know it always will. Custody, Mr. Officer. Stand him down.

THE JUDGE
Custody, Mr. Officer. Stand him down. To this day, Judge Young insists that he did not write out that speech in advance, that he was speaking "off the cuff" following Reid's allocution. The judge told me last week that he always tries to specifically explain a sentence he's just given a defendant. And Reid, who had told the judge in open court that he was "at war with your country," provided Judge Young with a unique opportunity to make a statement not just about one case but about an entire philosophy: The quicker we label Al Qaeda detainees as superhuman monsters, Judge Young cautioned, the harder we make it for ourselves to treat them like the mortal suspects they are.

Judge Young says today that he had no idea that his statement would go viral and eventually reach the president's eyes. "I would have made the sentence had he not made the comments that he did," Judge Young says of Reid. "I knew that it would get some play in the press. And I wanted to have the last word. I didn't expect it to have the impact it did. I thought it was a one-day story." He says he still gets emails congratulating him for his choice of words. In the lingering political dispute over venues for terror trials, amid all the recrimination and fear, Judge Young (and Richard Reid) are Exhibits A and B supporting the case for federal civilian trials.

Exhibits -- and also witnesses. In a 2009 law review article, Judge Young reminded Washington of how stoically ordinary citizens had faced their obligations to the criminal justice system even as their elected officials were peddling fear, prejudice and ignorance about the ability of the federal courts to handle terrorism cases. Of the months following 9/11, Judge Young wrote:
Americans stood united in a way not seen since Pearl Harbor, but our unity was not only expressed in our military response or our humanitarian outreach to the victims. With the judicial branch, citizen response to jury subpoenas spied to record levels. Amidst all the frenetic activity in the months following September 11, not only potential juror-- not one-- sought to be excused on the ground that the courthouse itself was a probable terrorist target. Americans came to serve in record numbers simply because their country called them (emphasis added).

Still more impressive, and ultimately far more profound, in the year following September 11 the government's conviction rate remained relatively unchanged. In other words, juries continued to perform their constitutional role of providing impartial, even-handed justice even in the face of a looming, inchoate terrorist threat, and never subordinated their independent judgment to that of the government.

Judge Young's point, then and now, is that American jurors aren't afraid to judge terror suspects. Unafraid -- and still representative of core American due process and fair trial values. As the conscience of their communities, as the voice of the people, jurors have performed this public service for hundreds of years. Hundreds of terrorists -- domestic, foreign, and something in between -- are today serving out their civilian sentences thanks to jury verdicts. It isn't just constitutionally dubious for Congress to restrict the ability of jurors to hear terrorism cases, the argument goes, it's also just a bad idea.

THE PROBLEM
In the nine years since he sent Reid packing, Judge Young and the rest of us have witnessed a startling reversal in the political dynamic over terror law. In January 2003, Congress was a supine "partner" to the executive branch. The Bush White House ran the show. Today, even though no American jury has ever allowed an Al Qaeda defendant to walk free, Congress has significantly restricted the administration's ability to try terror suspects in federal court. The folks who found and killed Osama bin Laden can't be trusted to prosecute his deputies. And jurors can't be trusted to hear those cases.

No one personifies this double standard more than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed himself. He was captured in Pakistan in May 2003 -- just a few months after Judge Young made his Reid speech. (For an excellent account of the pre-arrest portion of the Mohammed story, read The Hunt For KSM by Josh Meyer and Terry McDermott). Next, over the objections of the FBI, Mohammed was waterboarded, thus complicating forever any future prosecution in civilian court. Then he was to be tried by military commission. Then he was to be tried in New York. Now he is in Gitmo, barred by federal law from being transferred to the States for trial.

In May 2009, when Mohammed first was arraigned by military commission, the typically perfunctory hearing quickly devolved into chaos. Three years later, with new tribunal rules in force, Mohammed was arraigned again -- and the same thing happened. There is no way such defendant behavior would have been tolerated in our nation's federal courts. You want to act up in court, Mr. Mohammed? Go right ahead. You, too, Mr. Binalshibh. But then you'll have to watch the rest of the proceedings from your cell, just like any other criminal defendant who acts up. That's what a federal judge would say. Military judges? So far they have seemed spooked by the in-court antics of Mohammed and company.

THE REACTION
I ran Judge Young's terror trial-by-video conferencing idea by some of the bright men and women who focus upon this area of terror law. Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, and often a key figure in Klaidman's book, answered my question this past weekend about the legality of such a trial. Via email, he told me that the proposal "would pose risks to the suspect's due-process and confrontational rights in several respects." For example, Roth notes:
The suspect wouldn't be able to see the whole courtroom of the trial where his very life is in jeopardy. Having sat in the courtroom (separated only by glass) for the arraignment of the 9/11 suspects, and at the same time watched the video, I saw the enormous amount of important visual information that the video camera missed. I don't think that was intentional, but rather inherent in the difficulty of connecting to a courtroom (as opposed to, say, an ordinary deposition) by videoconference.

The unusual nature of having a suspect tried by videoconference would signal to the jury that the suspect is so dangerous he must be guilty -- hardly an auspicious basis for a fair trial.

Presumably the suspect could communicate with his attorneys in real time only by separate phone, raising major questions about confidentiality (or the likely lack thereof, given the government's current approach to security) and how that would affect their ability to mount an effective defense.

The first and third problems could be avoided by having Congress authorize the SDNY to sit in Gitmo, but the second one -- involving the selection of jurors who could spend months there -- would not

On the other hand, there is this from military law expert Gary Solis, the former head of West Point's Law of War program, a retired Marine judge advocate, who is now an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. He told me:
Trying Guantanamo cases by federal video-conference, rather than by military commission, is a fine idea. Federal trials would proceed with greater alacrity; any resulting conviction would be a federal conviction rather than a military commission conviction, lending greater credibility to the outcome; yet no detainee would be brought to the continental U.S., satisfying present U.S. law. I believe federal trial by video-conference would be a bridge too far for cases other than Guantanamo detainee terrorism charges which, because of the detainees' location, are unique. Any necessary modifications of the Federal Rules of Procedure should apply only to detainee cases.

The Department of Defense would strongly object to such trials, however. An assertion of inadequate civilian prosecutions would be raised, despite hundreds of terrorism convictions. Additionally, in terms of hoped for international acceptance, as well as Guantanamo's physical infrastructure and dedicated manpower, the military has a lot riding on military commissions. DOD would find political allies willing take up their cudgel, and who might block the necessary amendments to the Federal Rules of Procedure.

While Guantanamo trials by video-conference is a promising idea, we probably are too far down the torturous road to more trials by military commission to deviate.

So the civil libertarians wouldn't be too happy with it. And neither would the Defense Department. Sounds like a good starting point to me! Here's hoping that President Obama and his council still are paying attention to Judge Young. And here's hoping we one day soon get to hear from this president the speech he says he wants to deliver on this topic. If and when that day comes, Judge Young deserves a special seat front and center at the White House -- and on Capitol Hill as well.

UPDATE:

Another federal trial judge, also with extensive experience handling terror cases, responded to this piece this morning. He wrote:
Once again, I note that the East Coast considers itself the font of all knowledge and wisdom. Out here in the sagebrush and forest fire country, we have been taking testimony from prisoners via video in a number of trials and in pretrial proceedings for a number of years. Just last week, I held a supervised release violation hearing and sentencing via video with our court in Grand Junction.

Gold9472

07-10-2012, 10:37 PM

9/11 accused donâ€™t want hearings during Ramadan

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/10/2889960/911-accused-dont-want-hearings.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

Lawyers for accused Sept. 11 attacks mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four co-defendants are seeking to postpone their Aug. 8-12 hearing at GuantÃ¡namo, noting it falls toward the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The trial judge, Army Col. James Pohl, set the date for the hearing in May and specifically ruled out an extension on grounds that it coincided with Islamâ€™s fasting month. He noted in his order then that no defense lawyer at that point had raised objection to a hearing that coincided with Ramadan.

But the attorneys do just that in a June 21 filing currently under seal on the Pentagonâ€™s war court website entitled â€œJoint Defense Motion for the Military Commission to Respect the Religious Observances of Enemy Prisoners under Common Article 3.â€

Pohl is hearing motions in another GuantÃ¡namo case next week. But that hearing ends by July 19, before Ramadan starts. The 9/11 case pre-trial motions would be heard toward the end of Ramadan.

â€œThe last 10 days of Ramadan commemorate the night God â€”Allahâ€” revealed the Holy Quran to the Prophet Mohammed,â€ said James Connell III, the Pentagon-paid defense counsel for Mohammedâ€™s nephew, Ammar al Baluchi. â€œThese 10 days are the most holy period of the Muslim calendar and are typically observed by fasting, prayer, and seclusion.â€

The Sept. 11 prosecutor opposes delay in a separate motion, also under seal at the war court website.

Next monthâ€™s would not be the first Ramadan war court appearance by Mohammed and the four men accused of orchestrating, funding and training the 19 terrorists who hijacked the four aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001, killingly nearly 3,000 people in New York, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

The five men were brought to war court for hearings in September 2008, as Ramadan was reaching its conclusion that year on the Muslim calendar during a since-aborted Bush effort to try the men before a different judge, a U.S. Marine Corps colonel. Mohammed objected to the timing of that 2008 session during his appearance on behalf of the five man who face the death penalty if convicted at their capital murder trial.

Gold9472

07-14-2012, 08:08 AM

Two Developments in the 9/11 Case

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/07/two-developments-in-the-911-case/

By Wells Bennett
Friday, July 13, 2012 at 3:15 PM

Development the first: the defenseâ€™s objection to the upcoming August 8, 2012 hearing has cleared security review. You can read the defenseâ€™s arguments as to why that hearing must be postponed â€“ it falls in the middle of Ramadan â€“ and why no court proceedings should be held on Fridays generally, here.

Up second is yesterdayâ€™s statement from James Connell III, a lawyer for 9/11 defendant Ammar al-Baluchi (aka Ali Abdul Aziz Ali). Connell describes the defenseâ€™s effort (among other things) to ensure that classified court papers are released to the public in redacted form. The complete statement is below the fold:
Today, attorneys for the 9/11 defendants asked the military commission to publicly release redacted versions of classified motions and exhibits filed in the case. â€œThe government has no legitimate interest in keeping unclassified information secret,â€ said James Connell, attorney for accused logistical co-conspirator Ammar al Baluchi. â€œThe public has a right to know what is happening in the military commissions.â€

Military commissions regulations provide a procedure for a Pentagon task force to redact classified filings for public release, but so far no redacted classified filings have been released in the 9/11 case. For example, in May, the government, the defense, the ACLU, and a coalition of 14 news organizations all clashed over the secrecy requirements at Guantanamo Bay. The classified defense brief (AE013G) has never been released in redacted form.

The motion is just one of several challenging military commissions secrecy that may be heard at the scheduled August 8 hearing. Other motions include the argument over â€œpresumptive classificationâ€â€”the process by which every statement of Guantanamo prisoners is considered classifiedâ€”and the defense objections to off-the-record hearings known as 802 conferences.

Gold9472

07-16-2012, 10:18 PM

Guantanamo hearing delayed for 9/11 suspects due to Ramadan

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/16/us-usa-guantanamo-idUSBRE86F19T20120716

By Jane Sutton
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba | Mon Jul 16, 2012 7:28pm EDT

(Reuters) - The next hearing for five Guantanamo prisoners charged with plotting the September 11 attacks has been postponed for two weeks to allow the defendants to observe the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The chief judge in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals, Army Colonel James Pohl, granted the delay on Monday for the alleged architect of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four co-defendants who could face the death penalty if convicted on charges of conspiring with al Qaeda and murdering 2,976 people in the hijacked plane attacks of 2001.

"Today, the military commission rescheduled its next hearing from August 8-12 to August 22-26 to accommodate a defense request to avoid hearings during the last 10 days of Ramadan," said defense attorney James Connell, who represents Mohammed's nephew, defendant Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, also known as Ammar al Baluchi.

The five were arraigned at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in May and their next hearing had already been postponed from June because of scheduling conflicts among the defense lawyers.

Pretrial hearings are scheduled to resume on Tuesday in another death penalty case at Guantanamo - that of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, an alleged al Qaeda chieftain accused of helping orchestrate a deadly attack on a U.S. warship off Yemen in 2000.

Nashiri's hearing had been scheduled to run through Friday but has been cut short by a day, also because of Ramadan, the month when devout Muslims fast during daylight hours. Many Muslims will observe the start of Ramadan on Friday, although some begin and end the fast before or after others because they follow different rules or disagree on whether they have spotted the new crescent moon that marks the start of the month in Islam's lunar calendar.

Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni descent, is accused of recruiting and aiding suicide bombers who rammed a boat full of explosives into the USS Cole as it refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden. The blast killed 17 U.S. sailors and wounded three dozen others. He is charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and terrorism.

At this week's hearings, Judge Pohl will consider a defense request for evidence that is classified as secret, and will weigh whether the courtroom should be closed to the press and public while the issue is debated. He will also consider a defense request that he recuse himself from the case.

Nashiri's lawyers argue that Pohl lacks the experience to handle a complicated death penalty case. They also claim he has a financial interest in the case since he was recalled from retirement for the Guantanamo assignment and his income would drop when that duty ends.

Gold9472

07-16-2012, 10:21 PM

GuantÃ¡namo judge delayed next 9/11 hearings until after Ramadan
The judge granted the request of attorneys representing the men accused of planning the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to reschedule the next hearings until after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/16/2897901/guantanamo-judge-delays-next-911.html?asset_id=2833817&asset_type=gallery

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- The chief war court judge on Monday postponed until after Ramadan the next hearings in the death-penalty case of the alleged Sept. 11 plotters, yielding to a request by attorneys for accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his co-defendants to respect their religion.

Rather than hold the hearings Aug. 8-12, as the holy Muslim month is winding down, Army Col. James Pohl reset the hearings for Aug. 22-26, said Pentagon defense attorney James G. Connell III.

Pohlâ€™s order had yet to be released on the military commissions website. But military sources confirmed the delay, which prosecutors had opposed.

Also Monday, lawyers for Canadian convict Omar Khadr came to the base to brief the â€œchild soldierâ€ on their latest bid to win his repatriation â€” a fresh suit filed Friday night with a Canadian federal court seeking an order from a judge to compel Canadaâ€™s minister for public safety, Vic Toews, to move forward with a plan for Khadrâ€™s return.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta cleared Khadr for release in April, but Toews has yet to present Khadrâ€™s lawyers with his plan to bring the Toronto-born 25-year-old home to his native soil to finish an eight-year sentence.

Under a diplomatic deal, Khadr pleaded guilty to war crimes in October 2010 and could serve another year at the GuantÃ¡namo cellblock for war criminals before being moved to Canada for at-most seven more years incarceration. But Canada has yet to formally seek his return.

In the plea, Khadr admitted to throwing a grenade in July 2002 that killed a U.S. soldier during a firefight at a suspect al-Qaida compound in Afghanistan. Khadr was 15 at the time. In Canada that means he would be eligible for parole after serving a third of his sentence under that nationâ€™s application of juvenile justice.

Toronto attorney John Norris said he and Khadrâ€™s other Canadian lawyer, Brydie Bethell, last visited GuantÃ¡namo in April. They cannot brief him by telephone unless they use a special facility in Washington, D.C. Instead they came for face-to-face meetings.

Last week, the Pentagon repatriated Sudanese captive Ibrahim al Qosi, 52, who like Khadr pleaded guilty to terror charges in exchange for the possibility of release. â€œIt would be entirely understandable if this were upsetting to Omar,â€ said Norris, noting that under his original guilty-plea timetable Khadr should have gone home first.

Sudan had been consistently asking for release of its nationals. And Norris said Qosiâ€™s return illustrated â€œCanadaâ€™s abject failure to do the sameâ€ in the case of Khadr, GuantÃ¡namoâ€™s youngest prisoner, who was captured by U.S. forces 10 years ago this month.

The prospect of return has stirred unhappiness in some Canadian circles. Khadrâ€™s father, a confidant of Osama bin Laden, raised his family with radical, anti-Western Islamic teachings until the elder was killed in a Pakistani raid on a suspected terrorist compound after the Sept. 11 attacks. Others have said Canada has done too little on behalf of the young man, who should have been given rehabilitation after he was seriously wounded in the firefight that led to his capture â€” not sent to GuantÃ¡namo for interrogation and eventual trial.

A Canadian legislator, Sen. RomÃ©o Dallaire, a member of the Liberal Party, is spearheading an internet campaign to pressure the government to repatriate Khadr. Dallaire, a retired Canadian lieutenant general, has adopted the Khadr case as a cause as part of his global campaign against the recruitment of child soldiers.

Gold9472

07-18-2012, 07:25 AM

Classified in Gitmo Trials: Detaineesâ€™ Every Word

http://www.propublica.org/article/classified-in-gitmo-trials-detainees-every-word

by Cora Currier
ProPublica, July 17, 2012, 2:52 p.m.

Can the government declare anything a Guantanamo detainee does or says automatically classified?

Thatâ€™s the question posed by two challenges to a government order declaring â€œany and all statementsâ€ by the five detainees allegedly behind the 9/11 attacks â€œpresumptively classified.â€ That includes their own accounts of their treatment, and even torture, at the hands of the U.S. government.

The government made that argument this spring at the start of the military commission trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others. The government says the defendantsâ€™ accounts, if made public without review by a government authority, could reveal details of the CIAâ€™s detention and interrogation efforts.

Of course, much information about the programsâ€”including torture of detaineesâ€”has long been public. The CIAâ€™s so-called black-site prisons were acknowledged nearly six years ago by then-President Bush. More details about the program were released by President Obama in 2009.

The â€œpresumptive classificationâ€ order extends to both detaineesâ€™ testimony and their discussions with their lawyers. In other words, anything said by a detainee, whether in court or to their counsel, will first need censorsâ€™ stamp of approval before it can become public.

The American Civil Liberties Union, news outlets, and one of the 9/11 defendantsâ€™ lawyers have all challenged aspects of the order. A Gitmo commission judge may consider their arguments at hearings next month.

Hereâ€™s exactly what the government says is still classified, from the order it proposed to the military commission in April:

What's still classified (p. 7)

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/396328/pages/govt-motion-for-po-u-s-v-mohammad-p7-normal.gif

By extension, the government argues, anything said by the accused must be presumed classified, because they were â€œexposedâ€ to classified information during their detention:

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/396328/pages/govt-motion-for-po-u-s-v-mohammad-p6-normal.gif

"any and all statements by the accused are presumptively classified" (p. 6)

The governmentâ€™s order mandates that the court proceedings, which are transmitted via closed circuit TV to media and other observers in viewing rooms in the U.S., get a forty-second delay to allow for the blotting out of any sensitive information revealed by the defendants. If something censored in the broadcast is later deemed unclassified, it is restored on the court transcript. This is how the arraignment in this case proceeded back in May. At one point, censors blocked a defense lawyerâ€™s comment that one of the defendants was tortured, only to have it later reinstated for the record.

The ACLU filed a brief in May saying that the governmentâ€™s order of presumptive classification and the forty-second delay violate the publicâ€™s right of access to the trial. The ACLUâ€™s motion takes issue with the idea that the government has declared detaineesâ€™ â€œpersonal knowledge of their detention and treatment in U.S. custodyâ€ classified. Their exposure to classified information was forced upon them, the ACLU states, in CIA detention and interrogation programs that are now outlawed.

The ACLU argues that an executive order on classification signed by Obama in 2009 says in part that, in order to be properly classified, information must be â€œunder the control of the United States Government.â€ The ACLUâ€™s brief challenges whether that authority could be extended â€œcategorically to human beings under the governmentâ€™s control.â€ [emphasis in original]. The ACLU also argues that the detainees were not in any kind of contractual relationship which would make them liable for the classified information they were exposed to.

In a response to the ACLUâ€™s brief, the government reiterated that certain elements of the CIA program are still properly classified and that this is the most practical way to handle that sensitive information. The government claims that the forty-second delay is a narrow measure that satisfies the publicâ€™s right of access, pointing to coverage of the arraignment in May. Eliminating it, as the ACLU requests, would force the government to â€œpredict the accusedâ€™s possible future behavior.â€ (The ACLU counters that any information a detainee might reveal wouldnâ€™t require government confirmation, and would be the same as previous accounts of their detention in the press and Red Cross reports.)

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the ACLUâ€™s or other challenges to the order.

Fourteen media organizations, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Fox, also filed an objection to the governmentâ€™s protective order. Last week the same group filed a brief opposing the closing of certain proceedings in the case against Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole. That case was governed by a similar protective order, signed by the same judge presiding over the 9/11 case, James Pohl.

Thatâ€™s part of what makes it unlikely Pohl will be open to rescinding the governmentâ€™s order, says Wells Bennett, a visiting fellow in national security at the Brookings Institution and a contributor to the widely read Lawfare blog. â€œPresumptive classification has already been in use in the Guantanamo trials. For Pohl to turn around, at this point, would be bucking the trend,â€ says Bennett.

Hina Shamsi, the ACLUâ€™s lead lawyer on the case, views the public access issue as critical to the public perception of the military commission system, which, she says, â€œwill not be seen as legitimate if they are organized around judicially-approved censorship of detaineesâ€™ own accounts of their torture in U.S. custody.â€

Military commissions were temporarily suspended when Obama took office, and revamped later in 2009 when Congress passed a new Military Commissions Act strengthening defendantsâ€™ rights. The 9/11 case is seen as a high-profile test of the system, which has obtained four convictions under Obama so far. The Obama administration originally planned to try the five in civilian courts but transferred the trial to the military commission last year after Congress made it all but impossible to bring Guantanamo detainees into the U.S.

A separate challenge to the governmentâ€™s stance was filed in April by James Connell, the civilian Defense Department lawyer representing one of the 9/11 defendants, Ammar Al-Baluchi (also known as Abd al Aziz Ali). The motion challenges the very notion of presumptive classification.

Anyone involved in the case has to sign a â€œmemorandum of understandingâ€ indicating their responsibility for access to classified information, as defined in the protective order. The defense needs to give warning when they plan to use classified information, and to submit any information they want unclassified to a government-appointed security officer for review.

In practice, according to Connell, this means lawyers have to get approval to use even their clientâ€™s birthdate, if the source for it is the detaineeâ€™sâ€”presumptively classifiedâ€”statement. The resulting difficulties for the defense, the motion maintains, violate attorney-client privilege and Sixth Amendment protections.

Connell also claims that presumptive classification violates procedures laid out in Obamaâ€™s executive order and elsewhere. According to those standards, information can only be classified after an evaluation that its relevance to national security outweighs the publicâ€™s right to information. Declaring detaineesâ€™ potential statements preemptively secret, Connell maintains, is therefore too broad to be considered an â€œoriginal classification.â€ (Only nuclear information is â€œborn classified,â€ under a World War II-era law).

Connellâ€™s motion also chronicles how presumptive classification of detaineesâ€™ statements was gradually established as the norm in cases involving Guantanamo detainees, in both military commissions and federal court, but doesnâ€™t have much precedent outside Gitmo.

The governmentâ€™s response to Connellâ€™s motion, filed in May, echoes its justification for the 40-second broadcast delay. The response says that the Guantanamo procedures donâ€™t make anything classified that shouldnâ€™t be. Presumptive classification isnâ€™t a â€œnew categoryâ€ of classified material, it argues, but rather, â€œsimply is the control mechanism,â€ and the least intrusive process possible by which to separate properly classified information from unclassified.

Gold9472

07-25-2012, 09:57 AM

Agenda for Upcoming Hearing in the 9/11 Case

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/07/agenda-for-upcoming-hearing-in-the-911-case/

By Wells Bennett
Wednesday, July 25, 2012 at 8:32 AM

Judge Pohlâ€™s docketing order, in which he adjusts the calendar (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/07/one-more-small-adjustment-to-the-schedule-in-the-911-case/)in United States v. Mohammed et al. and announces the agenda for Augustâ€™s motions hearing, is now available (http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/2012-07-23-AE059-Docketing-Order-public.pdf).

Gold9472

07-25-2012, 09:59 AM

One More Small Adjustment to the Schedule in the 9/11 Case

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/07/one-more-small-adjustment-to-the-schedule-in-the-911-case/

By Wells Bennett
Tuesday, July 24, 2012 at 1:30 PM

Judge James Pohl has tweaked the calendar in United States v. Mohammed a bit.

Earlier, the court had pushed back an upcoming August session, in light of Ramadan; that postponement left in place a separate hearing, which had been set for September 8.

The commission changed this back-to-back schedule in an order entered yesterday, according to a statement (http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/2012-07-24-Military-commission-will-address-classification-issues-in-August.pdf) just released by defense lawyer James Connell III. (The courtâ€™s order is not yet available to the public.) Now the August hearing will occupy six days over two discrete periods: August 22-24, and August 26-28. The added hearing days presumably will account for the September session, which the court has cancelled.

During the August hearing, the commission will take up, among other things, two motions bearing on â€presumptive classificationâ€ â€“ the requirement that defense counsel treat all statements by the accused as presumptively classified, pending the completion of a classification review. The governmentâ€™s proposed protective order seeks to impose this regime in the 9/11 case, in keeping with protective orders entered in earlier commission cases; the defense has filed its own motion to â€œend presumptive classification.â€

Gold9472

08-03-2012, 10:10 AM

GuantÃ¡namo Military Judge Grants ACLUâ€™s Request to Argue Against Censorship of 9/11 Defendantsâ€™ Testimony

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-human-rights/guantanamo-military-judge-grants-aclus-request-argue-against

By Hina Shamsi (http://www.aclu.org/blog/author/hina-shamsi), Director, ACLU National Security Project at 6:18pm

In an order (http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/guantanamo_scheduling_order.pdf) made public today, a military commissions judge at GuantÃ¡namo Bay announced that he will hear oral argument on the ACLUâ€™s challenge (http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-asks-guantanamo-tribunal-not-censor-911-defendants-accounts-torture) to censorship of torture at the trial of the 9/11 defendants.

In May, we filed a motion (http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-motion-public-access-guantanamo-bay-military-commission-trial) asking the military commission to deny the governmentâ€™s request (http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/govt_motion_for_po_u.s._v._mohammad.pdf) to suppress statements by the defendants about their treatment while in U.S. custody, including torture and other abuse. As we said in our motion,
"Both the Constitution and the Military Commissions Act of 2009 recognize the publicâ€™s presumptive right of access to all proceedings and records of this historic military commission. That right of access may only be overcome if there is a countervailing interest of â€œtranscendentâ€ importance, a standard that the governmentâ€™s extraordinary and draconian proposed restrictions cannot meet. The government asks this Commission to suppress as presumptively classified the defendantsâ€™ every utterance concerning their personal knowledge of their detention and abuse in CIA custody. . . . The eyes of the world are on this Military Commission, and the public has a substantial interest in and concern about the fairness and transparency of these proceedings. This Commission should reject - and not become complicit with - the governmentâ€™s improper proposals to suppress the defendantsâ€™ personal accounts of government misconduct."The military judge said yesterday (http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/guantanamo_scheduling_order.pdf) that at the next hearing in the case, on August 22, he will hear our motion as well as a motion filed by 14 news organizations that also challenged the governmentâ€™s over-broad request to bar public access to court records and proceedings.

There has been an intense and long-running debate about the legitimacy and fairness of the GuantÃ¡namo military commissions both in the United States and abroad. That debate wonâ€™t be ended by the commissionâ€™s decision on this issue alone. But the commissions certainly wonâ€™t be seen as legitimate if they have at their heart the governmentâ€™s judicially-approved censorship of the defendantsâ€™ accounts of their torture in government custody.

Gold9472

08-03-2012, 10:20 AM

Media, ACLU to argue against censorship at GuantÃ¡namo

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/02/2927497/media-aclu-to-argue-against-censorship.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

The chief war court judge has agreed to let media and civil liberties lawyers argue for openness at the start of a pre-trial hearing at GuantÃ¡namo in the death-penalty case of five alleged conspirators in the Sept. 11 attacks.

A consortium of 14 media groups, including The Miami Herald, and the American Civil Liberties Union separately filed motions protesting protective orders that shield the public from access to secret information in the case.

Judge James Pohl, an Army colonel, agreed to let lawyers argue their case on Aug. 22, the opening day of a week of hearings. He signed the one-page order Wednesday, according to a copy obtained by The Miami Herald. It was posted on the war court website Thursday afternoon.

Defense attorneys for the alleged architect of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and his four co-defendants did not oppose oral arguments. Nor did the office of the Pentagonâ€™s chief war crimes prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, who has been trumpeting the war courtâ€™s transparency.

â€œOral argument from the media and ACLU will emphasize the critical public interest in open proceedings at GuantÃ¡namo,â€ said James Connell, attorney for Mohammedâ€™s nephew, Ammar al Baluchi, an alleged logistical co-conspirator, who is also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali.

At issue is the war court system that employs a 40-second delay of the proceedings, time enough to let an intelligence official hit a white noise button if any of the men describe what CIA agents did to them after their capture in Pakistan in 2002 and 2003 and before their arrival at GuantÃ¡namo in September 2006.

In its motion, filed May 2, the ACLU called the practice censorship and said it was premised on â€œa chillingly Orwellian claimâ€ that the accused â€œmust be gagged lest he reveal his knowledge of what the government did to him.â€

The newspaper groups represented in their separate brief call themselves â€œthe press objectors.â€ Besides The Herald and its owners, The McClatchy Company, they include ABC Inc., the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, CBS Broadcasting Inc., Fox News Network, National Public Radio, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Reuters, Tribune Company, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.

The media motion calls the governmentâ€™s protective order â€œoverly broadâ€ in its bid to shield CIA activities from public scrutiny.

â€œThe First Amendment allows commission proceedings to be closed only upon a specific finding of a "substantial probability" of harm to national security or some equally compelling governmental interest,â€ First Amendment lawyer David Schulz wrote in the press objectorsâ€™ motion filed on May 16.

The start of the trial itself is at least a year away.

Gold9472

08-03-2012, 10:28 AM

FBI Interrogation Primer Encourages Prisoner Isolation

http://www.aclu.org/blog/human-rights-national-security/fbi-interrogation-primer-encourages-prisoner-isolation

By Devon Chaffee (http://www.aclu.org/blog/author/devon-chaffee), ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:31am

Today, the ACLU released a 2011 FBI â€œprimer (http://www.aclu.org/files/fbimappingfoia/20120727/ACLURM036782.pdf)â€ on overseas interrogation that calls into question whether the FBI is adhering to its own policy prohibiting coercive techniques. The 2011 primer was obtained by the ACLU and colleague organizations through Freedom of Information Act litigation. It was written by an FBI Section Chief within the counterterrorism division, and is ironically titled â€œCross Cultural, Rapport-Based Interrogation,â€ â€“ ironic because it encourages FBI agents to request that detainees in foreign or military custody be put in isolation to prolong the detaineeâ€™s fear for interrogation purposes. Isolation was a key component to many of the abusive interrogations (http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/5yrl67.htm) that took place in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and in secret CIA black sites after 9/11, in some cases (http://cases) causing extreme psychological trauma. This morning, we wrote to the FBI Director Robert Mueller expressing their concerns with the primer.

The 2011 FBI primer recommends that FBI agents ask the detaining authority to isolate a detainee â€œseveral days before you begin interrogationâ€ as well as during the â€œmulti-session, multi-day [interrogation] process.â€ The primer also repeatedly cites and encourages FBI interrogators to read the 1963 CIA KUBARK manual (http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/01-01.htm.), a highly controversial document long disavowed and disparaged for its promotion of severe prisoner abuse, including through the use of isolation. Even the KUBARK manual explicitly recognizes the use of isolation in interrogation as a â€œcoercive techniqueâ€ with profound psychological effects, such as hallucinations and delusions.

The use of isolation as described in the 2011 FBI primer would appear to violate FBI policy. The FBIâ€™s special agentsâ€™ handbook (http://vault.fbi.gov/Legal%20Handbook%20for%20FBI%20Special%20Agents) explicitly recognizes isolation for interrogation purposes as a form of coercion. During the Bush administration, when FBI agents appeared confused about whether or how isolation could be used for interrogation purposes at Guantanamo, senior FBI officials clarified (http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s0805/final.pdf) that it was impermissible and that they should avoid even being consulted on such decisions. Such advice is consistent with U.S. Supreme Court precedent (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=332&invol=596) that identifies the use of isolation as an indicator of coercive interrogation and notes the â€œinevitable disquietude and fearsâ€ that isolation engenders.

FBI agents should not be asking foreign governments or other agencies to engage in conduct that FBI agents are prohibited from engaging in. This is especially true when that conductâ€”like the use of isolation interrogationâ€”raises serious human rights concerns and could lead to violations of international and domestic law.

Recognition of the harmful impact of isolation on the physical and mental wellbeing of prisoners has recently led both the U.S. Senate (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/us/senators-start-a-review-of-solitary-confinement.html?_r=1) and the United Nations (http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N11/445/70/PDF/N1144570.pdf?OpenElement)to more carefully scrutinize the use of solitary confinement. Scientific studies demonstrate (http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/07801-etn-leave-no-marks.pdf) that even short-term isolation can have profound negative psychological impact, including severe anxiety, hallucinations and an inability to concentrate.

Todayâ€™s letter (http://www.aclu.org/national-security/letter-director-fbi-regarding-interrogation-primer) urges Director Mueller to make clear that FBI policy does not permit the use of isolation in interrogation. The letter also urged the FBI to immediately cease using the primer, investigate how it came to be used, and to provide remedial training for any agents previously provided the primer. The FBI must send an unequivocal message to its agents and its international partners that it is committed to non-coercive interrogations and will not tolerate prisoner abuse.

Gold9472

08-08-2012, 11:15 AM

Military limiting Guantanamo detainee access to lawyers

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/07/military-limiting-guantanamo-detainee-access-to-lawyers/

By Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer

The Obama administration has begun limiting the legal rights of terror suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, telling a federal judge Tuesday the government alone should decide when the prisoners deserve regular access to their counsel.

In a 52-page filing, Justice Department lawyers said they have started restricting when Guantanamo prisoners can challenge their detention in a Washington-based federal court. If approved, any relaxing of the rules would be made on a case-by-case basis at the exclusive discretion of military officials, not by the courts.

At issue is whether a Supreme Court decision on detainee rights from 2008 gives federal courts the ultimate power to control so-called "habeas" petitions from foreign combatants in U.S. military custody. Volunteer private lawyers say they deserve regular access to their imprisoned clients, even if there is no active habeas challenge pending in court, or any pending charges.

Under the proposed changes, the Navy base commander at Guantanamo would have sole veto power over attorney access, as well as access to classified material, including information provided directly by the detainees from interrogations.

"The dispute thus before the Court, though important, is quite narrow," said the government in its legal filing. "The only question presented is whether detainees who have neither current nor impending habeas petitions are entitled to" challenge continued access to counsel. "The answer to that question is 'no.'"

The case is before Chief Judge Royce Lamberth. His court has been handling the many appeals filed by the prisoners. There are currently 168 detainees - all male - in the Guantanamo facility, most of whom do not have pending charges. Five Muslim men labeled "high-value detainees" are being prosecuted before a military commission for their alleged leadership roles in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In the so-called Boumediene ruling in 2008, the high court said "enemy combatants" held overseas in U.S. military custody have a right to a "meaningful review" of their detention in the civilian legal justice system. It would force the government to present evidence and justify keeping the prisoners indefinitely, without charges. But a federal appeals court in Washington has since refused to order the release of any detainee filing a habeas corpus writ, in some cases rejecting such orders from lower-court judges.

The administration has argued it does not seek to restrict lawyers who have an active legal appeal, but that the rights of detainees shrink once they have filed their first habeas challenge. The military says lawyers must now agree to the new conditions in order to have continued access to their clients and to any classified information the military would deem to release.

And lawyers would be prohibited from using any information they gather that might help the prisoners appearing before a Periodic Review Board. PRBs are newly designed panels of military officials to decide whether a Guantanamo inmate should continue to be held, and whether that person is a national security threat. Those boards were put in place by President Barack Obama by executive order, but have not been fully implemented.

"Executive Order 13,567 does not provide detainees who undergo PRB review with a judicially enforceable right to counsel, or any justification for asking the Court to impose a counsel-access regime on the PRB process other than the one developed, per the Order's direction, by the Secretary of Defense," said the government. "As a general matter, executive orders are viewed as management tools for implementing the President's policies, not as legally binding documents that may be enforced against the Executive Branch."

The government said the court's power to intervene was limited, and urged Judge Lamberth to deny the request guaranteeing attorney access. A court hearing is set for August 17 on the legal question.

Gold9472

08-14-2012, 12:36 PM

Amended Schedule for Upcoming Hearing in the 9/11 Case

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/08/amended-schedule-for-upcoming-hearing-in-the-911-case/

By Wells Bennett (http://www.lawfareblog.com/author/wells/)
Monday, August 13, 2012 at 1:35 PM

Last Wednesday, Judge James L. Pohl issued an amended docketing order in United States v. Mohammed et al. That order has now been unsealed (http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Amended-Dock-Order.pdf), and appears to set a slightly different (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/07/one-more-small-adjustment-to-the-schedule-in-the-911-case/)agenda (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/07/agenda-for-upcoming-hearing-in-the-911-case/) than the one Judge Pohl had set earlier. The commissionâ€™s prior docketing order described 27 different matters, and the order in which Judge Pohl would hear each.

The amended docketing order tinkers a bit, first by altering the sequence in which motions will be considered: defendant Ali Abdul Aziz Aliâ€™s motion to â€œend presumptive classification,â€ for example, was once sixth in the list of motions to be addressed. Now, according to Judge Pohlâ€™s amended order, it will come third.

Interestingly, the amended docketing order also removes a key item from the schedule, one that had been included before: Judge Pohlâ€™s instruction to the government, to show cause as to why the five defendants should not be tried separately. In response, the government had pressed for a joint trial, and sought oral argument. The five defendants made no such request, though, most likely because each explicitly declined to take any position as to separate trials. (Of the five, only Aziz Ali opposed severance initially (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/07/all-together-now-all-911-accused-now-agnostic-about-severance/), and he sought oral argument; but he eventually â€“ and inexplicably â€“ changed his mind and, like his co-accused, claimed that he did not have enough information to form a view as to whether the accused should tried separately or together.)

So that leaves us with Judge Pohlâ€™s show cause order; the governmentâ€™s response and its request for oral argument on the severance issue; and the courtâ€™s pointed refusal to hear argument about that, at least for the time being. It is anyoneâ€™s guess what this may mean: perhaps Judge Pohl has made up his mind on the severance question; he might also want to mull further, before taking up the matter at another hearing sometime off in the future.

Gold9472

08-15-2012, 08:58 AM

US Army lawyer for 9/11 accused: This is not a trial. It is an attempt to legitimise a death threat
The man accused of masterminding the 9/11 attacks has been detained for nine years. Now his lawyer accuses the authorities of torture and says plans for justice are a sham

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/us-army-911-lawyer-this-is-not-a-trial-it-is-an-attempt-to-legitimise-a-death-threat-16198040.html

By Terri Judd
Wednesday, 15 August 2012

A US Army officer representing one of Guantanamo Bay's most notorious prisoners has spoken out against the secretive nature of the Military Commissions system, insisting it risks becoming little more than a "show game" to execute suspects, denying them and the American people the right to a fair trial.

Captain Jason Wright was appointed by the military to represent Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is charged along with four others with conspiring and executing the 9/11 attacks. Yet, the officer revealed to The Independent, rafts of vital evidence â€“ including the three and half years his client spent at secret CIA "black" sites â€“ have been deemed classified.

It was only through a Freedom of Information request that redacted files were released showing that Mohammed had been subjected to waterboarding interrogation 183 times, kept awake for seven days straight and had his family's lives threatened.

Defence lawyers are banned from passing documents in confidence to their clients or even discussing certain issues, funding is severely restricted and requests for additional counsel or experts refused. While the accused face the death penalty if convicted, they are likely to be detained indefinitely even if they are acquitted, a situation Capt Wright likened to torture.

"This is not a trial. It is an attempt to legitimise a death threat," he said. "It can never be fair to bring a man to the brink of death and back 183 times with waterboarding and then do it a final 184th time â€“ but this time it will have full state sanction. The bottom line is, torture denies justice. If you believe fundamentally that America is better than that, then this is a struggle for the soul of America.

"I am concerned there has been this show game to try and find the best system in order to try and execute these men. I am deeply concerned by the prospect that theoretically, if anybody is tried and acquitted, the US government has the authority to continue to detain that person indefinitely."

The officer, who previously spent 15 months as a legal adviser in northern Iraq, continued: "I think a lot of Americans are appalled that Guantanamo Bay is still open. No one denies 9/11 was horrific, but there are many people in the Middle East who have felt aggrieved by the past effects of colonialism and neo-colonialism. There has been a cycle of tragedy and trauma and now we can add torture.

"I think it is time for the hyperbole of the war on terror to end, for all sides to pursue both redemption and rediscovery. It is my hope this case will provide an opportunity for this process. But in order to do so, it must be seen as fair and legitimate, not just to America but to the rest of the world." Despite President Obama's promise to close the notorious detention facility in Cuba, 167 inmates â€“ all Muslims â€“ remain of the original 800 who were brought in after thousands of dollars in bounties were offered to those that turned them in. Of those still incarcerated, about half have been cleared but not released.

Capt Wright said that the reformed Military Commissions Act, brought in after Congress defied the President's attempts to have the trials heard within the American legal system, does not abide by the Geneva Convention, allowing evidence to be gained under duress. He said the situation was "still woefully short of the standards of any normal court in the US".

Along with representatives of the four other detainees, he is due to return to court next week to argue that he must be allowed to communicate documents to his client in confidence. Two years ago, the Joint Task Force Commander at Guantanamo Bay ordered that all papers must be passed through a review team.

"All the defence lawyers have refused to abide by this order. Since December, we have been unable to share any confidential documents with our clients," said the judge advocate. "It violates our duty of client confidentiality and our duty of basic due diligence to represent our clients."

The lawyers are banned from discussing certain subjects â€“ even the term "jihad", which is included in the charge sheet. Court hearings have a 40-second delay, so anything deemed confidential can be silenced before the public gallery hears it.

"It has a chilling effect on our ability to perform a basic aspect of the defence investigation. For instance, anything Mr Mohammed conveys verbally to me, whether it relates to his torture, his treatment or even what may have happened on the eve of his capture in Pakistan, remains classified at the highest level," said Capt Wright. "The US government said that because Mr Mohammed was a high-value detainee, he was exposed to classified CIA information and is therefore a holder of classified information. So effectively: 'Because we tortured you, you can't speak'."

An arraignment hearing in May, normally expected to last no more than an hour, stretched out for 13 hours as each one of the defence lawyers unsuccessfully pleaded for the restrictions to be lifted.

Capt Wright, who insists that he must fulfil his obligation to advocate on behalf of his client, added: "There are severe restrictions on our performing our job competently. It is fundamentally unfair, both for the attorney and the client, to have defence counsel subject to control of the US government."

A Department of Defense spokesman said last night: "Every detainee at Guantanamo has had ample opportunity to get the help of lawyers, and there are plentiful examples of robust and functional attorney-client relationships being formed and of zealous, effective representation being provided."

Pointing out that the accused had a right of appeal to a federal civilian court and ultimately to the Supreme Court, he added: "These reformed military commissions... require all of the protections of fairness and justice that are required by our values. The accused is presumed innocent. The prosecution must prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."

Facing death: The accused
Nine years after he was arrested, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was charged with orchestrating the 9/11 terror attacks. Last April, along with four others â€“ Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi â€“ he was accused of eight offences, including murder, hijacking and terrorism.

The five are "responsible for the planning and execution of the attacks of 11 Sept 2001, in New York, Washington DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, resulting in the killing of 2,976 people," a Department of Defense statement said, adding: "If convicted, the five accused could be sentenced to death." KSM, as he has come to be known, was born in Kuwait in around 1964 but went Pakistan as a teenager before moving to the United States to study mechanical engineering and then on to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet invasion. As well as 9/11, he has been accused of involvement in several terrorist plots, including the Bali nightclub bombings and the Richard Reid shoebomb attempt to blow up an airline. His nephew Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, 34, is a computer technician who was hired in the late 1990s to work for the Modern Electronics Corporation in Dubai. Fluent in English, he described himself as "very open-minded and western-oriented". He is accused of assisting the hijackers with "everyday aspects of life in the West" but insists he was simply helping to boost his income and had no idea who they were.

Ramzi Binalshibh, 40, is a Yemeni who worked as a part-time bank clerk until 1995. He was denied a US visa and travelled to Germany to request political asylum, which was rejected, but he returned to Hamburg with a visa. After the attacks he was accused of being a key facilitator. Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, 33, is a Yemeni from a prominent family. He read Islamic Studies in Pakistan before losing his right leg in 1997 fighting in Afghanistan in a battle that killed his brother. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence described him as a "scion of a terrorist family".

Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi, 44, is a Saudi accused of being an organiser and financier of the attacks.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: The torture details
Waterboarding involves drowning someone to the brink of death before interrogation.

With its history in the Spanish Inquisition, it involves strapping a detainee by their legs and arms to a board which is tipped head down. A cloth is placed over the mouth and nose while water is poured in at varying heights, giving the sensation of drowning. With a doctor present to prevent death, the detainee is subjected to around minute of pain and panic before being raised up and questioned. While information on his three-and-half-year detention in CIA custody is classified, certain redacted documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests confirm Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times, kept awake for seven and a half days and subjected to authorised enhanced interrogation techniques. Human rights experts insist "enhanced" techniques include sleep deprivation, being subjected to extreme temperatures and having a towel placed around his neck before being thrown against a wall. Mr Mohammed was also subjected to unauthorised treatment like threats to the lives of his family.

Guantanamo Bay: Ten years of detentions for 'unlawful enemy combatants'
January 2002 The Bush administration establishes a detainment and interrogation facility at Guantanamo Naval Base, Cuba, and the first 20 detainees arrive.

March 2003 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is detained in Pakistan and handed over to the US. He is held by the CIA, accused of being the principal architect behind the 9/11 bombings.

September 2006 The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is passed, which allows certain people to be designated "unlawful enemy combatants", thus making them subject to military commissions. President George W Bush confirms for the first time that the CIA has "high-value detainees" in prisons around the world. Fourteen captives, including Mohammed, are transferred to Guantanamo to face military commissions.

January 2009 President Barack Obama signs an order to suspend proceedings at the Guantanamo military commissions for 120 days and announces that the facility will be shut down.

October 2009 A reformed Military Commissions Act is passed. Critics say it still offers sub-standard justice.

January 2011 The Obama administration abandons attempts to close Guantanamo after Congress blocks the President from bringing accused terrorists before US courts.

March 2011 The President approves the resumption of military trials at Guantanamo Bay.

April 2011 Mohammed and four others are charged with conspiracy, murder, hijacking and terrorism. A team of two military lawyers and one civilian lawyer is appointed.

August 2012 Legal representatives of the five suspects set to argue for the right to pass documents in confidence to their clients.

Gold9472

08-20-2012, 06:29 AM

Insight: At Guantanamo tribunals, don't mention the "T" word

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/20/us-guantanamo-tribunals-idUSBRE87J03U20120820

By Jane Sutton and Josh Meyer
MIAMI/WASHINGTON | Mon Aug 20, 2012 1:08am EDT

(Reuters) - CIA agents have written books about it. Former President George W. Bush has explained why he thought it was necessary and legal. Yet the al Qaeda suspects who were subjected to so-called harsh interrogation techniques, and the lawyers charged with defending them at the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals, are not allowed to talk about the treatment they consider torture.

Defense attorneys say that and other Kafkaesque legal restrictions on what they can discuss with their clients and raise in the courtroom undermine their ability to mount a proper defense on charges that could lead to the death penalty.

Those restrictions will be the focus of a pretrial hearing that convenes this week.

Prosecutors say every utterance of the alleged al Qaeda murderers, and what their lawyers in turn pass on to the court, must be strictly monitored precisely because of the defendants' intimate personal knowledge of highly classified CIA interrogation methods they endured in the agency's clandestine overseas prisons.

Defense attorneys called that view extreme.

"Everything is presumptively top secret. So if my client had a tuna fish sandwich for lunch, I couldn't tell you that," Cheryl Bormann, who represents defendant Walid bin Attash, said after the May arraignment of the men charged with plotting the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

At one point in the arraignment, another of bin Attash's attorneys, Air Force Captain Michael Schwartz, was explaining why his client refused to cooperate. Just when things got interesting, a security officer cut the audio feed to the media and others observing the proceedings from behind a soundproof glass wall with a 40-second audio delay.

"The reason for that is the torture that my client was subjected to by the men and women wearing the big-boy pants down at the CIA, it makes it impossible ...," Schwartz said during the blocked portion of the arraignment, according to a partial transcript later declassified.

Prosecutors have said in court filings that any revelations about the defendants' interrogations could cause "exceptionally grave damage."

Civil libertarians argue that if those interrogation methods really are top secret, then the CIA had no business revealing them to al Qaeda suspects.

Defense attorneys will challenge the secrecy rules at the pretrial hearing that begins on Wednesday at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base.

Prosecutors have about 75,000 pages of evidence to turn over to defense attorneys in the 9/11 case, but they won't do it until the judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, issues protective orders aimed at safeguarding the material.

BORN CLASSIFIED
Hundreds of men suspected of supporting al Qaeda or the Taliban were rounded up in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere and shipped to Guantanamo in response to the September 11 attacks. (Of the 779 men who have been held at Guantanamo since the prison operation began in 2002, 168 remain.)

The CIA took custody of the "high-value" captives believed to have top-level information that could help the U.S. and its allies prevent further attacks.

It held them incommunicado for three or four years and transferred them among secret overseas prisons, questioning them with interrogation methods that defense attorneys say amounted to torture and which the Obama administration has since banned.

Some details of the program, including waterboarding, mock executions and sleep deprivation, have already been disclosed by Bush and the CIA itself. Jose Rodriguez, a former CIA official, recently defended them in news interviews to promote his book, "Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Action After 9/11 Saved American Lives."

Yet in both the 9/11 case and that of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, who is accused of sending suicide bombers to ram a boat full of explosives into the side of the USS Cole off Yemen in 2000, the government presumes that every word spoken by the defendants, in the past and in the future, is classified at the highest level -- "Top Secret," with a "Sensitive Compartmented Information," which is routinely shortened to TS/SCI.

The defendants' words are also "born classified," a status their lawyers said has previously been used only to safeguard details about nuclear weapons. So are all documents and legal motions related to their cases, which cannot be made public unless they're cleared by a Department of Defense Security Classification Review team.

How that team works is a secret.

"I've never seen them. I've never communicated (with them). No one has ever been able to tell me that," said James Connell, a lawyer for 9/11 defendant Ali Abdul Aziz Ali.

The Pentagon would say only that the review team includes both civilians and uniformed military personnel and that it can take up to 15 business days to make its decisions.

Proscribed topics include details of the defendants' capture, where they were held and under what conditions, the names and descriptions of anyone who transferred, detained or interrogated them and the methods used to get information from them, according to the court documents.

Defense lawyers say the classification system used at Guantanamo violates President Barack Obama's 2009 order that prohibits using secrecy labels to conceal lawbreaking or prevent political embarrassment. They say it also "eviscerates" the legal defense protections Congress set down in the law that authorizes the Guantanamo tribunals.

The government's secrecy rules mean that every lawyer, paralegal and expert on the prosecution and defense teams must undergo an extensive background check and obtain a TS/SCI clearance. Once they get clearance, they are briefed on what has to stay secret. The document that forms the basis of the presumptive classification is itself secret.

"It is ridiculous," said Army Captain Jason Wright, one of the lawyers for accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. "The briefing is classified, so I can't discuss what I can and cannot discuss."

Mohammed's lawyers have asked the UN special rapporteur for torture, Juan E. Mendez, to investigate claims that their client was tortured. But they could only share with Mendez the information that has been publicly declassified.

"We are prohibited from sharing any details of his mistreatment, even to the special rapporteur," Wright said.

FORCED TO LEARN
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a challenge arguing that the government has no legal authority to classify information that it not only disclosed to the defendants but forced them to learn.

"The question here is: Can the government subject people to torture and abuse and then prevent them from talking about it?" said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project.

The ACLU said the claim of broad authority to gag defendants infringes on the American public's right to open trials and goes far beyond what the courts have allowed, namely that censorship must be narrowly tailored and aimed at protecting a compelling government interest.

"We don't think the government has any interest in classifying personal observations about conduct banned by the president of the United States," Shamsi said.

"The commission certainly will not be seen as legitimate if the proceedings revolve around judicially approved censorship of the defendants' accounts of government misconduct."

Prosecutors acknowledged the public has a right to witness the proceedings, but urged the judge not to substitute the ACLU's judgment on what should be classified for that of intelligence professionals.

ATTORNEY-CLIENT CONVERSATIONS
Security rules restrict not only what can be made public but also what the lawyers can talk about with their clients.

In December 2011 the officer then in charge of the Guantanamo detention operation, Rear Admiral David Woods, issued orders forbidding defense lawyers from discussing certain topics during client visits. Those included "historical perspectives on jihadist activities." That apparently means the lawyers cannot discuss part of the actual charges with their clients because the charges specifically mention Osama bin Laden's 1996 "Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans."

The defendants are alleged to be al Qaeda terrorists, but the order prohibits their lawyers from talking to them about "groups engaged in terrorist activities."

"It's sort of an illusory idea, which is that we are going to give you a lawyer but you're not going to be able to talk about the central thing that is important for you to talk about with a lawyer," said David Nevin, another of Mohammed's attorneys.

The chief prosecutor, Brigadier General Mark Martins, disputed the defense attorney's interpretation of Woods' order and said defense attorneys' conversations with their clients are not restricted.

"They can talk to their clients about anything. What they can't do is take a document that may have classified information related to sources and methods and - unless it is cleared as disclosable to the client - they can't show them that document."

Generally under U.S. law, communications between defendants and their lawyers are confidential and cannot be used as evidence. Here again, the rules are different at Guantanamo.

The military and civilian defense lawyers, who mostly live in the Washington area, are not allowed to telephone their clients at Guantanamo and can communicate with them only during visits or in writing.

The 9/11 defense lawyers have refused to send legal mail to their clients until prison camp inspectors agree to stop reading it.

The review teams are made up of Pentagon lawyers, translators and former intelligence officers - people from the same agencies that detained and interrogated the defendants and are now prosecuting them.

The lawyers contend that submitting case-related documents for screening would force them to illegally disclose trial strategy, violating the defendant's right to a fair trial. They said it was also an ethical violation that could put their law licenses in jeopardy.

As it turns out, not every word from the 9/11 defendants is treated as confidential for long. In 2009 the defendants sent a note to the judge proclaiming themselves "terrorists to the bone" and calling the charges against them "badges of honor, which we carry with pride."

The note was rapidly cleared for public release and posted on a Pentagon website. It immediately made headlines, leaving defense attorneys fuming that potential evidence from their clients had been released to the public before they knew of its existence.

Gold9472

08-21-2012, 10:46 AM

9/11 hearings to resume at Guantanamo Bay

http://tribune.com.pk/story/424610/911-hearings-to-resume-at-guantanamo-bay/

By AFP
Published: August 21, 2012

The preliminary hearing is expected to run until August 28. PHOTO: AFP

CUBA: Five men accused over the September 11 attacks will appear Wednesday at a US military court in Guantanamo Bay, where defense lawyers aim to address the prisonersâ€™ torture.

The preliminary hearing, originally postponed for the Muslim holy month of Ramazan, is expected to run until August 28, and will prepare a trial that is not expected to take place for at least a year.

In written motions filed with the military commission on the 9/11 trials, defense lawyers aim to denounce abuses against the accused.

The details of the abuses have been classified by the US government as â€œtop secret,â€ prohibiting the defendants or their lawyers to discuss the specifics of their torture at trial.

Before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 2006, the five men were held in secret CIA prisons, where they were subjected to interrogation tactics that amounted to torture and were banned by President Barack Obama in 2009.

The self-proclaimed mastermind behind the September 11 attacks, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed â€“ commonly referred to by his initials â€œKSMâ€ â€“ was waterboarded 183 times and underwent seven and a half consecutive days of sleep deprivation, according to an intelligence report.

Defense lawyers argue they are unable to address torture due to â€œpresumptive classificationâ€ that â€œattempts to extend traditional classification rules beyond information damaging to national security to all statements made by or information learned from Guantanamo Bay prisoners.â€

The lawyers wrote this kind of classification is â€œthe most egregious example of the governmentâ€™s use of overclassification to suppress unclassified but embarrassing information at Guantanamo Bay.â€

To ensure that no sensitive information leaks from the proceedings, the military court proceedings at Guantanamo are broadcast with a delay of 40 seconds and are censored where deemed necessary.

The prosecution argues that the censorship is necessary, because the defendants have been â€œexposed to classified sources, methods and activitiesâ€ during their detention by the CIA.

Any leak of information learned from intelligence â€œcould reasonably be expected to damage national security,â€ read the prosecutionâ€™s motion.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), along with 14 US media outlets including ABC and The New York Times, backed the defenseâ€™s request for greater transparency in the hearings.

Along with Mohammed, a Pakistani of Kuwaiti origin, his nephew Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Yemeni national Ramzi Binalshibh and Saudis Walid bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi face the death penalty if found guilty.

The men were formally indicted on May 5, when they interrupted proceedings with prayers.

Gold9472

08-23-2012, 11:15 AM

U.S. train crash delays Guantanamo hearings in 9/11 case

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/21/usa-guantanamo-idUSL2E8JLFVG20120821

Tue Aug 21, 2012 6:11pm EDT
By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY US NAVAL BASE, Cuba, Aug. 21 (Reuters) - A train wreck in the United States disrupted Internet connections to the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval base on Tuesday and caused a one-day delay in pretrial hearings for five prisoners accused of launching the Sept. 11 attacks.

Hearings had been scheduled to begin on Wednesday for the alleged mastermind of the hijacked plane attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four others facing death penalty charges of mass murder, terrorism and conspiring with al Qaeda.

The train derailment in the Baltimore, Maryland, area that killed two young women knocked out fiber optic lines that are part of the wire-and-satellite network providing communications to the remote U.S. Naval base in eastern Cuba, said Captain Robert Durand, a spokesman for the Guantanamo detention operation.

That left defense lawyers and prosecutors at the base temporarily unable to access email and electronic legal files. Defense lawyers said the network breakdown had drastically interrupted preparations for the hearings, and filed an emergency request for a delay.

The judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, postponed the start of the hearings until Thursday. The session was scheduled to last six days to address secrecy rules governing the trials, among other issues.

The United States maintains an economic embargo on Cuba that is intended to put pressure on the island's communist government and there are no communications links between the U.S. base and the rest of Cuba.

Satellites relay phone and Internet signals to and from the base, linking it with communications networks in Maryland and Maine. The Maryland link was expected to be fully restored by Tuesday evening, Durand said.

The hearings could face additional disruption from Tropical Storm Isaac, which formed in the Atlantic Ocean east of the Lesser Antilles. It was forecast to strengthen as it moved into the Caribbean Sea by Thursday, and could threaten Guantanamo as a hurricane on Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Gold9472

08-23-2012, 11:16 AM

9/11 hearing canceled as GuantÃ¡namo prepares for Isaac

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/22/2963137/911-hearing-canceled-guantanamo.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com

GUANTANAMO NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Sirens blared just after 11 a.m. Wednesday, alerting the 6,000 or so people across this corner of southeast Cuba to get ready for Tropical Storm Isaac. The chief war court judge canceled this monthâ€™s hearings in the Sept. 11 terror trial, and the Pentagon prepared to airlift lawyers and reporters off the base within 24 hours.

At the prison camps, commanders contemplated pulling down netting affixed to chain-link fences so they donâ€™t turn into sails and moving all 168 captives into hurricane-proof shelters.

â€œAttention! Condition of Readiness 4. Destructive winds forecasted within 72 hours,â€ advised a recorded announcement through base loudspeakers. â€œMonitor radio and TV for updates.â€

In a drill all too familiar to South Floridians, Condition Readiness 4, or CORE 4, meant that base residents were instructed to clear their yards of lawn furniture and other loose objects that â€œmay become projectiles during high winds,â€ said base spokeswoman Kelly Wirfel. It also meant that commanders watching National Hurricane Center reports anticipated â€œdestructive windsâ€ greater than 50 knots within 72 hours.

At the prison camps, Navy Capt. Robert Durand assured that all the detainees and guards at the seafront prison camps would be secured.

Most captives, about 85 percent, are routinely held in â€œbrick and mortar structures capable of withstanding hurricane-force winds.â€

Others held in less-sturdy cells at the sprawling prison camps compound â€œwill be shelteredâ€ in â€œsecure locations capable of withstanding hurricane-force winds.â€ He would not provide details, citing security concerns.

The â€œsniper nettingâ€ that covers chain-link fences obscures the views the detainees have of their surroundings â€” and prevents them from seeing troop movements in and around the camps. But in strong winds, sniper netting â€œturns it into a big sail,â€ said Durand, suggesting it could uproot fences inside the Detention Center Zone. â€œWe also have a plan to shelter and feed our troops, civilian employees, contractors and family members in hurricane-safe locations.â€

At the court, Army Col. James Pohl, the chief military judge, canceled this weekâ€™s session of pretrial hearings in the Sept. 11 terror case. It was meant to focus on secrecy and transparency. His order said he was canceling â€œbased on impending weather conditions â€¦ and a concern for the safety and welfare of personnel.â€

The hearings were rescheduled for Oct. 15-19.

Issues of concern likely included the infrastructure of Camp Justice as well as road conditions between the prison camps and the court, which have been known to flood in heavy rain.

At the court, the $12 million Expeditionary Legal Compound is a bunker-like building with an adjacent trailer park where the Pentagon puts up some defense lawyers and case prosecutors. Nearby, reporters and some legal staff are housed in a crude tent city that through the years has been whipped by fierce summer storms but never a hurricane.

Earlier, the Pentagonâ€™s chief war crimes prosecutor was asked whether it wouldnâ€™t be easier to hold the terror trial in Manhattan. â€œThis is where our Congress and our government says weâ€™re going to do this,â€ Army Brig Gen. Mark Martins replied.

Gold9472

08-23-2012, 11:16 AM

9/11 trial may wait until 2016

http://www.smh.com.au/world/911-trial-may-wait-until-2016-20120823-24oz0.html

TROPICAL storm Isaac has forced a US military judge to cancel six days of hearings scheduled to begin yesterday in the case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused over the September 11 attacks, as it emerged that the trial will not be televised and may not begin until 2016 - 15 years after the attacks that killed 2976 people.

Military prosecutor Brigadier-General Mark Martins said that the trial would not be broadcast, as per the current laws surrounding military commissions.

James Connell, one of the defence lawyers, said: ''The defence position is that there should be a television feed of this so that members of the public, whether they are victims' families or people who are interested in these proceedings in the US or worldwide, can watch.''

The prosecution estimated that the trial was on schedule to begin in June or July next year, but Mr Connell suggested four years from now as a realistic timescale. His prediction was based on the ''enormous'' amount of paperwork the defence still had to read.
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He added: ''The prosecution has been preparing for this case for 11 years. It makes sense that now they have got round to bringing this case that there needs to be time for all of the information they have spent 11 years digesting - that the defence needs time to digest that."

Gold9472

09-04-2012, 04:23 AM

GuantÃ¡namo's perversion of justice
US military commissions revoke for al-Qaida suspects the standard of justice extended to Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/03/guantanamo-perversion-justice

Richard Dicker
guardian.co.uk, Monday 3 September 2012 09.26 EDT

In the course of three days in late August, I travelled from Courtroom 600 in Nuremberg, Germany, where an international military tribunal tried 21 top Nazi leaders in 1945-46, to Courtroom 2 at GuantÃ¡namo Bay, Cuba. Courtroom 2 is the site of proceedings against Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the four others accused of masterminding the attacks on 11 September 2001. The contrast could not be more stark.

At Nuremberg, the US government insisted on a trial â€“ in the face of strenuous opposition from the British and Russians, who wanted to summarily execute the most senior Nazi party members. Washington demonstrated a commitment â€“ not without shortcomings in the course of the trials â€“ to the uncharted path of international prosecution for monstrous crimes. In GuantÃ¡namo's Camp Justice, on the other hand, the US government is restricting the exercise of basic fair trial rights guaranteed by international and US domestic law.

While denigrated by some critics simply as "victor's justice", the Nuremberg trial marked a stunning turning-point in using law to punish the most egregious crimes. It also laid the foundation for the still-evolving system of international justice, in which those responsible for mass atrocities are increasingly being held to account under law. Unlike Nuremberg, because of its expected unfairness, the 9/11 trial is unlikely to serve history as a positive reference point.

In Courtroom 600 at Nuremberg, which I visited while attending a conference about an international justice institute at the site, I saw the wooden benches that Herman Goering and others occupied in the dock. These men, once seemingly omnipotent, believed they could exterminate millions without consequence. Their passage from power to prosecution signaled an unprecedented shift in international practice to bring to justice even the most powerful. I saw where Goering disputed the evidence against him, sparring with Robert Jackson, the US supreme court justice who served as America's chief prosecutor in Nuremberg. Such exchanges are fundamental to a fair trial in an adversarial proceeding. At Nuremberg, three of the accused were acquitted.

The Nuremberg tribunal staff made herculean efforts to make the trial visible worldwide, using newsreel footage, to underscore the importance of a public trial. Unknown, in its day, this initiative drove home the importance of projecting the trial sessions far beyond the courtroom.

At GuantÃ¡namo, however, the rules curtail essential rights of the defense to rebut incriminating evidence. The military commissions there allow hearsay evidence, which international tribunals permit as well. But at GuantÃ¡namo, the circumstances around which much of the evidence was obtained are considered a national security matter and even the defense lawyers, with top secret security clearance, are denied access. The prosecutor may introduce evidence the defendant has no way to challenge.

Moreover, at GuantÃ¡namo, everything the so-called "high-value detainees" say is presumed classified. So, if the 9/11 defendants speak up about torture in custody, or their lawyers try to, the audio feed from the courtroom is immediately cut off and the information will never appear in the public record. These rules effectively pre-empt the confrontation at the core of due process in an adversarial trial.

Further, an important legacy of Nuremberg was the permanent documentation of Nazi crimes; suppressing evidence in GuantÃ¡namo will prevent creation of a definitive historical record.

In addition, in Courtroom 2 the prosecutor has a power unknown in US federal court or any international tribunal: the prosecutor can unilaterally veto a defense attorney's decision to call a witness. A defense lawyer who wishes to summon a witness must first get the prosecutor's consent. If the prosecutor says no, the lawyer must argue its merits with the prosecutor in front of the judge. This unfair allocation of power between prosecution and defense directly violates an essential fair trial principle, known as "equality of arms", and locks in a prosecutorial advantage that undercuts a vigorous and effective defense.

A fair trial of the 9/11 accused at GuantÃ¡namo would renew Nuremberg's powerful example of justice being done and being seen to be done. Instead, the Obama administration, despite improvements in the 2009 Military Commissions Act, is departing from the farsighted example of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman.

Worldwide, there is a growing awareness of the efforts that have succeeded in bringing some of those accused of the world's worst crimes to justice: Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian wartime leader; the former Liberian President Charles Taylor; and the former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. The GuantÃ¡namo trial will be compared with these proceedings. While policymakers in Washington have advocated fair trials for those implicated in ethnic cleansing and the use of rape as a weapon of war, gutting due process guarantees at Camp Justice will undercut US credibility in pressing for justice elsewhere.

A flawed trial at GuantÃ¡namo will debase the United States' better practices and devalue US government commitments to accountability for serious crimes from Syria to Sri Lanka. Nuremberg created a powerful positive precedent; GuantÃ¡namo has the potential to mar that achievement with the stain of hypocrisy.

Gold9472

09-07-2012, 10:06 AM

U.S. judge blocks new restrictions on Guantanamo lawyers

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/06/us-usa-guantanamo-idUSBRE8851E720120906

By Jane Sutton
MIAMI | Thu Sep 6, 2012 7:23pm EDT

(Reuters) - The Obama administration overstepped its authority by trying to impose new restrictions on attorney access to prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

Ruling in Washington, Chief Judge Royce Lamberth said the previous rules established by the U.S. District Court in Washington four years ago were working well and would continue to govern lawyers' access to Guantanamo prisoners.

The government had argued the new rules did not make substantial changes. In a scathing opinion, Lamberth called one of the government's arguments "quite preposterous" and said another "does not pass the smell test."

"The government's attempt to supersede the court's authority is an illegitimate exercise of executive power," he wrote in the ruling.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The federal court in Washington handles legal challenges from Guantanamo prisoners who are seeking their freedom by challenging the government's evidence for holding them. That court negotiated the rules governing lawyers' access to their Guantanamo clients.

A few months ago, the Justice Department sought to put new restrictions on attorney visits to prisoners whose cases had been denied or dismissed.

It asked them to sign a "memorandum of understanding" that the court said essentially gave the commander of the detention operation unfettered authority and discretion over attorney visits.

The new rules would have restricted the number of lawyers and interpreters who could visit any given prisoner and put new restrictions on what the lawyers could do with classified information learned from prisoners, including documents the lawyers themselves had written.

Some of the lawyers refused to sign the memorandum of understanding and challenged the issue in court.

Lamberth said few of the prisoners were fluent in English or knowledgeable about U.S. law, and that they were held in an isolated location without the means to file legal challenges on their own. He said those who had lost their cases still had the right to file appeals or new challenges under laws that had been revised.

"In the case of Guantanamo detainees, access to the courts means nothing without access to counsel," Lamberth wrote.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which has challenged the Guantanamo detention operation, praised the decision.

"The new rules came out of the blue and can only be seen as an effort to punish the men at Guantanamo for exercising their right to challenge their detention," the group's executive director, Vincent Warren, said in a statement.

The detention camp was established at the Guantanamo base in Cuba shortly after the September 11 attacks to hold foreign captives suspected of involvement with al Qaeda, the Taliban or other militant groups. Of the 779 men held there, 168 remain.

Gold9472

09-24-2012, 06:54 AM

Prison camps not a campaign issue this time
The once hot-button topic of GuantÃ¡namo that President Barack Obama pressed in his first presidential race is a non-issue this time around.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/23/3017677/prison-camps-not-a-campaign-issue.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

In 2007, Mitt Romney set himself apart from the pack of presidential candidates by staking out an extreme position on the prison camps at GuantÃ¡namo Bay, Cuba. He said he wanted to â€œgrow themâ€ at a time when both Barack Obama and John McCain were advocating closure to improve Americaâ€™s standing in the world.

This time around, itâ€™s not even part of the presidential campaign conversation.

When asked, spokesmen for the candidates couldnâ€™t muster anything more than canned talking points â€” Romney will keep them, Obama still wants to close them. And thereâ€™s no evidence that either man has raised the issue along the campaign trail where the economy is the chief concern but national security is never far behind.

The most prominent mention so far came in Clint Eastwoodâ€™s conversation with an empty chair at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. â€œWhy close it? We spent so much money on it.â€

Congressâ€™ straight-jacketing legislation may explain it. Once Obama sought to make good on his 2008 campaign pledge by ordering his administration to close the camps by Jan. 22, 2009, Congress replied with a succession of financial and bureaucratic restrictions on the prison and the prisoners that today make a policy debate on the topic largely theoretical.

â€œItâ€™s been neutralized as an issue for both sides. Whether they like it or not, the reality is there will be detainees detained at GuantÃ¡namo Bay for as long as you can see into the future,â€ said Steve Schmidt, senior campaign advisor in 2008 to McCain.

Congressional restrictions also forced the Obama administration to retreat on Attorney General Eric Holderâ€™s vow to hold a civilian Sept. 11 terror trial in Manhattan, not far from 9/11â€™s Ground Zero. The capital case is instead being prosecuted before a military commission at the Navy base in southeast Cuba.

GuantÃ¡namo is â€œnot on the mind of out-of-work Ohio auto workers who may determine the outcome of this election,â€ Schmidt said. â€œScoring points on GuantÃ¡namo Bay denies you the opportunity to score points on the economy. If Mitt Romney canâ€™t make an economic case he wonâ€™t win the election.â€

For the record, White House national security spokesman Tommy Vietor said thereâ€™s no change in the presidential policy that seeks to close the camps that cost $800,000 a year per prisoner: â€œThe president has made clear that the policy of this administration is to do what is clearly in our national security interest â€” to close the detention facility at GuantÃ¡namo.â€

Getting there is more complicated. The Democratsâ€™ 2008 platform bluntly pledged closure. The GuantÃ¡namo passage in the 2012 platform is more nuanced: â€œWe are substantially reducing the population at GuantÃ¡namo Bay without adding to it,â€ it says. â€œAnd we remain committed to working with all branches of government to close the prison altogether because it is inconsistent with our national security interests and our values.â€

Neither the 2008 nor 2012 Republican platforms make mention of GuantÃ¡namo, meaning Romneyâ€™s most detailed vision comes from a May 2007 Fox News debate among McCain, Romney and Rudolph Giuliani at the University of South Carolina.

â€œI donâ€™t want them on our soil,â€ Romney said then. â€œI want them on GuantÃ¡namo, where they donâ€™t get the access to lawyers they get when theyâ€™re on our soil. I donâ€™t want them in our prisons. I want them there. Some people have said we ought to close GuantÃ¡namo. My view is we ought to double GuantÃ¡namo.â€

The Romney campaign wonâ€™t elaborate on what the Massachusetts governor wanted to double that day, when the Pentagon held more than 380 captives.

But since then, the Pentagon has downsized the detention center population by half.

The Bush administration transferred more than 100, the majority to Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Then the Obama administration transferred and resettled another 100, many across Europe and to such far-flung places as Palau, Cape Verde and Bermuda. Five captives died.

Todayâ€™s GuantÃ¡namo prisoner population is 167.

Gold9472

09-26-2012, 08:43 AM

Pentagon prosecutors moving away from gag order on 9/11 suspects at Guantanamo

http://www.thestate.com/2012/09/26/2457434/pentagon-prosecutors-moving-away.html#.UGL26hgoo0w

Carol Rosenberg - The Miami Herald
9/26/2012

Defense lawyers in the Sept. 11 case said Tuesday that the Pentagon prosecutor is backing away from a national security doctrine that reflexively gags anything the accused 9/11 plotters say to anyone at GuantÃ¡namo.

At issue is the controversial theory of â€œpresumptive classification.â€ Because the accused 9/11 conspirators were held for years in secret custody by the CIA, and are now confined to a secret prison at GuantÃ¡namo, anything they say starts off classified as a national security secret.

They are facing a death-penalty trial at the GuantÃ¡namo war court, and their defense lawyers have argued that the interpretation has straight-jacketed their trial preparation.

Moreover, the American Civil Liberties Union disputes the concept of â€œpresumptive classificationâ€ as being at odds with the publicâ€™s right to know what happened to the captives in secret U.S. custody. Agents seized the men in 2002 and 2003, and then turned them over to the military at GuantÃ¡namo in 2006.

â€œToday, the prosecution in the 9/11 military commission filed a document retreating from its argument for â€˜presumptive classificationâ€™ of all detainee statements, regardless of their topic,â€ said James Connell, lawyer for Ammar al Baluchi, the nephew of alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. â€œDefense attorneys have vigorously opposed the practice of presumptive classification.â€

A military judge is set to consider the legality of the doctrine during hearings at GuantÃ¡namo Oct. 15-19.

The chief prosecutor declined to say whether or how he had retreated from the doctrine in the filing. Under war court rules, it was filed under seal â€” lawyers get to read it, the public cannot â€” until U.S. intelligence authorities decide which portions to redact.

â€œThe government is committed to considering every reasonable and appropriate measure that could help facilitate the attorney-client relationship,â€ the prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, said in statement.

Martinsâ€™ remarks suggest that defense lawyers will now be able to discuss certain off-limit topics with the accused terrorists. Left unclear was whether the lawyers will now be allowed to talk publicly about their conversations with their clients.

Attorney Cheryl Bohrmann, defending alleged al Qaida lieutenant Walid bin Attash, explained the rules this way in May: â€œEverything is presumptively Top Secret. So if my client had a tuna fish sandwich for lunch, I couldnâ€™t tell you that.â€

Gold9472

10-11-2012, 09:16 PM

9/11 mastermind loses appeal to delay Monday hearing

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i7XOIlOC2yH_uaI8tgfk2-avzB5w?docId=CNG.0f2713668f2bbbb0b8aa5e938d9485bc. e1

(AFP) â€“ 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON â€” The self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11 terror attacks has lost an appeal citing rats and mold as a reason to delay his court appearance on Monday, a defense lawyer said.

Judge James Pohl's decision was still sealed Thursday, three days before the hearing in question, but lawyer James Connell said he had received word by mid-afternoon.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's "emergency motion to delay October hearings -- due to defense offices deemed unsafe due to the presence of hazardous mold, rodents and rodent feces -- was denied," announced Connell, defense lawyer for one of the five men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The new series of preliminary hearings for the five men is scheduled to begin Monday at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The hearings had already been postponed so that the defendants could observe the holy month of Ramadan and were then pushed back a day when a derailed freight train in the US state of Maryland caused an Internet outage at the base. They were delayed once more due to Tropical Storm Isaac.

This time, it was Mohammed's lawyers who had asked for the delay, saying the offices they were provided were "not habitable due to extensive, ongoing and serious health hazards presented by exposure to hazardous mold, airborne particulates, rodents, rodent feces and other significant matters."

According to their request, filed in early October, the decaying body of a dead rat was removed from the ceiling on September 25, and, the month before, several large rats were removed, causing rat feces to drop into the workspace.

The defense team said the uneasy work conditions left them unable to adequately prepare for the hearing.

Soon after their motion was filed, Pohl said he was astonished these offices had been designated for the lawyers when a team of air quality and mold inspectors had recommended they not be used.

He ordered the offices to be repaired or another "decent workspace" be provided.

As a result, the vents and the offices were cleaned, disinfected and re-inspected by a Guantanamo hospital team, which re-authorized them to be used, a base spokesman said.

Mohammed is awaiting trial along with his Pakistani nephew Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi of Saudi Arabia and Yemenis Ramzi Binalshibh and Walid bin Attash.

The five men face the death penalty if convicted for their roles in the 2001 attacks by Al-Qaeda militants in which hijacked planes were used to strike New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing 2,976 people.

Gold9472

10-11-2012, 09:20 PM

Continuance Denied in the 9/11 Case; Hearing Still On

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/10/continuance-denied-in-the-911-case-hearing-still-on/

By Wells Bennett (http://www.lawfareblog.com/author/wells/)
Thursday, October 11, 2012 at 5:33 PM

Remember the defenseâ€™s request, in U.S. v. Mohammed et al, to postpone next weekâ€™s motions hearing (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/10/911-case-defense-seeks-mold-and-rat-related-continuance-court-balks-at-changing-the-sequence-of-issues-to-be-addressed-at-hearing/) on account of an infestation of rodents, rodent poop, and mold in the defenseâ€™s offices? Well, earlier today Judge James L. Pohl denied it (http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/KSM.pdf), citing â€œprofessional assessmentsâ€ conducted by the Commanding Officer of GTMOâ€™s naval hospital. (In its papers, the government had noted a then-upcoming â€œremediation project,â€ which, upon completion on October 9, would rid the offending stuff from the defense attorneysâ€™ offices.)

No real surprise there. The working conditions aside, it was already hard enough to imagine a further postponement of case, given that thereâ€™s been no hearing since Mayâ€™s arraignment, and the upcoming session has already seen a string (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/07/hearing-postponed-in-the-911-case/) of delays (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/08/911-motions-hearing-cancelledfor-now/).

Which reminds me: Lawfare naturally will be covering next weekâ€™s Guantanamo proceedings, via closed-circuit television at Fort Meade. Be sure to tune in, yâ€™all.

Gold9472

10-13-2012, 08:25 AM

2 terror trials separated by more than a subway ride
From logistics to the law, the latest New York City terror proceedings offer a stark contrast to the challenges of mounting the Sept. 11 trial at GuantÃ¡namo.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/12/3047200/2-terror-trials-separated-by-more.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

Within hours of being handed over to U.S. custody last week, a radical Islamic preacher from London named Abu Hamza al Masri was brought before a federal court in New York City. He got a seasoned criminal defense attorney, open hearings and is now in a federal lockup awaiting an August terror trial. It took days, not years.

Next week, the accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged accomplices get their second military commissions hearings of the Obama administration at the U.S. Navy base at GuantÃ¡namo. All five have been in U.S. custody for nine or more years.

The contrasts donâ€™t end there.

Oneâ€™s a military court. Anotherâ€™s civilian. If the Sept. 11 prosecution ends in conviction and the military jury decides they deserve the death penalty, the secretary of defense will choose the method of execution. Masri and four other men who were extradited to U.S. custody from Britain can get at most life in prison, and release if they are acquitted.

From logistics to the law, the cases of Masri and Mohammed illustrate how encumbered the GuantÃ¡namo war court system has become.

Contrasting costs
â€¢ Subway vs. charter commercial airliner

The federal courthouse is a $2.25 subway ride away from the rest of New York City. GuantÃ¡namo lawyers, and everyone else from judge to victim family members, get to the GuantÃ¡namo proceedings on $90,000 charter jetliners. For the Oct. 15-19 proceedings, postponed from August by Tropical Storm Isaac, the Pentagon chartered two.

â€¢ Permanent offices vs. makeshift work space

Masriâ€™s court-appointed defense lawyer, Jeremy Schneider, walked to his clientâ€™s arraignment from his downtown New York office, five blocks from the court. GuantÃ¡namo lawyers split their time between Washington Beltway offices and crude, cramped work space at Camp Justice, some of it recently declared a health hazard of toxic mold and rat droppings.

â€¢ Federal lockup vs. designer detention

Masri is held for trial next to the courthouse, in a 10-story federal lockup with solitary confinement for â€œhigh-riskâ€ prisoners where lawyers can simply show up to see a client seven days a week. It costs $33,989 a year to keep an inmate in federal detention, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. The Obama administration says it costs $800,000 a year to keep a prisoner at GuantÃ¡namo. To see a client, a defense lawyer needs to get a slot on the prison campâ€™s military roster and a ride on the $90,000 charter plane.

Different crimes
To be sure, the Sept. 11 attacks were a crime unparalleled in American history. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the four hijackings, al-Qaidaâ€™s first attack on U.S. soil.

Masri, who was jailed in Britain since 2004 and convicted of incitement, is accused in U.S. federal court of abetting kidnappings of Americans in Yemen and conspiring to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon, crimes that date back to the 1990s.

Each case took a roundabout route to U.S. justice. The same year Masri was convicted in a British court, the CIA moved Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators to GuantÃ¡namo from years in secret agency detention specifically designed to keep them out of reach of the International Red Cross, as well as U.S. courts.

The Bush era Pentagon charged Mohammed with war crimes in 2008. But the Obama administration withdrew the case, and chose to try the case in New York City with a civilian judge and jury.

Congress and political opposition thwarted that effort. Now the case is back at the GuantÃ¡namo war court, where the Pentagon uses some Justice Department lawyers and blends both military and civilian practice.

Different courts
â€¢ UK vs. CIA

In the Masri case, the British government imposed two conditions on the extradition of the five accused terrorists to U.S. soil â€” no execution if convicted and no military prosecution, then turned him and four other men over to U.S. jurisdiction. Mohammed came to military custody from the CIA, which still controls classifications in the 9/11 case, notably the details of his black site detentions and interrogations, including 183 rounds of waterboarding.

â€¢ Federal judge vs. 40-second delay

Spectators walked in off the street, went through a metal detector and sat in court for Masriâ€™s 30-minute arraignment. Sketch artists sat in the jury box, close enough to illustrate that Masriâ€™s arms end in stumps, he says from an explosion in the 1980s while he fought the Soviet invasions of Afghanistan. For Mohammedâ€™s arraignment, the Pentagon vetted spectators â€” Sept. 11 victims, legal observers, reporters, who in Cuba watched the 13-hour 9/11 proceedings through a soundproofed window behind the court. Sound comes in a 40-second sound delay, time enough for a censor to muffle with white noise button sensitive information. The sketch artist was sequestered in back too. A security officer inspected her drawings before the public could see them.

â€¢ Release vs. indefinite detention

If a civilian jury acquits Masri, he goes free. The United States might seek to deport him back to his native Egypt or negotiate his return to Britain, where his family lives. Acquittal by military commission does not automatically guarantee you get out of GuantÃ¡namo. Obama detention doctrine says the Pentagon can keep a foreigner indefinitely as a captive of the war on terror â€” unless a federal court orders the government to let the man go.

â€¢ Settled system versus expeditionary justice

Thereâ€™s no question that Masri is entitled to the protections of the U.S. Constitution at his trial. Not so at the U.S. military court in Cuba. Defense lawyers have asked the Army colonel presiding at the 9/11 trial to rule on whether military commissions are governed by the U.S. Constitution. The prosecutors want that issue decided later.

Gold9472

10-14-2012, 09:31 AM

9/11 trials: Torture, secrecy on Gitmo hearings menu

http://tribune.com.pk/story/451339/911-trials-torture-secrecy-on-gitmo-hearings-menu/

By AFP
Published: October 14, 2012

WASHINGTON: The spectre of torture and the veil of secrecy will loom large over a new series of hearings starting on Monday at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the accused plotters of the 9/11 attacks.

It will mark the second appearance for the self-proclaimed mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and his four co-defendants before the special tribunal known as military commissions on the US naval base.

The preliminary hearings designed to pave the way for the â€˜trial of the centuryâ€™ will take place all week at the outpost in south-eastern Cuba after being postponed more than two months so that the defendants could observe the holy month of Ramadan and due to an Internet outage and a storm.

â€œOne of the major issues that will be decided is whether the US Constitution, which governs all cases in the US, also applies to Guantanamo Bay or whether Guantanamo Bay is a sort of legal black hole as itâ€™s been described,â€ said James Connell.

He is representing Khalid Sheikhâ€™s Pakistani nephew Ali Abd al Aziz Ali, also known as Ammar al Baluchi.

At issue are the torture and abuse the five men said they suffered at the hands of US authorities, and the classified status that President Barack Obamaâ€™s administration says covers details of the suspectsâ€™ treatment, citing national security concerns.

Among the petitions that will be examined during the five days of hearings are government motions to â€˜protect against disclosure of national security informationâ€™ and to â€˜protect unclassified discovery material where disclosure would be detrimental to the public interest.â€™

With prosecutors refusing to reveal information deemed classified and holding parts of the debates behind closed doors, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) rights group and 14 media groups are calling for complete transparency.

â€œThe public has the right to see the proceedings,â€ said Connell.

Cheryl Bormann, who is defending Walid bin Attash of Yemen, agreed that the hearings should be part of an â€˜open process, a fair process, a transparent process.â€™

â€œThe government shouldnâ€™t be able to hide behind classification issues,â€ she added.

â€œIf this is going to be a trial about what happened on 9/11â€¦ only the truth should come out and not the US governmentâ€™s spin on the truth until they opened the process; right now, itâ€™s just their spin.â€

Because of the menâ€™s treatment at the CIAâ€™s secret prisons where they were held prior to their 2006 transfer to Guantanamo, â€˜thereâ€™s a presumptive classification about everything our clients say to us, even the most inaccurate things,â€™ said James Harrington, attorney for Yemeni Ramzi Binalshibh.

All documents and other communication between lawyers and their clients are subject to censorship.

â€œThatâ€™s a clear violation of our rights as lawyers, (we should) be able to talk about things without interference, or Big Brother looking over your shoulder at everything you do,â€ Harrington told AFP.

Journalists and a select number of members of the public follow the proceedings from behind soundproof glass, and the audio only reaches them after a 40-second delay.

The delay allows a military censor to blur statements whose content is deemed a threat to national security.

Gold9472

10-14-2012, 09:38 AM

ACLU to Argue Next Week at GuantÃ¡namo Tribunal Against Censorship of Torture Testimony

http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-argue-next-week-guantanamo-tribunal-against-censorship-torture-testimony

October 12, 2012

ACLU Motion Asserts Publicâ€™s Constitutional Right to Open Trials and Challenges Governmentâ€™s Proposed Censorship Regime

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

GUANTÃNAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba â€“ Early next week, a military commission judge at GuantÃ¡namo Bay will hear oral argument on the American Civil Liberties Unionâ€™s challenge to censorship of torture testimony at the trial of the 9/11 defendants. This will be the ACLUâ€™s first appearance arguing before the tribunal.

Based on the schedule released by the judge, the ACLU expects to be heard Monday or Tuesday. The hearing was originally scheduled for August, but was delayed by Hurricane Isaac.

In May, the ACLU filed a motion asking the commission to deny the governmentâ€™s request to prevent the public from hearing any statements by the defendants about their torture and detention while in U.S. custody. On that basis, the motion asks the commission to bar a delayed audio feed of the proceedings, or, in the alternative, promptly release an uncensored transcript.

â€œThe governmentâ€™s claim that it can keep from the public the defendantsâ€™ testimony about their â€˜thoughts and experiencesâ€™ of torture is legally untenable and morally abhorrent,â€ said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLUâ€™s National Security Project and the attorney who will argue the motion Wednesday. â€œThere is an ongoing public debate about the fairness and transparency of the GuantÃ¡namo military commissions, and if the government succeeds in imposing its desired censorship regime, the commissions will certainly not be seen as legitimate.â€

The government contends that any statements by the defendantsâ€™ concerning their â€œexposureâ€ to the CIAâ€™s detention and interrogation program are classified as â€œsources, methods and activitiesâ€ of the U.S. and can be withheld from the public. A group of 14 press organizations will also be arguing next week for the mediaâ€™s right to access the commission's proceedings.

The ACLUâ€™s motion is at:
http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu_motion_for_public_access_5_2_12.pdf

The ACLUâ€™s reply brief to the government is at:
http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu_reply_brief_-_motion_for_public_access_at_guantanamo.pdf

Gold9472

10-14-2012, 05:43 PM

Victims' Families Invited to Watch 9/11 Hearings

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/victims-families-invited-watch-911-hearings-17475637#.UHswkBjBiMM

By DAVID B. CARUSO Associated Press
NEW YORK October 14, 2012

(AP) The families of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks have been invited to military installations in four states to watch pretrial hearings in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for five men charged with planning or assisting the terrorist strike.

The hearings, which begin Monday, are closed to the public, but relatives who register in advance can watch on closed-circuit television at forts in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland and New York City.

The suspects on trial before the military commission include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

An earlier round of hearings in May was also transmitted to viewing locations for relatives of the victims, survivors of the attacks, and emergency personnel who responded to the disaster.

Those proceedings were an exercise in frustration for some viewers, as the suspects refused to cooperate with the court, or interrupted proceedings to kneel in prayer.

Jim Riches, whose firefighter son, Jimmy, died at the World Trade Center, said he planned to view Monday's hearing at Fort Hamilton, in Brooklyn.

"It's difficult for the families. But it is 10 years later, and we have no justice," Riches said. "I just wish it was being broadcast throughout the whole world so everyone could see it, and could see what these guys are like."

The nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks each have many relatives who could see the trial, but attendance at the first round of hearings last spring was light, with only a few dozen people at each site.

Riches said he didn't expect a large crowd for Monday's session either, largely due to the pain of reliving the attacks.

"A lot of people are moving on with their lives. A lot of people are just trying to forget about it and move on. But you can't, really. They aren't going to walk back in through the door," he said, referring to the victims.

Gold9472

10-15-2012, 11:10 AM

9/11 hearings to focus on secrecy, transparency

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/15/4911770/911-hearings-to-focus-on-secrecy.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
The Miami Herald
Published: Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 - 1:00 am

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- The five men accused of plotting the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were in the custody of the CIA for up to four years before they were brought here for detention and trial. But exactly where the CIA held them and what was done to them there is a state secret at the military court in which they are charged with war crimes.

In 2008, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then head of the CIA, told Congress that the alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, was waterboarded. Hayden didn't say where or how or whether anything else was done to Mohammed in an attempt to get him to give up al-Qaida's secrets.

"The government wants to kill Mr. Mohammed. They want to extinguish the last eyewitness to his torture so that he can never speak about it," Mohammed's defense attorney, David Nevin, told reporters in May after a 13-hour arraignment.

Just how much the world can know - and how much their lawyers can learn - about the years Mohammed and the other four men spent in the CIA prison network will be front and center this week at pretrial hearings. The government argues that whatever the men say about their time in the so-called "black sites" is Top Secret, classified at the highest levels.

The hearings start Monday and run all week, and will cover a range of issues from whether the prison camps can compel the men to attend their own trials to whether they can wear paramilitary attire to court. They were scheduled for August but delayed by Tropical Storm Isaac.

None of the men are particularly sympathetic characters.

Soon after Mohammed got to Guantanamo from the prison network where, the CIA's own declassified documents disclose, he was waterboarded 183 times, the U.S.-educated, Pakistani-born man bragged to a military panel that he orchestrated the 9/11 attacks from "A to Z."

His four accused accomplices allegedly trained, funded and arranged travel for the 19 hijackers that killed nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field in the worst terror attack on U.S. soil. At their May arraignment, they refused to answer the judge's questions.

Now this week, Army Col. James Pohl, the judge, will hear arguments from lawyers on how much the world can hear - and how much their own defense lawyers can discuss with the accused - of what happened to them during their years in CIA custody.

The chief war crimes prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, says the court is as transparent as the agencies that control the classifications allow. Meaning, if the CIA has declared something a secret, the government's Pentagon prosecution team is bound to keep that secret.

Information is classified "to safeguard genuine sources and methods of intelligence gathering that can protect against future attack," the general told an audience in London last month as part of a periodic speaking meant to quell criticism of the war court.

The government can't close proceedings, he said, to shield the United States from embarrassment or to cover up that a law was broken.

Defense lawyers oppose the idea that anything the accused say is "presumptively classified." They say the prison camps rules imposed on their work means that, as Nevin put it, attorney and captive are forbidden to discuss between themselves anything from what Mohammed says the CIA did to him to his "historical perspective on jihad." Nevin called the war court system "a rigged game."

They are likewise gagged from discussing publicly even the most mundane aspect of what the captives tell them.

"Everything is presumptively Top Secret. So if my client had a tuna fish sandwich for lunch, I couldn't tell you that," Cheryl Bormann, defense lawyer for alleged al-Qaida lieutenant Walid bin Attash, told reporters after the May proceedings.

The others accused in the case are Mohammed's nephew, Ammar al Baluchi, 34, like his uncle a Pakistani citizen; Ramzi bin al Shibh, 40, like bin Attash, 34, a Yemeni described in the charge sheets as willing deputies to Mohammed and Mustafa al Hawsawi, 44, a Saudi man who allegedly helped move the money that financed the hijackers' travel to the United States.

All were captured in Pakistan in 2002 and 2003 and hidden for years from the International Red Cross, whose mandate is to monitor treatment of prisoners around the globe. In 2006, President George W. Bush had these men moved to Guantanamo for trial.

The American Civil Liberties Union argues that it is "Orwellian," preposterous for the U.S. government to subject the men to the detention regime and then say they can't talk publicly in court about what happened to them. Everyone but the accused was a willing participant in this chapter of U.S. history, yet they find themselves with the same gag order as most government employees with top secret clearances.

Attorneys for 14 media organizations, who like the ACLU will argue for openness at the court this week, argue that the public has a compelling interest in the case, as well as a constitutional right to access. If the judge closes portions, the so-called "press objectors" argue in their brief, he must explain in exacting detail what aspect of national security he is protecting.

(They are: ABC Inc., The Associated Press, Bloomberg News, CBS Broadcasting Inc., Fox News Network, The Miami Herald and its parent McClatchy Co., National Public Radio, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Reuters, Tribune Company, the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.)

Judge Pohl is hearing dozens of motions during the hearings, and may be able to act more swiftly and easily on some than others.

On the topic of attorney-client conversations, he has already over-ruled the prison camps commander in the capital case against a former CIA captive, Abd al Rahim Nashiri, accused of the October USS Cole bombing that killed 17 U.S. sailors. And he has said he has the power to do so.

He has not said in court that he believes he has the authority to declassify information the government still stamps Top Secret - including details that have already leaked into the public about the captives four-year detour to Guantanamo during the George W. Bush years.

Gold9472

10-15-2012, 11:10 AM

September 11 mastermind back in US military court

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iXAMPeVVdN8kH94CmvsWCQ9LN4DQ?docId=CNG.48a13 d603883115f2e07106e77e273aa.681

(AFP) â€“ 1 hour ago

US NAVAL BASE AT GUANTANAMO, Cuba â€” Hearings for the self-proclaimed September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants got under way on Monday at Guantanamo Bay ahead of their trial.

It was a second appearance for him at the special tribunal known as military commissions on the US naval base.

Mohammed and four alleged co-plotters face the death penalty if convicted for the attacks on the United States 11 years ago that left 2,976 people dead.

With prosecutors refusing to reveal information deemed classified and holding parts of the debates behind closed doors, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) rights group and 14 media groups have urged complete transparency.

At issue are the torture and abuse the five men said they suffered at the hands of US authorities, and the classified status that President Barack Obama's administration says covers details of the suspects' treatment, citing national security concerns.

Gold9472

10-15-2012, 11:11 AM

Statement from the Chief Prosecutor Regarding This Weekâ€™s Hearing in the 9/11 Case

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/10/statement-from-the-chief-prosecutor-regarding-this-weeks-hearing-in-the-911-case/

By Wells Bennett
Sunday, October 14, 2012 at 10:12 PM

Brigadier General Mark Martins, the Chief Prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo, has released this statement regarding this weekâ€™s motions hearing in United States v. Mohammed et al. His remarks follow below.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin â€˜Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi stand charged with Attacking Civilians, Attacking Civilian Objects, Murder in Violation of the Law of War, Destruction of Property in Violation of the Law of War, Hijacking or Hazarding a Vessel or Aircraft, Terrorism, and Conspiracy in connection with the attacks on our nation on September 11, 2001. These attacks resulted in the deaths of 2,976 persons.

We acknowledge the desire for justice under the rule of law felt by so many who are observing these proceedings, including the survivors and victim family members for whom fair, open, and accountable trials are worth the effort, however long they may take. In addition to those who will observe from stateside viewing sites, some family members of victims traveled here to witness the proceedings. We welcome them and appreciate what this week means to them.

We also welcome those in the media and non-governmental organizations who traveled here to attend the sessions. Through you and through closed-circuit transmission, the public observes and better understands the legal issues in dispute.

In sessions without panel members, the judge considers various pre-trial legal matters the parties have raised in court filings. The law in all U.S. courts requires that such matters be addressed and that the disposition of each issue be placed on the record. This methodical and adversarial process is the same in a federal district court before seating a civilian jury and in a court-martial before assembling the members.

The military judgeâ€™s order providing the sequence of the motions is available on the military-commissions website (Appellate Exhibit 59I), as are all of the partiesâ€™ pleadings for the issues that the Commission will consider. The Commission released to the public the pleadings that the parties will argue this week. Observers of commissions have noted that publicly releasing these pleadings as soon as possible prior to the hearings promotes wider understanding of the proceedings. The government has also made available binders containing written copies of all the pleadings to the media and non-governmental organizations attending the sessions in Guantanamo. Many government officials and employees continue to work hard to implement the policies and practices necessary for transparency.

The motions to be taken up this week raise issues involving the production and protection of discovery, the presence of the accused, and public access to the Commissionâ€™s proceedings. Review of the briefs and attendance at oral arguments in the coming week by members of the media will enable you to hear all sides of these motions and thus fulfill your professional obligation to avoid reporting only one perspective of any contested issue. Such diligence is important. Although there are some issues on which the government and counsel for the accused agree, there are also areas of disagreement. The facts and legal rationale of each matter will be duly considered by the judge, but there is also great benefit in your independent consideration and, through you, in consideration by the wider public that is interested in this significant trial.

I will comment briefly on three broader issues regarding reformed military commissions.

First is the legal concept of relevance. The parties have the right to present evidence that is â€œrelevant and necessary.â€ They have no right to present irrelevant matters. The party seeking to present a matter as evidence, including witness testimony, must demonstrate that the matter is both relevant and necessary. Permitting parties to present matters that are irrelevant would unduly burden society in an intrusive and costly way. That is just as true in federal courts and courts-martial as it is in military commissions.

Evidence is relevant and necessary where it contributes to a partyâ€™s presentation of the case in some positive way on a matter in issue. For example, with respect to a charge of Terrorism under the Military Commissions Act of 2009, the elements of that offense include (1) intentionally killing or inflicting great bodily harm on one or more protected persons or engaging in an act that evinces a wanton disregard for human life and (2) doing so in a manner calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government or civilian population by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct. So evidence, like witness testimony, that contributes to one side or the otherâ€™s presentation of the case on whether the accused intentionally killed protected persons would be relevant and necessary. Similarly, evidence showing that the killing was done in a manner calculated to intimidate the civilian population would be relevant and necessary.

The same standard applies to affirmative defenses. For example, in military commissions, if the accused can show that he was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, these facts could support an affirmative defense. So evidence tending to contribute to the accusedâ€™s presentation of the case on the question of his mental capacity would be relevant and necessary.

Put another way, the focus of the trial is, as it should be, on the guilt or innocence of an accused on the charges alleged. All information that may tend to exculpate an accused, including classified information, must be provided to the defense in discovery so that the accused has the opportunity to challenge the case against him.

I reiterate that the law clearly holds that no statement obtained as a result of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment will be admissible as evidence against an accused. And any assertion that the Military Commissions Act of 2009 expressly permits the admissibility of so-called â€œderivative evidenceâ€ obtained as a result of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment is false. The Military Commissions Act of 2009 safeguards against the admission of such evidence through the totality-of-the-circumstances test and the â€œvoluntarinessâ€ determination under section 948r. And any new information uncovered about post-capture treatment will be made known to the appropriate authorities tasked with investigating allegations regarding the accusedâ€™s treatment. However, there may be instances where post-capture treatment is not relevant to the alleged charges.

Some have complained that the rule of relevance will be applied to assure that no evidence of an accusedâ€™s post-capture treatment will be heard in their cases. This is false. Defense counsel could offer evidence of post-capture treatment that may be relevant and necessary to the consideration of whether statements made to authorities were voluntary. Were an accused to be convicted, evidence of post-capture treatment could mitigate the offense and thus be relevant and necessary to the determination of a just sentence. These are just two examples in which a military commission will not shrink from examining post-capture treatment that is relevant and necessary to the matters before it.

I emphasize that the charges before a military commission are only allegations and that an accused is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Second, as most of you are aware, some defense counsel asked the Commission to delay this weekâ€™s hearings, contending that environmental conditions rendered their office space uninhabitable. The government takes concerns regarding the habitability of all working spaces seriously. In response to the defenseâ€™s concerns, qualified officials from the Industrial Hygiene Department of the U.S. Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay assessed the buildings in question. The Joint Task Force Preventive Medicine Department also conducted a rodent survey. Following the assessments, the office space was certified as habitable, and the buildings were cleared for resumption of normal working operations. The government provided the Commission and the defense the memoranda and reports regarding the hygiene assessment and the rodent survey. And just last Friday, after having examined the assessments, the Commission denied the defense motion to delay this weekâ€™s hearings (Appellate Exhibit 82H).

The focus of the trial can thus remain, as it should, on the guilt or innocence of the accused and not on counsel accommodations. Again, while taking seriously the genuine needs of counsel to fulfill their professional responsibilities, the quality of justice is not determined by physical trappings.

Finally, as you may know, I have previously described the categories of criticisms levied against reformed military commissions. These criticisms can be summarized by six â€œUnsâ€: that military commissions are unfair, unsettled, unknown, unbounded, unnecessary, and un- American. Recently, we heard a seventh â€œUnâ€â€”that entirely apart from fairness considerations or any of the other â€œUns,â€ reformed military commissions are unpopular and therefore doomed to futility or purposelessness.

The purpose is clear. The work is worthy. The Congress of the United States, representing the sovereign will of the American people, has repeatedly demonstrated strong support for these military-commission trials. Similarly, two Presidents of the United States, elected by the American people, have signed successive acts regarding military commissions into law. It is increasingly clear that military commissions have an important, albeit narrow, function within United States national security and justice institutions. The suggestion that they are unpopular thus merits one or more â€œUnsâ€ in reply: unsupportable, and in any event unauthoritative as an expression of the peopleâ€™s will in a constitutional democracy.

In closing, I would like to recognize the daily professionalism of the Coastguardsmen, Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen, and Marines of Joint Task Force Guantanamo.

Gold9472

10-15-2012, 12:48 PM

ACLU and media challenge transparency of 9/11 trial

http://rt.com/usa/news/aclu-guantanamo-mohammed-911-494/

Published: 15 October, 2012, 20:15

As legal proceedings move forward for five Guantanamo Bay prisoners charged with roles in the September 11 terrorist attacks, the US government wants the court to censor their testimonies in a move civil liberties lawyers condemn as â€œchilling."

Prosecutors in the case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Gitmo inmates accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks have asked a US military judge to consider a protective order that, if approved, would delay any courtroom discussions by as long as 40-seconds to ensure that no classified information is made available to the media or others.

By doing such, prosecutors claim top-secret details about harsh interrogation techniques and special tactics enforced on the prisoners will be kept from the public and press, a necessity they say in the name of ensuring national security.

"Each of the accused is in the unique position of having had access to classified intelligence sources and methods," the prosecution says in court filings obtained by the Associated Press. "The government, like the defense, must protect that classified information from disclosure."

This position outraged the ACLU and some members of the media, including the AP, who are now demanding in court that the government act more transparent in their prosecution.

"What we are challenging is the censorship of the defendant's testimony based on their personal knowledge of the government's torture and detention of them," ACLU attorney Hina Shamsi tells the AP, adding that her opinion is the prosecutionâ€™s suggestions would "classify the defendants own knowledge, thoughts and experience.â€

"It's a truly extraordinary and chilling proposal that the government is asking the court to accept," Shamsi says.

Attorneys for the defense say the result could be much more damming that just risking disclosure, though, as it will censor prisoners from going public about any mistreatment and torture they were subjected to while under years of CIA-sanctioned detention.

"It's a way in which the government can hide what it did to these men during the period of detention by the CIA," Army Capt. Jason Wright, a Pentagon-appointed attorney for Mohammed, tells the AP. "I think we need to bring the truth to the light of day on these issues."

If the court agrees to accept the proposal, details about â€œadvanced interrogation techniqueâ€ forced onto prisoners, such as the drowning-simulation act known as water-boarding, could be kept from ever escaping the courtroom. Inmate testimonies would be subjected to nearly a one-minute delay, allowing the government to stop the disclosure of any details they may wish to remain under lock-and-key. And while this order has been proposed under the guise of national security, defense attorneys argue that itâ€™s being brought up to keep the truth about years of torture from ever being brought up.

To KTRK News, Capt. Wright suggested he was adamant about bringing all facts regarding his clientâ€™s detention to the court and stressed that it has a major role how the rest of the case will move forward, whether or not the government approves.

"Torture matters because, quite frankly, America is better than this," Wright tells the network. "Other counsel has explained the legal relevance as to why it's important for this case, why it's part of the mitigation case, why we have an obligation as defense attorneys to tell the history of our clients."

Mohammed has previously confessed to military officials that he planned the September 11 attacks against America â€œfrom A to Zâ€ and has admitted to being involved in dozens of other terrorist plots. He was arraigned on May 5, 2012 on charges that include terrorism, conspiracy and 2,976 counts of murder, along with co-defendants Ramzi Binalshibh, Walid bin Attash, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali.

Gold9472

10-15-2012, 06:08 PM

Accused 9/11 planners won't have to appear for court hearing, judge rules

http://www.northjersey.com/news/Accused_911_planners_wont_have_to_appear_in_court_ for_hearing.html

Monday October 15, 2012, 5:01 PM

The five men accused of planning 9/11 donâ€™t have to appear in court during pre-trial hearings this week, a military judge has ruled.

The decision came near the end of the first day of hearings attended by Wayne couple Tom and Josephine Acquaviva, who traveled to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to see the men accused of killing their son, Paul Acquaviva.

U.S. Army Col. James Pohlâ€™s ruling means that Monday may have been their only chance. The Acquavivas got their first look at the five al Qaida plotters Monday morning. But the alleged terrorists didnâ€™t look back.

â€œI wish one of them would turn around and look at me,â€ Tom Acquaviva said, standing at the back of a high-security courtroom in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. â€œI would show them this picture.â€

Around their necks the Acquavivas were wearing chains holding a large photo of Paul Acquaviva on the day he graduated from Rutgers University. He was 29 on Sept. 11, 2001, one of thousands killed in the World Trade Center.

In their first appearance since being arraigned on war crimes in May, the five detainees, including self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, appeared reserved and attentive. They all spoke briefly, some in English, when the judge explained to them their rights after ruling they were not compelled to attend.

â€œYes, but I donâ€™t think thereâ€™s any justice in this court,â€ Mohammed said through his translator when the judge asked if he understand his rights. It was the first time Mohammed made a substantive comment since he was indicted in May.

Pohl granted the motion by the defendants to be able to skip the daily hearings, expected to run through Friday, as long as the defendants sign a waiver each day certifying that they understand their rights. One defendant, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, got a few laughs after the judge asked him if he understood that the trial against him would continue in the event that he escaped.

â€œYes, Iâ€™ll be sure to leave some notes,â€ Ali said in English, prompting a smile from the judge and laughs from the courtroom.

Ali also mentioned â€œproblemsâ€ he has had communicating his wishes to prison guards after the judge explained that detainees need to inform prison guards if they change their minds after deciding not to attend a session.

â€œIf I ask for the watch commander, he refuses to have him come to me,â€ Ali said in English.

It was a stark contrast to their arraignment in May on charges that include terrorism and murder. At that earlier session, one prisoner was briefly restrained, the men refused to listen to the court translation system headphones, they ignored the judge and two stood up to pray at one point.

To be decided this week are about two dozen preliminary legal issues required to move the case toward an eventual trial, likely at least a year away.

Media and about 10 family members of victims, including the Acquavivas, watched the morning pre-trial hearings through Plexi-glass in an adjacent room at the back of the court, with a delayed audio feed.

The main items on the weekâ€™s agenda are broad security rules for the war crimes tribunal, including measures to prevent the accused from publicly revealing what happened to them in the CIAâ€™s secret network of overseas prisons.

Gold9472

10-15-2012, 06:08 PM

9/11 accused back at Guantanamo war court

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/15/3868390/911-accused-back-at-guantanamo.html#storylink=cpy

By CAROL ROSENBERG
The Miami Herald

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- All five men accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks sat quietly at the Pentagon war court on Monday as lawyers launched into a week of pre-trial hearings - a stark contrast to a chaotic May 5 arraignment.

The judge, Army Col. James Pohl, set out an ambitious 25-motion roster for the week, and lawyers began haggling over legal issues that would set the stage for their eventual death-penalty trial, likely years from now.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the accused mastermind, appeared in traditional white garb topped with a black vest and white turban. not the paramilitary style uniform that the prison camps commander had prohibited.

His beard was once again red, apparently from henna, as he sat quietly at the defense table. It was unclear to what degree he was following the proceedings. His four alleged co-conspirators in the 2001 al-Qaida terror attacks sat quietly behind him.

The hearings are the first since the 13-hour May 5 arraignment in which the accused refused to cooperate. They sat mum in court as the judge advised them of their rights to defense lawyers, and refused to either don headsets piping in Arabic-English translation or answer the judge's questions.

For Monday's session, the Pentagon had installed a workaround: speakers clamped below each defendant's table that broadcast the simultaneous translation. A Defense Department official could not immediately say how much the new technology had cost at the $12 million expeditionary legal compound.

This week's hearings were delayed four times: first by the execution of a man in Idaho because Mohammed's lawyer, Boise attorney David Nevin, was defending that man. Then the judge agreed to postpone the hearings until after Ramadan.

The court participants were assembled at Guantanamo in August. But a computer outage at the courthouse complex derailed the proceedings by a day, then the Pentagon evacuated the compound back to Washington, D.C., because Tropical Storm Isaac had formed in the Caribbean.

Mohammed, 47, and his alleged accomplices got to Guantanamo in 2006 from years of interrogation in the CIA's secret prison network where, CIA declassified documents disclose, he was waterboarded 183 times. Once here, the U.S.-educated, Pakistani-born Mohammed bragged to a military panel that he orchestrated the 9/11 attacks from "A to Z."

His four co-defendants allegedly trained, funded and arranged travel for the 19 hijackers that killed nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field in the worst terror attack on U.S. soil.

Gold9472

10-16-2012, 04:11 PM

Judge: 9/11 mastermind can wear camo

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/82469.html?hp=l13

By BOBBY CERVANTES | 10/16/12 3:23 PM EDT

The alleged 9/11 mastermind can wear a camouflage hunting vest in the courtroom, a military judge ruled Tuesday.

Attorneys for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is accused with four others of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks, won the pretrial motion as his trial by a military tribunal is set to get underway.

â€œHe wanted to wear the same type of uniform he wore while fighting for the U.S.-supported Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and in Bosnia,â€ military defense attorney Army Captain Jason Wright said in a statement.

According to ABC News, prosecutors said there was no connection between Mohammadâ€™s choice to wear camouflage before his arrest and wearing it now as an enemy combatant.

Gold9472

10-17-2012, 08:58 PM

Alleged 9/11 mastermind: America killed more people than hijackers did

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/17/us-usa-guantanamo-idUSBRE89G1EJ20121017

By Jane Sutton
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba | Wed Oct 17, 2012 6:28pm EDT

(Reuters) - - The alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks told the Guantanamo courtroom on Wednesday that the U.S. government had killed many more people in the name of national security than he is accused of killing.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed was allowed to address the court at a pretrial hearing focused on security classification rules for evidence that will be used in his trial on charges of orchestrating the hijacked plane attacks that killed 2,976 people.

"When the government feels sad for the death or the killing of 3,000 people who were killed on September 11, we also should feel sorry that the American government that was represented by (the chief prosecutor) and others have killed thousands of people, millions," said Mohammed, who wore a military-style camouflage vest to the courtroom.

He accused the United States of using an elastic definition of national security, comparable to the way dictators bend the law to justify their acts.

"Many can kill people under the name of national security, and to torture people under the name of national security, and to detain children under the name of national security, underage children," he said in Arabic through an English interpreter.

"The president can take someone and throw him into the sea under the name of national security and so he can also legislate the assassinations under the name of national security for the American citizens," he said in an apparent reference to the U.S. killing and burial at sea of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the U.S. use of drone strikes against U.S. citizens accused of conspiring with al Qaeda.

He advised the court against "getting affected by the crocodile tears" and said, "Your blood is not made out of gold and ours is made out of water. We are all human beings."

The judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, gave Mohammed permission to speak and did not interrupt him, but said he would not hear any further personal comments from the defendants.

Mohammed's lecture to the court came during a week of pretrial hearings at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba for him and four other captives accused of recruiting, funding and training the hijackers.

He did not indicate why he wore a camouflage vest, but his wardrobe choice suggested he might try to invoke protections reserved for soldiers.

Pohl had ruled on Tuesday that the defendants could wear what they want to court, so long as it did not pose a security risk or include any part of a U.S. military uniform like those worn by their guards.

Mohammed's lawyers had argued that he should be allowed to wear a woodland-patterned camouflage vest to court because he wore one as part of a U.S.-armed mujahideen force fighting against Russian troops that occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s.

"Mr. Mohammed has previously distinguished himself on the battlefield by wearing a military-style vest or clothing. He did it in Afghanistan for the U.S. government during that proxy war, he did it in Bosnia and he has a right to do it in this courtroom," his defense attorney, Army Captain Jason Wright, argued on Tuesday.

The United States is trying Mohammed and the other alleged al Qaeda captives as unlawful belligerents who are not entitled to the combat immunity granted to soldiers who kill in battle.

They could face the death penalty if convicted of charges that include conspiring with al Qaeda, attacking civilians and civilian targets, murder in violation of the laws of war, destruction of property, hijacking and terrorism.

Under the Geneva Conventions, one of the things that separate soldiers from unlawful belligerents is the wearing of uniforms that distinguish them from civilians. Soldiers must also follow a clear command structure, carry arms openly and adhere to the laws of war.

Wright had argued that forbidding Mohammed from wearing military-style garb could undermine his presumption of innocence in the war crimes tribunal.

"The government has a burden to prove that this enemy prisoner of war is an unprivileged enemy belligerent," Wright said.

Gold9472

10-17-2012, 08:59 PM

Accused 9/11 mastermind says U.S. tortured in name of national security

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/17/accused-911-mastermind-says-u-s-tortured-in-name-of-national-security/

By Paul Courson

Accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed asserted on Wednesday that the U.S. government sanctioned torture in the name of national security, and compared the scale of the terror attack that killed nearly 3,000 people to the "millions" he said have been killed by America's military.

"Many can kill people under the name of national security, and torture people under the name of national security," Mohammed said during a pretrial hearing at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"This is a resilient definition," he said in open court, as military censors stood ready to interrupt the video and audio.

"Every dictator can put on shoes to step on this definition, every law, every constitution, with this definition any can evade the rule and also go against it," he said.

He also compared the nearly 3,000 victims killed in the 9/11 hijack attacks in New York, Washington and western Pennsylvania to killings he blamed on the American military that he said number in the "millions."

Recommended: What not to wear: Gitmo edition

Mohammed at one point also indirectly referred to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed in 2011 in a raid on his Pakistani compound by elite U.S. troops and his body buried at sea.

"I don't want to be long, but I can say the president can throw someone in the sea in the name of national security," Mohammed said.
Military judge Capt. James Pohl granted Mohammed the opportunity to speak.

But when the tone and substance of his remarks were clear, Pohl said he would not allow him or the other defendants in the case to make personal observations about the process.

Mohammed and four other men before the military court are accused of planning and executing the attack.

Pohl has been hearing oral arguments from attorneys representing the government and the defendants on a proposed protective order intended to establish rules over the handling of classified information before and during the trial.

Prosecutors want to keep from public view classified information and also unclassified materials that they consider detrimental to national security. That includes the suspects' knowledge of CIA interrogation methods.

Mohammed, known by his initials KSM, has confessed to organizing the attack, his confession could be called into question during trial.

A 2005 Justice Department memo - released by the Obama administration - revealed that he had been water-boarded in March 2003. The technique, which simulates drowning, has been called torture by Obama and others.

The trial is not expected to start until next summer.

Gold9472

10-18-2012, 09:33 PM

Judge in 9/11 case weighs whether Constitution applies at Guantanamo

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-guantanamobre89h1gp-20121018,0,3335461.story

Jane Sutton Reuters
3:17 p.m. CDT, October 18, 2012

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - The Guantanamo tribunal judge should deal with constitutional challenges individually as they arise rather than make a blanket presumption the U.S. Constitution applies in the trial of five men accused of plotting the September 11 attacks, a U.S. prosecutor argued on Thursday.

The matter arose in a pretrial hearing for alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Pakistani, Yemeni and Saudi captives facing charges that could lead to their execution.

They are being tried at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in a tribunal system that Congress established to try non-U.S. citizens on terrorism charges.

Critics have long charged that the Guantanamo base in Cuba was chosen to hold such detainees mainly because former President George W. Bush's administration believed it would put them outside the reach of U.S. law.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that although they were non-citizens held outside the United States, Guantanamo prisoners had the constitutional "habeas corpus" right to challenge their detention in court and make the government show evidence for holding them.

It said the United States had "de facto sovereignty" because the Cuban base is entirely under U.S. control.

It did not address whether Guantanamo detainees had other rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, such as the right to due process, the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, or the right to confront accusers.

Lawyers defending the 9/11 suspects asked the judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, to issue an advisory opinion that the Constitution applied to the tribunals, except where the prosecution can prove that recognizing a particular right would be "impractical and anomalous."

Prosecutor Clay Trivett said that when Congress enacted the law underpinning the Guantanamo tribunals, it clearly did not intend for defendants to have all the rights they would have had if they were tried in the U.S. federal courts.

But he urged the judge to avoid a sweeping, generalized ruling, calling it premature.

"It's not fair to ask you for an advisory opinion on issues that may not arise," Trivett said. "We need to take this up issue by issue."

Pohl took the arguments under advisory, but did not indicate when he would rule.

Gold9472

10-18-2012, 09:35 PM

U.S. seeks more secrecy in 9/11 case
Prosecutors ask the military judge at Guantanamo Bay for more restrictions against the public release of sensitive material in the Sept. 11 investigation.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terror-trial-20121019,0,1354544.story

By Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times
October 18, 2012, 5:25 p.m.

FT. MEADE, Md. â€” Government prosecutors in the Sept. 11 conspiracy case broadened their request for secrecy Thursday by asking for more restrictions against the public release of sensitive law enforcement material collected in the sweeping investigation into the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Edward Ryan, a Justice Department prosecutor, said the government was prepared to turn over more than 200,000 separate documents to defense lawyers as part of the legal discovery process, but asked the military commission judge to bar the public release of much of that material to protect secret law enforcement investigative techniques and information about clandestine terrorist activities.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, charged with masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks, is on trial with four other suspected Al Qaeda operatives.

"This is an extraordinary matter," Ryan said, describing the period of more than an hour between the first plane striking the World Trade Center in New York and the fourth plane slamming into a field in Pennsylvania.

"In 102 minutes, thousands of police officers and FBI agents began working on one case. Almost every agent in the country was involved in some way. This generated a huge investigation, probably the largest in the nation. It produced an enormous amount of material," Ryan said.

That material, he said, includes "911 calls from individuals trapped inside the burning towers to people who may have rented rooms or mail boxes to Mohamed Atta or one of the other hijackers." Atta, one of the engineers of the hijackings, piloted one of the passenger jets into the World Trade Center.

Other materials, Ryan said, deal with "military operations that are sensitive" and the "names of suspected terrorists and the strategies they used to communicate with one another, their operational nicknames and code words."

Ryan, speaking at a hearing held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, added that similar restrictions were imposed in the federal court trials of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker who was sentenced to life in prison, and Oklahoma City federal building bomber Timothy J. McVeigh, who was executed.

Ryan said that once the materials are handed over to the defense in the discovery phase of the case, the government does not want many of them made public in court filings or testimony, or released to the public in other ways.

"Discovery," he said, "is not a public process. It's not a source of open public access."

Defense attorneys asked for some modifications, especially the government's request that the five defendants not be allowed to see any of the sensitive or classified material.

"This is a capital case," said David Nevin, attorney for the lead defendant, Mohammed. "His life is literally at stake. And it's not fair for any part of the case to be kept secret from him. Mr. Mohammed should be permitted to see everything."

Cheryl Bormann, attorney for Walid bin Attash, an alleged Al Qaeda training camp steward, agreed. "My client has the right to see the information the government is going to use to seek his death," she said.

Judge James L. Pohl, an Army colonel, said he would rule later in the matter.

On Wednesday, prosecutors urged the judge to issue a protective order against the use of different classified national security material in the case, but lawyers for the defendants said the order would hamstring them in mounting a vigorous defense. The judge took that matter under advisement as well.

Also charged with conspiracy and terrorism are Ramzi Binalshibh, the alleged plot cell manager, and suspected Al Qaeda financiers Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi and Ammar al Baluchi, aka Ali Abdul Aziz Ali.

Binalshibh and Hawsawi chose not to attend the pretrial hearing. The proceedings are being telecast via a secure video link to Ft. Meade.

Gold9472

10-19-2012, 06:03 PM

Navy to go after rats, mold in Gitmo legal offices

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57536137/navy-to-go-after-rats-mold-in-gitmo-legal-offices/

10/19/2012

Legal offices that are so contaminated with mold and rat droppings that lawyers in the Sept. 11 terrorism trial have been getting sick will get a full clean-up and be evaluated by safety experts, a military official said Thursday.

A "comprehensive" cleaning of the offices, which are primarily used by defense teams in the Guantanamo Bay tribunals, will begin by the end of the month and be finished in time for a hearing scheduled in December, said Army Capt. Michael Lebowitz, one of the prosecutors in the case of five prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 attacks.

"It's almost like a fresh start," Lebowitz told the case judge, who has been fielding complaints about the offices this week while presiding over a pretrial hearing at the U.S. base in Cuba.

The issue of the contaminated offices has repeatedly interrupted progress on more than two dozen pretrial motions this week. Defense lawyers had sought to postpone the hearing outright, which would have further delayed a case that has been plagued by delays.

A base official declared the offices unsafe in September because of mold and other problems, then the space was declared safe several weeks later after a cleaning. But lawyers distributed photos this week showing the walls and air conditioning units coated with mildew and mold as well as floors littered with what appear to be mouse and rat droppings. Pictures also showed a dead crab and lizard, both common at the tropical base on the Caribbean Sea.

It is more than just aesthetics, lawyers said. Since late 2011, several members of the Sept. 11 defense team have suffered from fatigue and respiratory and eye ailments after trips to Guantanamo Bay.

"Each time I travel to Guantanamo Bay I suffer from increased respiratory and eye problems that have landed me in the Guantanamo emergency room," said Cheryl Bormann, a lawyer for Walid Bin Attash, who is one of the five men charged with planning and aiding the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Legal office space, which must meet security requirements because the attorneys and their staff handle classified evidence, is in short supply at Guantanamo. The defense teams were forced to cram into a much smaller work space while preparing for the weeklong hearing, which has dealt largely with disputes over the rules for gathering evidence in a trial that is likely more than a year away.

Bormann told the judge she welcomed the military's proposal for a major clean-up and an evaluation by outside health experts. "We want it fixed and we want it fixed right," she said.

The judge, Army Col. James Pohl, had appeared to grow frustrated at the continuing complaints and welcomed a step that he hoped would resolve the issue. "Obviously, if it doesn't, I'll hear," he said.

Among the five men facing charges that include terrorism and murder is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has previously told authorities that he was the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mohammed, who delivered a five-minute lecture Wednesday denouncing the U.S. for killing "millions" in the name of national security, stayed silent during Thursday's court session.

The judge heard arguments on defense motions to change rules for gathering evidence and calling witnesses that defense lawyers said will make it impossible to fairly defend their clients, who could get the death penalty if convicted. Among their complaints is that the rules would prevent defendants from seeing some of the classified evidence against them.

"This is a capital case. His life is literally at stake in it," said David Nevin, the lawyer for the lead defendant. "Mr. Mohammed should be able to see everything."

The defense and prosecution also sparred over the question of the extent to which the U.S. Constitution applies to the prisoners charged in special tribunals for wartime offenses.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the base in Cuba, because it is under U.S. control, is generally covered by the Constitution except when circumstances are deemed "impracticable and anomalous" and cannot be enforced.

The defense has asked the judge to issue an advisory opinion setting out to what extent the Constitution applies to the proceedings since some of their challenges will raise constitutional issues. The prosecution said it is too early to make such a finding.

Pohl did not rule on the issue and the hearing was to continue Friday.

Gold9472

10-21-2012, 10:14 AM

Court Rules Khalid Sheik Mohammed Can't Testify About Torture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy8fJOEyP10

Gold9472

10-21-2012, 10:14 AM

Defense wants 9/11 trial televised globally from Guantanamo

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-10-19/business/sns-rt-us-usa-guantanamobre89i196-20121019_1_walid-bin-attash-guantanamo-war-crimes-court-military-judge

October 19, 2012 | Jane Sutton | Reuters

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - The death penalty trial of five Guantanamo prisoners accused of plotting the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States is so important that it should be televised globally, defense lawyers argued on Friday.

The issue of televising the proceedings was discussed on the final day of a week-long pretrial hearing for the alleged mastermind of the hijacked plane attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four co-defendants accused of providing money, training and travel assistance to the hijackers.

"If these proceedings are fair, why is the government afraid to let the world watch?" asked Marine Major William Hennessy, a U.S. military lawyer defending Walid Bin Attash, a Yemeni accused of training two of the hijackers at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.

"The government admits that these are historic proceedings," Hennessy added even as the military judge in the case sounded skeptical about televising the trial and the prosecution said the trial should not become "reality TV."

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has sole authority to authorize the broadcast of the trials. A Pentagon spokesman said that no one has formally asked him to do so.

The five defendants, who could face execution if convicted of charges that include murder and terrorism, skipped Friday's session after the judge declined their request for a recess on the Muslim holy day.

Currently, the public can watch closed-circuit broadcasts of the Guantanamo war crimes court proceedings only at a 200-seat theater at Fort Meade, a U.S. Army base in Maryland.

Closed-circuit viewing sites at a handful of other military bases in the eastern United States are restricted to relatives of the 2,976 people killed in the September 11 attacks and to the firefighters, police officers and other emergency responders who gave aid and searched for victims at the crash sites in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

In hearings at the remote U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, lawyers for some of the defendants asked the judge to open those viewing sites to the general public, which the judge declined to do. Lawyers for other defendants said the trial should be televised globally to anyone who wants to watch.

Hennessy, the defense lawyer, acknowledged that the rules give the defense secretary sole authority to decide whether to televise the trials, but suggested the judge could make the decision in the interests of ensuring the accused get a fair trial.

The judge, U.S. Army Colonel James Pohl, did not immediately rule on the request but seemed skeptical.

"I can look at any rule, any statute, and say 'I wouldn't have done it that way.' Is that what you want a judge to do, really?" he asked Hennessy. "I would have to conclude that the lack of public television means the accused is getting an unfair trial?"

'NOT REALITY TV'
The prosecution said federal court trials in the United States are never televised.

"This is a court of justice. It is not reality TV," said the chief prosecutor, Army Brigadier General Mark Martins, adding that people's behavior sometimes changes for the worse when cameras are present.

The prosecution said the right to an open trial provided by the U.S. Constitution has been satisfied by the Fort Meade viewing site, and that no one who wanted to watch the hearings there has been turned away.

Officials at Fort Meade have said during previous hearings that only a few dozen people turned up to watch, and that most of them were journalists or lawyers assigned to other Guantanamo cases.

During the week-long hearing, the judge had been scheduled to hear a defense request to compel testimony from a former CIA official about the agency's interrogation of the defendants at secret overseas prisons where they claim they were tortured.

That was delayed until the next session, tentatively set to begin on December 3, pending resolution of a dispute about the rules that govern defense requests for witnesses.

The defense lawyers say the deck is stacked against them because the prosecution is allowed to decide whether the witnesses and experts requested by the defense are relevant and necessary.

The judge gets the final say in the matter, but the defense lawyers say the system forces them to reveal their trial strategy, tipping off the other side in what is an adversarial process.

Prosecutor Clay Trivett said that if the prosecutors know what testimony the defense is seeking, they can sometimes stipulate to the facts in question, eliminating the expense of bringing a witness to the Guantanamo base.

Trivett also said, "There's no right to surprise on either side."

Gold9472

10-21-2012, 10:15 AM

Pre-Trial Hearings for 9/11 Plotters End With Few Decisions

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/pre-trial-hearings-for-911-plotters-end-with-few-decisions/

Oct 20, 2012 6:00am

FORT MEADE, Md. â€” A weekâ€™s worth of pre-trial motions hearings for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other accused 9/11 plotters at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, demonstrated just how complex and long the trial will be.

Over the week, attorneys argued over issues as basic as whether the Constitution applies to the military commissions process and how much evidence should remain classified. They even discussed a health issue defense attorneys claimed to face as they worked in areas contaminated by rat feces and mold.

The hearings also saw a diatribe by Mohammed, the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, who accused the United States of having killed millions more people than the thousands that were killed on 9/11.

In the end, very few rulings were handed down as just more than half the anticipated 25 motions were actually presented before Col. James Pohl, the presiding judge in the case. Pohl deferred decisions on some of the more substantive motions.

Mohammed and his fellow defendants, Walid bin Atash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, aka Ammar al Baluchi, face the death penalty if convicted by the military commission being held at Guantanamo.

Early in the week, Col. Pohl ruled in favor of two defense motions that impacted the flavor of the proceedings for the rest of the week. On Monday, he ruled the five 9/11 defendants could choose not to appear at the rest of the weekâ€™s hearings. He instituted a format where they would be asked daily whether they wanted to appear or not.

When Pohl asked the defendants if they completely understood the new system, he received positive responses. However, they were puzzled when Pohl asked if they understood that the trial could proceed even if they escaped from U.S. custody.

Aziz Ali said he understood, then joked, â€œI will make sure to leave them notes.â€

Mohammed agreed as well, but criticized the courtâ€™s legitimacy, saying, â€Yes, but I donâ€™t think thereâ€™s any justice in this court.â€

Their responses marked a complete turnaround from their arraignment in May, when they ignored Pohl and turned a routine hearing into a 13-hour affair.

Given the opportunity, three of the five defendants opted not to appear for the hearings. Mohammed decided not to attend just before the start of a hearing and, instead, watched it on a TV monitor in a nearby holding cell.

The number of defendants attending the hearings varied from day to day. By Friday, none chose to attend. Defense attorney Cheryl Bormann later told reporters that the five had not attended â€œbecause today is the Muslim holy day of prayer.â€

On Tuesday, Mohammed won the right to wear a camouflage hunting vest over his white robes after his attorneys argued he had worn camouflage as a mujahedeen fighter in Afghanistan and Bosnia. Prosecutors argued there was no correlation between those experiences and his status at the military tribunal as an enemy combatant. Pohl ruled that as long as he was not wearing U.S. military camouflage Mohammed could wear the vest, and the following day Mohammed began sporting the vest to the hearings.

Later that afternoon, Mohammed was allowed to speak after he made a surprise request to address the courtroom. He then launched into a 10-minute diatribe against the proceedings.

â€œWhen the government feels sad for the death or killing of 3,000 people who were killed on Sept. 11, we also should feel sorry that the American government, who is represented by [lead prosecutor] Gen. Martins and others, have killed thousands of people â€“ millions,â€ said Mohammed.

He advised Pohl not to be â€œaffected by the crocodile tears. Because your blood is not made of gold and ours is made out of water.â€

Pohl responded by saying he would no longer allow the defendants to make personal remarks during the case.

Defense attorneys and prosecutors spent much of the rest of the week engaging in long, deeply legal arguments about how the trial would actually take place. Yet to be decided by Pohl are weighty issues including how much of the Constitution applies to the military commissions, whether witness identities should remain classified and how much access to witnesses the defense should have.

Government prosecutors also want to impose a â€œprotective orderâ€ that would prevent the revelation of any classified details about what the defendants may have experienced during their interrogations by the CIA. The order would even mark as classified the thoughts and memories the defendants have about their interrogations. The order also requires a 40-second delay in the audio feed so even spectators in the courtroom at Guantanamo cannot hear any details of the CIAâ€™s program that might be uttered.

Several times, defense attorneys criticized prosecutors for making what they deemed unrealistic and contradictory requests for how the trial should take place.

It now appears that the trial will not start in May 2013, the placeholder date set by Pohl at the arraignment earlier this year. Closing the weekâ€™s hearings, Pohl told attorneys to prepare for weekly hearings every other month.

At a post-hearing news conference, defense attorney Bormann told reporters, â€œI would be shocked if we are on trial in 2013.â€

Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the lead prosecutor, acknowledged the slow pace of the proceedings and agreed he did not see a trial in 2013.

â€œWe know people are impatient with the pace of proceedings,â€ Martins said.

That likely is particularly true for the families of the 9/11 victims.

â€œJustice delayed is justice denied,â€ said Al Acquaviva whose son, Paul Acquaviva, was killed in the attack on the World Trade Center. As he watched the proceedings in person, Acquaviva criticized Pohl for the slow pace.

The next round of pre-trial motions hearings are scheduled to begin Dec. 3.

Gold9472

10-21-2012, 12:05 PM

9/11 trial: Did US have improper influence? Lawyer asks judge for help
A defense lawyer in the 9/11 war crimes trial tells a judge that a top prosecutor, asked if there had been improper influence by Defense Department or administration officials, refused to answer at least 25 times.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2012/1019/9-11-trial-Did-US-have-improper-influence-Lawyer-asks-judge-for-help

By Warren Richey, Staff writer / October 19, 2012

A defense lawyer in the 9/11 war crimes tribunal at GuantÃ¡namo told a military judge on Friday that the former chief prosecutor for military commissions refused at least 25 times to answer his questions about whether there had been any improper influence from senior Defense Department or Obama administration officials in bringing war crimes charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others.

The lawyer, US Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz, said he interviewed Navy Capt. John Murphy while trying to investigate the possibility that senior government officials attempted to exert pressure in the case.

Captain Murphy invoked a special privilege against answering questions dealing with internal government deliberations, Commander Ruiz said. He invoked it 25 to 30 times, Ruiz said.

â€œOne of the things I asked was who else was in the room,â€ he said.

Ruiz said he asked Murphy if he had contact with the general counsel of the Defense Department. â€œThey raised the privilege on those issuesâ€ as well, Ruiz added.

The comments came on the last of five days of pretrial hearings designed to iron out pending legal issues in advance of the expected war crimes tribunal at GuantÃ¡namo. No trial date has been set.

Command influence is a thorny issue in military courts given the fact that all parties in the court â€“ the judge, the jury, the prosecutors, and many of the defense lawyers â€“ all work for the Department of Defense and function within a chain of command. Ruiz was asking the judge, US Army Col. James Pohl, to intervene on his behalf to help him investigate the improper influence claim.

Defense lawyers have filed a motion seeking dismissal of the charges against Mohammed and his four co-defendants because they claim that public statements by President Bush, President Obama, and other senior government officials have made it impossible for the defendants to receive a fair trial.

Government lawyers opposed the defense motion, denying that the case has been tainted by command influence. They suggest that defense lawyers have no evidence of wrongdoing.

â€œThe defense is not entitled to go on a fishing expedition,â€ said Army Major Robert McGovern, a member of the prosecution team.

Judge Pohl did not rule on the issue.

Also on Friday, defense lawyers asked Judge Pohl to permit greater public access to close-circuit broadcasts of the GuantÃ¡namo proceedings. The defense even asked that the video-feed from GuantÃ¡namo be provided to broadcast companies such as C-Span to transmit nationwide.

Government lawyers argued against the proposals. They said the current system offering public and media access to a video-feed at Fort Meade, Md., satisfied constitutional requirements of public access.

â€œThe governmentâ€™s position is that the First Amendment right to access is not absolute,â€ Navy Lt. Kiersten Korczynki told the court.

â€œThe standard is whether the media and the public have the ability to observe the proceedings and report on what was observed,â€ she said.

â€œThere is no evidence that any members of media or public have been excluded from sites in the United State,â€ she added.

The day-long Friday session capped off a week in which the court heard argument in more than 20 legal motions. The judge set another week-long session for pretrial motions during the week of Dec. 7. He told counsel that he planned to hold similar week-long sessions at GuantÃ¡namo once every two months until the underlying issues are resolved and the case is set for trial.

Earlier in the week, Judge Pohl ruled that the five defendants must be given an opportunity each day to waive their right to be present at the hearings. On Friday, all five defendants decided not to attend.

The judge also ruled earlier that the defendants were free to decide what type of clothing to wear during courtroom appearances. The ruling opened the door for the defendants to don camouflage clothing, including the kind of military field jacket favored by some Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan.

Shortly after that decision, Mohammed appeared in the hearing room in a camouflage hunting vest worn over his white tunic.

The commander of the detention camp at the US Naval Base at GuantÃ¡namo Bay, Cuba, had earlier barred the defendants from wearing camouflage clothing out of concern that they might try to use military-style jackets to convey to military jurors and trial spectators that they are lawful combatants rather than terrorists.

Judge Pohl did not address the potential communicative impact of a defendantâ€™s clothing choice.

The judge has yet to issue decisions on the most weighty issues discussed during the week. They include whether he will approve a government-proposed protective order concerning the handling of classified information. Defense lawyers argued that the order sought to treat their clientâ€™s first-hand knowledge of the CIAâ€™s secret rendition, detention and interrogation program as Top Secret information.

They said it was akin to the government seeking to exert control over their clientâ€™s thoughts.

The judge is also considering whether the defendants should enjoy a presumption that full constitutional protections will apply in the military commission proceeding at GuantÃ¡namo. Prosecutors argued that the judge should wait until an actual issue arises in the case that requires the judge to decide whether a specific constitutional right should or should not apply to a specific defendant.

Mohammed and his co-defendants â€“ Walid Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin Al-Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Al-Hawsawi â€“ are charged with committing war crimes by plotting with others to hijack four commercial aircraft and fly them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. The attacks left nearly 3,000 people dead.

All five defendants face a potential death sentence if convicted.

In addition to reporters at GuantÃ¡namo, members of the media monitored the hearing via a video feed at Fort Meade, Md.

Gold9472

10-23-2012, 03:17 PM

How 9/11 'mastermind' got an orange beard at Gitmo

http://www.wgme.com/template/inews_wire/wires.international/354baea6-www.wgme.com.shtml

October 23, 2012 16:08 GMT

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) -- The Pentagon has given a partial explanation to a Guantanamo mystery: How the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks managed to dye his beard.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's bushy grey beard has been colored a rusty orange during court appearances. Spectators had assumed he used henna, which is used by some Muslims as a hair dye.

A Pentagon spokesman says Mohammed used "natural means," such as juice from berries that he receives in his meals. Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale said Tuesday that Mohammed did not receive any "outside" means to color his beard.

Mohammed is kept under such heavy security that his lawyers can't even reveal routine conversations with their client.

He is charged with four other prisoners with aiding and planning the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Gold9472

11-01-2012, 10:59 PM

GuantÃ¡namo defense attorneys ask Panetta to order trial to be broadcast

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/01/3078362/guantanamo-defense-attorneys-ask.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

Lawyers for the five alleged Sept. 11 conspirators wrote Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on Thursday, asking him to order the Pentagon to offer national TV broadcasts of their death-penalty tribunals at GuantÃ¡namo.

â€œThis is the most significant criminal trial in the history of our country,â€ wrote nine military lawyers and four civilian defense lawyers.

â€œThe only way to dispel the pervasive distrust of these proceedings, and the substantial damage to our countryâ€™s reputation, is to allow the entire country, and world, to observe the proceedings for themselves.â€

The lawyers wrote the letter less than two weeks after they argued a motion before the 9/11 judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, to authorize national broadcasts. Pohl has yet to rule, but he said he believed only Panetta has the authority to make that decision.

Currently, the public can watch pre-trial hearings in that case by getting to an auditorium at Fort Meade, an Army base in Maryland, or by applying to watch at GuantÃ¡namo as a journalist or legal observer.

Families of 9/11 victims get special segregated screening rooms in New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Massachusetts. A division of the war court prosecutorâ€™s office also administers lotteries to choose about a dozen family members of Sept. 11 victims they fly to the remote base to watch the proceedings in a court gallery.

Defense lawyers argued that the video feed should be provided freely to television outlets to broadcast as much as they choose.

Prosecutors replied that the war court at GuantÃ¡namo is modeled after court martial and federal criminal trial practice, which forbid TV broadcasts.

Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the chief prosecutor, suggested broadcasts would harm the dignity of the proceedings. â€œThis is a court of justice,â€ Martins said. â€œIt is not reality TV.â€

The alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, used his Oct. 17th war court appearance to deliver a stinging critique of U.S. policy â€” â€œYour blood is not made of gold and ours is made of water,â€ he said â€” in what the judge said was the last time Mohammed would speak in court through his attorney.

Defense lawyers have said that the public might be surprised to realize how much of the proceedings will be held in closed session. They also want wider scrutiny on the hybrid nature of the proceedings that borrow from both military and civilian justice. The eventual jury will be chosen from a pool of U.S. military officers chosen from bases around the world by a senior Pentagon official and sent to GuantÃ¡namo.

â€œIf these proceedings are fair, why is the government afraid to let the world watch?â€ Marine Corps Maj. William Hennessey argued in court last month for alleged al Qaida deputy Walid bin Attash, 34.

Gold9472

11-06-2012, 12:17 AM

9/11 plotter wants case thrown out

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hzH7It758IQjsHaKy7lkDbYU-vsA?docId=CNG.fe67ba91b2ff9d18dedc867f0a7a7bce.251

(AFP) â€“ WASHINGTON â€” One of the five men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks filed an appeal asking that the charges against him be dropped, after a court threw out the conviction of Osama bin Laden's ex-driver.

Saudi national Mustapha al-Hawsawi claimed he should benefit from the US appeals court ruling for Salim Hamdan, which said a law that listed material support for terrorism as a war crime could not apply to him retroactively.

Hawsawi's attorneys are requesting that charges be dropped if prosecutors cannot demonstrate that the alleged offenses were "recognized law of war violations" before Congress passed the 2006 Military Commissions Act.

The law defined as enemy combatants those who engaged in hostilities against the United States and authorized them to be tried in special military commissions held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in southern Cuba.

"The government must demonstrate that each offense for which the accused are charged in this case was a recognized law of war offense at the time of the alleged conduct, and that the charges were properly brought as such," Hawsawi's lawyer Walter Ruiz said in a statement.

Hawsawi faces charges for actions taken between May and September 2001.

The appeal, which was listed on the military commissions website, must be submitted to a Pentagon review before it can be published in full.

The next hearing for the five accused 9/11 plotters is set for December 3-7 at Guantanamo.

But James Connell -- attorney for Ammar al-Baluchi, the nephew of self-proclaimed September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- told AFP he has asked for a delay for personal reasons. The hearing could then take place from January 28-February 1.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, lawyers for the five men asked that he authorize the broadcast of "the most significant criminal trial in the history of our country."

At present, the proceedings are only retransmitted via closed-circuit television to a room at Fort Meade outside Washington that is open to the press and the public, as well as to other sites open to victims' families.

At Guantanamo, reporters, representatives of human rights groups and relatives of the victims of the attacks watch hearings from behind soundproof glass, receiving audio only after a 40-second delay.

Australian David Hicks, the first Guantanamo detainee to plead guilty in a military commission, in March 2007, has indicated that he plans to appeal his conviction based on the Hamdan ruling.

Others could follow suit.

"The Hamdan decision strikes at the heart of an already frail and unsettled military commissions system," said Ruiz. "This decision signals that even if and when these cases are tried, the end is nowhere in sight."

Gold9472

11-19-2012, 08:40 PM

Guantanamo war court closed until next year

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/11/19/175100/guantanamo-war-court-closed-until.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG | The Miami Herald
11/19/2012

MIAMI â€” The Guantanamo war court is in recess for the rest of the year and won't get back to business until mid-January.

Hurricane Sandy forced closure of the court at a makeshift compound called Camp Justice. Now, according to a series of filings on the Defense Department's Military Commissions docket, scheduling conflicts mean the war court will remain dark until the week before President Barack Obama's second-term inauguration.

Army Col. James Pohl, the chief judge, set hearings for Jan. 15-17 in the capital case of Saudi-born Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of orchestrating al-Qaida's bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen that killed 17 American sailors. Then the judge will hold hearings Jan. 28-31 in the case of five men accused of conspiring in the 9/11 attack by training, funding and directing the hijackers.

The Pentagon holds 166 men as prisoners at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba, six of them currently facing war crimes charges that seek the death penalty.

Hurricane Sandy came ashore as a Category 2 storm in Cuba and caused what military officials called "nuisance damage" to the Pentagon's makeshift war court compound at Guantanamo.

Tarps and tents were torn up, doors were blown open at some buildings, and there was water seepage inside the $12 million Expeditionary Legal Complex, which the troops call Camp Justice. But the technology that allows the proceedings to be beamed to U.S. soil on a 40-second delay was undamaged, said Navy Capt. Robert Durand, a Guantanamo spokesman.

Most of the 45-square-mile base lost power during Hurricane Sandy. Even the 17.4-mile fence line that delineates the base from Cuban-controlled soil went dark while the base managed to keep the hospital lit. Base officials have yet to disclose the total tab of hurricane damage, and so far won't say what, if anything, went wrong at the fence line where Marines keep watch on Cuba's minefield - and whether it will require a fix in the future.

Gold9472

11-27-2012, 01:07 PM

Pentagon rebuffs request to televise 9/11 trial from Guantanamo

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/11/26/2781105/pentagon-rebuffs-request-to-televise.html

Published: November 26, 2012

MIAMI â€” A surrogate of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday rejected a request by the Sept. 11 defense lawyers to let media organizations televise the Sept. 11 trial from the war court at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

William Lietzau, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy, wrote the defense lawyers that the Pentagon provides ample transparency for the trials through news coverage, a remote viewing site at Fort Meade, Md., and a website that posts transcripts of the pre-trial proceedings within 24 hours of hearings.

"At this time, there are no plans to televise military commission proceedings," Lietzau wrote in a single-page response to the lawyers for five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

A total of 13 defense lawyers for the former CIA prisoners now facing military capital penalty proceedings wrote Panetta on Nov. 1 requesting that he use his authority as secretary of defense to enable the broadcasts.

The chief military commissions judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, said at a hearing earlier this year that only Panetta could make that decision.

Lietzau said he was responding for Panetta.

The lawyers, who defend alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men, argued that the trial, likely a year away, "is the most significant criminal trial in the history of our country." They argued there's a "pervasive distrust of these proceedings," and that the Guantanamo system has harmed the reputation of the United States.

"Allow the entire country, and world, to observe the proceedings for themselves," they wrote.

Lietzau responded that the war court was following U.S. military courts-martial and federal criminal practice. His letter was dated Nov. 20, but the defense lawyers said they received the reply Monday and provided a copy to The Miami Herald.

Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the chief war crimes prosecutor, has opposed broadcasts in remarks that suggest cameras in the court could harm the dignity of the death-penalty proceedings.

Defense lawyers have said that the public might be surprised to realize how much of the proceedings will be held in closed session.

They also want wider scrutiny on the hybrid nature of the proceedings that borrow from both military and civilian justice.

Gold9472

12-01-2012, 03:30 PM

No Justice at GuantÃ¡namo

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/30/opinion/no-justice-at-guantanamo.html

Published: November 29, 2012

To the Editor:

You correctly call on President Obama to fulfill his pledge on his second day in office to “Close GuantÃ¡namo Prison” (editorial, Nov. 26). I stood behind President Obama in the Oval Office when he signed the executive order to do so. And as the Navy judge advocate general at the Pentagon on 9/11, I want justice. But GuantÃ¡namo has not provided that justice and has not made us safer.

The military commission system at GuantÃ¡namo is a make-it-up-as-you-go system, unlike the proven federal court system. I attended the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed at GuantÃ¡namo earlier this year, and the court is still grappling with basic questions like whether the Constitution applies.

GuantÃ¡namo remains a recruiting tool for terrorists and will remain so until that prison is shuttered. President Obama must fulfill his pledge to me, the American people and those who look to us to lead, and he should veto any further attempts to restrict his ability to do so.

DONALD J. GUTER
Houston, Nov. 27, 2012

The writer, a retired Navy rear admiral, is president and dean of the South Texas College of Law.

Gold9472

12-01-2012, 03:31 PM

9/11 suspects may be tried in civilian courts not tribunals

http://www.themoralliberal.com/2012/11/29/911-suspects-may-be-tried-in-civilian-courts-not-tribunals/

BY JIM KOURI
11/30/2012

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had requested a complete study regarding the suitability of incarcerating and trying Guantanamo terrorism detainees on the U.S. mainland and switching jurisdiction for the trials from the military courts back to the civilian courts and the U.S. Justice Department, according to Fox News Channel’s top national security correspondent on Wednesday.

According to FNC’s Catherine Herridge, the study by the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress described the civilian custody and trial of Gitmo detainees “viable.”

Herridge was successful in obtaining a Government Accountability Office document which is the result of “an investigation into whether domestic facilities could house the approximately 170 detainees remaining at the controversial facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”

After the Obama administration fought tooth-and-nail to prosecute the 9/11 co-conspirators in civilian federal courts, it was decided by President Obama that the detainees would be tried by a military tribunal in order to quell the heated controversy.

“But now with his winning a second-term, Obama and Holder no longer have to worry about criticism from conservatives and moderates and they can closedown Gitmo with the blessings of the far-left,” said political strategist Mike Baker.

Prosecutors from the Department of Justice on April 4, 2011, were ordered by a visibly upset Attorney General Eric Holder to assist the chief prosecutor from the Office of Military Commissions in making the transition from civilian to military justice systems.

“The fact that the 9-11 accused terrorists will now face military tribunals is long overdue and despite the Attorney General’s flawed logic, it is the proper venue to try these accused terrorists,” Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law & Justice said in April 2011.

Navy Captain John Murphy, chief prosecutor of the Office of Military Commissions, had said that in light of the attorney general’s decision, his office still intends to swear charges against the detainees in the near future. “I intend to recommend the charges be sent to a military commission for a joint trial,” he said in a written statement.

The trials are already taking place under the Military Commissions Act of 2009, and the captain stressed that just as in civilian trials, those accused are presumed innocent until their guilt is proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

In the decision reversing Obama’s policy, Holder blamed Congress for forcing him to use military tribunals to try the terror suspects — including alleged 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — and said he was reluctantly agreeing to using military commissions in order to move the judicial process along.

“What’s unimaginable is the fact that the Attorney General still believes the federal court system is the proper venue to try accused terrorists and is blaming Congress for getting involved,” said Jordan Sekulow, Attorney and Director of International Operations of the ACLJ.

“It’s clear that many members of Congress and most Americans understand the truth — President Obama’s judicial strategy to place these terror suspects in civilian courts is seriously flawed. We have heard from more than 100,000 Americans who called for these trials to take place in military tribunals — clearly the proper venue for justice,” said Sekulow.

The suspected terrorists remain scheduled to be tried at the Expeditionary Legal Complex at Guantanamo Naval Station in Cuba, a facility designed for just such a proceeding.

Attorney General Eric Holder said that he believes the trials should be held in New York or Virginia, but that Congress imposed restrictions on where the trial could be held, taking the decision from his hands.

“Those restrictions are unlikely to be repealed in the immediate future,” the attorney general said.

Gold9472

12-02-2012, 01:25 PM

DOES A MILITARY TRIAL MAKE SENSE FOR KSM?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jameszirin/2012/12/02/does-a-military-trial-make-sense-for-ksm/

By James D. Zirin
12/3/2012

A monstrous federal crime occurred on 9/11. To call it heinous would be an understatement. Why isn’t the case being prosecuted in the Southern District of New York since Article III of the Constitution provides for trial in the “State where the …Crimes…[were] committed?” Instead, the 9/11 defendants are getting discovery and making protracted pre-trial motions before a military commission in Guantanamo that will eventually try them for their crimes some years down the road.

September 11 was a horrific criminal act. Commercial airplanes had been turned into weapons of mass destruction. The criminals, who implemented the plot, had perished with their suicidal mission, hoping to be serviced by 700 virgins. Covert operations and drone strikes would take out many of their handlers in the Middle East. After the late Osama bin Laden and his henchman/successor Dr. Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri, the most culpable in the attack was one of bin Laden’s principal lieutenants, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom the 9/11 Commission found to be the “principal architect of the 9/11 attacks.” A particularly brutal and vicious killer, KSM is the poster child of the group being brought to trial in Guantanamo more than a decade after the event.

The CIA seized KSM in Pakistan in 2003. Waterboarded, he gave his confession. The CIA removed him to Guantanamo where he has been ever since. Following his arrest, and without waterboarding, he again confessed his responsibility for the attacks, stating he “was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z.”

KSM confessed to congeries of other terrorist plots and attacks over the past 20 years, including a cameo role in the World Trade Center 1993 bombings, the Operation Bojinka plot, an aborted 2002 attack on the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles, the Bali nightclub bombings, the failed Richard Reid shoe bombing of American Airlines Flight 63, the Millennium Plot, and the decapitation of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. He confessed to cutting off Pearl’s head personally.

Human rights organizations and a number 33 retired generals urged President Obama to order a trial for KSM and the other terrorists in the Southern District of New York rather than before a military commission, authorized under a statute signed by President George W. Bush in 2006, with newly–minted rules and fewer procedural guarantees. They pointed out that 195 international terrorists have been convicted in federal courts since 2001. There are great advantages to a civilian trial from the perspective of our institutions. Article III judges are independent of the executive branch of government. They are “there for life.” Military judges are not immune from command influence as they report ultimately to the President. There will be the inevitable perception (if not the reality) that they will be answerable to their commands if something goes wrong with the trial, the jury fails to convict or the sentence is deemed too lenient. The trial would be public for the entire world to see; the defendants’ rights would be elaborately protected; the procedures would be stern and familiar, based on over two centuries of jurisprudence; and justice would be done.

The defendants’ rights would be elaborately protected; the procedures would be stern and familiar, based on over two centuries of jurisprudence; and justice would be done.

At first, President Obama, a trained lawyer, appeared to favor a civilian trial and then reversed himself for reasons that are largely unclear. Some suggested it was local security issues or else politics. Mayor Bloomberg, however, was willing to have the trial in New York City, though he initially did express concerns about the economic impact on the City, which he later agreed could be obviated. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was confident that the NYPD could provide the necessary security in Foley Square. So, why not a trial before a civilian court?

As Jane Mayer posted for the New Yorker, “A guilty verdict arrived at in front of the world, in a public trial, with ordinary citizens sitting in judgment of KSM, would be internationally accepted as legitimate, in a way that no military tribunal ever will be.”

Is the cost of the military commissions really worth it? Are there any benefits at all in a military trial that would not be offered by trial in a civilian court? I can’t think of any. We have spent millions paying military lawyers to warm over the rules of the military tribunal, sprinkling into the mix a right here and a right there, such as the commendable effort to provide more transparency by piping in the proceedings via closed circuit TV to the Army base at Fort Meade, Maryland.

We are falling all over ourselves trying to make military trial “fair.” But have we succeeded? Fairness of trial by military tribunal is untested in perception and in reality. It will surely be suspect in the eyes of the world. The Guantanamo trial will be to a jury of 12 military officers none of whom lawyers, so where is the cross section of the community that is at the heart of our jury system?

One of the signal differences involves hearsay evidence. Hearsay is admissible in a military tribunal, which vitiates the constitutional right of an accused “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” In a military tribunal, coerced statements of witnesses (but not defendants or suspects) are admissible. When coupled with the open floodgate to hearsay, the military trial falls far short of being “fair.”

Under Guantanamo rules, a “battlefield statement” may be legally read to the jury without the appearance of the witness. A coerced “battlefield statement” wherein some waterboarded jihadist told the CIA in Afghanistan that a defendant was a member of the conspiracy would be admissible against that defendant and read to the jury. It is unclear, however, that such a statement to the effect that the particular defendant was innocent of any involvement would be received in evidence. The prosecutor would surely object to the exculpatory declaration as hearsay. Both declarations would be inadmissible in a federal court as unreliable.

The commission proceeding, moreover, will surely be called a sham because the outcome is “heads I win and tails you lose.” If, God forbid, a defendant were acquitted, he would not be set free, as is usually the case in a civilian federal court. Rather, he would be subject to further indefinite detention as an “enemy combatant.” For the government to conduct a fair trial, it must be prepared to free defendants who are acquitted. Otherwise, we have a travesty. That has always been our justice system.

So why do what we are doing? Unless we are prepared to abandon our fundamental values altogether, the rule of law must retain its vitality in war and in peace, even when terrorists topple our buildings into rubble and senselessly murder our citizens in the American homeland.

The dead on 9/11 will only achieve justice with the conviction of KSM and his cohorts after a fair trial, and that conviction must stick. Too bad that the trial will not be in a civilian court. The atrocity occurred on American soil. The United States courthouse, just a stone’s throw from the World Trade Center, is where the wrong to the American people should have been vindicated.

Gold9472

12-12-2012, 06:31 PM

Testimony on CIA’s treatment of 9/11 suspects at Guantanamo to remain secret

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/testimony-on-cias-treatment-of-911-suspects-at-guantanamo-to-remain-classified/2012/12/12/da68e00e-4487-11e2-8061-253bccfc7532_story.html

By Peter Finn, Wednesday, December 12, 3:31 PM

A military judge has ruled that any testimony about the CIA’s treatment of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other men accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will remain secret during their death penalty trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In a ruling dated Dec. 6 and released Wednesday, Army Col. James L. Pohl, the chief judge at Guantanamo, issued a protective order that will safeguard information the government deems classified during military commission proceedings against the five defendants.

Pohl prohibited disclosure of information about the capture of the accused or where they were held for several years before they were transferred to Guantanamo in 2006. He also will keep secret “any information about the enhanced interrogation techniques that were applied to an accused from on or around the aforementioned capture dates through 6 September 2006, including descriptions of the techniques as applied, the duration, frequency, sequencing, and limitations of those techniques.”

Much of this information is in the public domain through reports by, among others, the inspector general of the CIA, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the media. Mohammed, for instance, was held at a secret prison in Poland and waterboarded 183 times after his capture in Pakistan in March 2003.

Protective orders are routine in civilian and military proceedings that involve issues of national security, but the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the government was seeking an overly broad classification of information. Each of the defendants joined the ACLU motion and a group of news organizations, including The Washington Post, filed motions opposing the government’s position.

“We’re profoundly disappointed by the military judge’s decision, which didn’t even address the serious First Amendment issues at stake here,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s national security program. “For now, the most important terrorism trial of our time will be organized around judicially approved censorship of the defendants’ own thoughts, experiences and memories of CIA torture. The decision undermines the government’s claim that the military commission system is transparent and deals a grave blow to its legitimacy.”

The ACLU said it would appeal.

Army Lt. Col. Joseph Todd Breasseale, a Pentagon spokesman, said the government was “pleased” with the judge’s ruling. “We will continue to carry out these proceedings in a way that is as transparent as possible,” he said.

The government had argued that it was not acting to prevent the release of embarrassing information but needed to protect sensitive sources and methods.

“Each of the accused is in the unique position of having had access to classified intelligence sources and methods,” military prosecutors said in court papers.

The CIA, FBI and Department of Defense also filed sealed declarations, “explaining how disclosure of the classified information at issue would be detrimental to the national security in that the information relates to the sources, methods, and activities by which the United States defends against international terrorism and terrorist organizations.”

Pohl said he would maintain a 40-second delay between what is said inside the sealed courtroom at Guantanamo and what is heard by the those in a glassed-off public gallery and at sites in the United States, including Fort Meade, where there will be a video and audio feed from the courtroom. If a court security officer believes something classified has been said, he can kill the audio feed or the entire broadcast.

Gold9472

12-13-2012, 08:26 AM

Treatment of 9/11 suspects won't be disclosed at trial
A military judge says details of the harsh interrogations of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other terrorism defendants can't be mentioned in court. Human rights advocates object.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gitmo-ruling-20121213,0,6676750.story

By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau
December 13, 2012

WASHINGTON — The judge in the military commission case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other suspected Sept. 11 plotters ruled that details of harsh interrogation techniques used on them would be kept secret during their trial, a decision that human rights advocates called an attempt to hide the fact that the men were tortured.

The order, signed by Army Col. James L. Pohl on Dec. 6 and made public Wednesday, represents a clear victory for U.S. military and Justice Department prosecutors in the opening round of pretrial disputes. The first and only trial in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks could begin as soon as next year.

Prosecutors had wanted all information about the five men's arrests and treatment at so-called black sites abroad to remain classified. Pohl agreed even though some government officials have acknowledged that Mohammed, for instance, was waterboarded 183 times after his 2003 capture in Pakistan. Waterboarding simulates drowning; many consider it torture.

Nevertheless, Pohl ruled that "enhanced interrogation techniques that were applied to the accused … including descriptions of the techniques as applied, the duration, frequency, sequencing and limitations of those techniques," would remain classified. Nor will he permit the defendants or their attorneys to discuss those matters in legal papers or open court.

"Names, identities and physical descriptions of any persons involved with the capture, transfer, detention or interrogation" of the accused will not be released, he said, nor will any "information that would reveal or tend to reveal the foreign countries" where the suspects were held before their transfer to the prison at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Pohl approved a 40-second audio delay in future proceedings to further protect classified information.

His "Protective Order No. 1" marks one of the most significant rulings in a case with worldwide interest in how the U.S. handles terrorism suspects as families await justice for nearly 3,000 loved ones killed in the airliner attacks at New York City's World Trade Center, the Pentagon outside Washington and a farm field in western Pennsylvania.

Defense lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union and a group of news organizations — including the Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times — had urged the judge to permit disclosure of this information.

"We're profoundly disappointed," said Hina Shamsi, an ACLU lawyer, adding that she would probably appeal the protective order. "The government wanted to ensure that the American public would never hear the defendants' accounts of illegal CIA torture, rendition and detention, and the military judge has gone along with that shameful plan."

Eugene Fidell, a military law expert at Yale Law School, said many would view the ruling as the government's attempt to try the men in secrecy despite new military commission safeguards under the Obama administration that promised transparency.

"I'm quite uncomfortable with rulings that are this sweeping," he said, "and military law on this subject is not friendly to blanket orders. It's supposed to be done with a scalpel rather than a meat cleaver."

He added that even if the complex trial opened in 2013, it would come 12 years after the attacks.

"We've all been drumming our fingers on the table for this train to leave," he said. "The length of time for the wheels of justice to turn on these prosecutions is scandalous and deeply upsetting to the families of the victims."

But Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a Pentagon spokesman, said the order detailed the law and reasoning the judge applied after carefully reading legal briefs and hearing oral arguments. And he said it mirrored how classified information was routinely kept out of federal courts in the U.S.

"He has done what all courts do to responsibly handle national security information while also ensuring both that the accused will receive a fair trial and that the proceedings will be as open and public as possible," Breasseale said.

Along with Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, the other defendants are Ramzi Binalshibh, the alleged plot cell manager; Walid bin Attash, an alleged Al Qaeda training camp steward; and two alleged Al Qaeda financiers, Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi and Ammar al Baluchi, also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali.