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Thread: Key 9/11 Suspect To Be Tried In New York

  1. #231
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    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/nationwo...,1354544.story

    By Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times
    October 18, 2012, 5:25 p.m.

    FT. MEADE, Md. — 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.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  2. #232
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    Navy to go after rats, mold in Gitmo legal offices

    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-...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.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  3. #233
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    Court Rules Khalid Sheik Mohammed Can't Testify About Torture
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy8fJOEyP10
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  4. #234
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    Defense wants 9/11 trial televised globally from Guantanamo

    http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2...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."
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  5. #235
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    Pre-Trial Hearings for 9/11 Plotters End With Few Decisions

    http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...few-decisions/

    Oct 20, 2012 6:00am

    FORT MEADE, Md. — A week’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 week’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, “I will make sure to leave them notes.”

    Mohammed agreed as well, but criticized the court’s legitimacy, saying, ”Yes, but I don’t think there’s any justice in this court.”

    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 “because today is the Muslim holy day of prayer.”

    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.

    “When 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 – millions,” said Mohammed.

    He advised Pohl not to be “affected by the crocodile tears. Because your blood is not made of gold and ours is made out of water.”

    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 “protective order” 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 CIA’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 week’s hearings, Pohl told attorneys to prepare for weekly hearings every other month.

    At a post-hearing news conference, defense attorney Bormann told reporters, “I would be shocked if we are on trial in 2013.”

    Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the lead prosecutor, acknowledged the slow pace of the proceedings and agreed he did not see a trial in 2013.

    “We know people are impatient with the pace of proceedings,” Martins said.

    That likely is particularly true for the families of the 9/11 victims.

    “Justice delayed is justice denied,” 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.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


  6. #236
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    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...judge-for-help

    By Warren Richey, Staff writer / October 19, 2012

    A defense lawyer in the 9/11 war crimes tribunal at Guantánamo 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.

    “One of the things I asked was who else was in the room,” he said.

    Ruiz said he asked Murphy if he had contact with the general counsel of the Defense Department. “They raised the privilege on those issues” 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 Guantánamo. No trial date has been set.

    Command influence is a thorny issue in military courts given the fact that all parties in the court – the judge, the jury, the prosecutors, and many of the defense lawyers – 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.

    “The defense is not entitled to go on a fishing expedition,” 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 Guantánamo proceedings. The defense even asked that the video-feed from Guantánamo 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.

    “The government’s position is that the First Amendment right to access is not absolute,” Navy Lt. Kiersten Korczynki told the court.

    “The standard is whether the media and the public have the ability to observe the proceedings and report on what was observed,” she said.

    “There is no evidence that any members of media or public have been excluded from sites in the United State,” 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 Guantánamo 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 Guantánamo 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 defendant’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 client’s first-hand knowledge of the CIA’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 client’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 Guantánamo. 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 – Walid Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin Al-Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Al-Hawsawi – 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 Guantánamo, members of the media monitored the hearing via a video feed at Fort Meade, Md.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    How 9/11 'mastermind' got an orange beard at Gitmo

    http://www.wgme.com/template/inews_w...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.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    Guantánamo defense attorneys ask Panetta to order trial to be broadcast

    http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/0...rneys-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 Guantánamo.

    “This is the most significant criminal trial in the history of our country,” wrote nine military lawyers and four civilian defense lawyers.

    “The only way to dispel the pervasive distrust of these proceedings, and the substantial damage to our country’s reputation, is to allow the entire country, and world, to observe the proceedings for themselves.”

    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 Guantánamo 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 prosecutor’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 Guantánamo 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. “This is a court of justice,” Martins said. “It is not reality TV.”

    The alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, used his Oct. 17th war court appearance to deliver a stinging critique of U.S. policy — “Your blood is not made of gold and ours is made of water,” he said — 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 Guantánamo.

    “If these proceedings are fair, why is the government afraid to let the world watch?” Marine Corps Maj. William Hennessey argued in court last month for alleged al Qaida deputy Walid bin Attash, 34.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    9/11 plotter wants case thrown out

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...7f0a7a7bce.251

    (AFP) – WASHINGTON — 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."
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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    Guantanamo war court closed until next year

    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/11/1...sed-until.html

    By CAROL ROSENBERG | The Miami Herald
    11/19/2012

    MIAMI — 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.
    No One Knows Everything. Only Together May We Find The Truth JG


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