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Alleged USS Cole bomber facing judge at Guantanamo
Topic Started: Nov 8 2011, 08:53 PM (313 Views)
shure
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Alleged USS Cole bomber facing judge at Guantanamo
November 8, 2011 7:41 PM
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501715_162-57321066/alleged-uss-cole-bomber-facing-judge-at-guantanamo/

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(AP) GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — A Saudi charged in the attacks on the USS Cole and a French oil tanker will face a judge after nearly a decade of confinement shrouded in secrecy, first in a network of clandestine CIA prisons and then in a section of Guantanamo considered so sensitive even its location on the base is classified.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, 46, is to be arraigned before a military judge Wednesday on charges that include murder in violation of the law of war. He could get the death penalty if convicted at a trial that won't start for months, if not years, because of the expected drawn out legal battle over what evidence can be used against him considering his treatment while in custody.

His lawyers argue a legitimate trial will be impossible, and the death penalty should be out of the question since he was subjected to intense interrogation that included mock executions, threats to his family and the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding while held at CIA "black sites" overseas.

"By torturing Mr. al-Nashiri and subjecting him to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the United States has forfeited its right to try him and certainly to kill him," his defense team wrote in one legal motion. "Through the infliction of physical and psychological abuse the government has essentially already killed a man it seized almost 10 years ago."

Al-Nashiri is the first Guantanamo prisoner to be charged with war crimes that carry a potential death sentence since President Barack Obama took office pledging to close the detention center, an effort thwarted by members of Congress who object to moving the prisoners to the U.S.

The trial of al-Nashiri will take place under military commissions that have been revised by Congress and the Obama administration but are still subject to criticism from defense lawyers and human rights groups.

Some legal experts have also questioned whether al-Nashiri should be charged with a war crime for the Cole bombing, which occurred before the Sept. 11 attacks and the U.S. declaration of war on al-Qaida.

But the main focus in al-Nashiri's case will be his treatment, which Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the new chief prosecutor, addressed indirectly, saying that only statements given voluntarily can be used against defendants in military commissions with only a narrow exception for things they said at the time of capture.

"No statement obtained as a result of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is admissible," Martins said. "... I'm bound by that. That's not just something the court is bound by. I will not seek, nor will prosecutors who work for me seek to introduce statements of that character."

Rick Kammen, one of al-Nashiri's lawyers, said prosecutors have not revealed whether they have any incriminating statements from his client that could be considered voluntary but said anything he told interrogators following nearly four years of CIA detention should be considered questionable.

"The way to think of it is this: People who have been subjected to serious trauma, the trauma doesn't end at the time the event is over," he said.

Al-Nashiri is accused of hiring and training the al-Qaida militants, allegedly at the behest of Osama bin Laden, to use an explosive-laden boat to blast a huge crater in the side of the USS Cole, killing 17 sailors and wounding 37 in an attack that brought al-Qaida to the attention of many Americans for the first time.

He is also accused of setting up the October 2002 bombing of the French supertanker MV Limburg, which killed one crewman, among other offenses. He was captured in 2002 in Dubai and taken to Guantanamo, held by the CIA in a series of secret prisons and sent to Guantanamo in September 2006.

A report by the CIA Inspector General revealed that al-Nashiri was one of the prisoners subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques," including two instances of waterboarding, was threatened with a gun and a power drill because interrogators believed he was withholding information about possible attacks against the U.S.

He is now held in Camp Seven, a top secret section of Guantanamo where 15 "high-value" detainees are held, including the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Kammen said that he is barred by military rules from revealing anything that his client has said to him but said al-Nashiri is eager for his day in court. "I think you will find that in many respects he is relieved to be in court and have the process beginning."

There have been six war crimes convictions at Guantanamo, including four suspects who reached plea bargains and one who refused to show up for his trial and mount a defense and received a life sentence. There are now 171 prisoners at the base.










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shure
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USS Cole bomb suspect finally gets his day in court, denies being part of al-Qaeda
Tuesday, 08 November 2011 By Jane Sutton
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/11/08/176073.html

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Reuters GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE Cuba


Nine years after his capture and a decade after the United States first authorized military tribunals for terrorist suspects, the alleged mastermind of the deadly bombing of the USS Cole will face a judge in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal.

Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a 46-year-old Saudi of Yemeni descent, is to be arraigned on Wednesday on charges that include murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and terrorism.

He is the first high-ranking al-Qaeda figure to face charges at Guantanamo under the Obama administration and could face the death penalty if convicted. But attorneys expect it will be a year or two before the case goes to trial.




Nashiri is accused of conspiring with Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders to bomb U.S. targets, including embassies in Africa and ships in the Gulf of Aden.

In the attack on the Cole in October 2000, two suicide bombers in civilian garb waved at the crew and then drove their boat full of explosives into the side of the warship as it refueled in the Port of Aden. The blast tore a 30-foot (9 meter) hole in the ship, killing 17 U.S. sailors and wounding three dozen more.

Nashiri, described by U.S. investigators as al-Qaeda’s one-time head of operations in the Arabian Peninsula, is accused of planning and preparing the attack, choosing the suicide bombers and helping buy the boat and explosives.

He is accused of plotting similar boat-bomb attacks on another U.S. warship and a French oil tanker off Yemen.

The January 2000 attack on the other warship, the USS The Sullivans, failed when the would-be suicide bombers ran their boat aground. The October 2002 attack on the tanker, the MV Limburg, killed a crewman and dumped 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden.

Nashiri is also accused of providing a fake passport to a suspect in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

An al-Qaeda operative quoted in the 9-11 Commission report described Nashiri as widely known to be one of al-Qaeda’s most committed terrorists, “extreme in ferocity in waging jihad.”

Nashiri claimed to have become a millionaire as a merchant trader. He lived for a while with a Russian prostitute in Dubai, according to a former FBI agent who investigated the Cole bombing.

Nashiri was captured in Dubai in 2002 and held in secret CIA prisons before being sent to Guantanamo in 2006.

The CIA acknowledged destroying videotapes of Nashiri’s interrogations, during which he was stripped naked and hooded while a gun was loaded and a power drill revved next to his head. He also was subjected to “waterboarding,” which creates the sensation of drowning.

Nashiri has said he gave false confessions that made his interrogators stop the mistreatment.


Torture-tainted evidence?


“One time they tortured me one way and another time they tortured me in a different way,” he told an administrative panel at Guantanamo in 2007, according to U.S. military transcripts. He denied being part of al Qaeda.

But Guantanamo prosecutors said in court documents that they have more than 60,000 pages of classified and unclassified investigative material to support the charges against him.

A former Guantanamo chief prosecutor said the evidence against Nashiri is overwhelming enough to convict him in a tribunal or a regular federal court without his potentially tainted confessions.

“I think there’s ample evidence of his guilt. You can disregard everything he’s ever said since he was in U.S. custody and still have enough evidence to convict,” said retired Air Force Colonel Moe Davis, who resigned as Guantanamo’s chief prosecutor in 2007 because of what he called political meddling and pressure to use torture-tainted evidence.

Defense attorney Richard Kammen said Nashiri’s treatment in U.S. hands would be a major issue in the trial and likely the reason he was being tried at Guantanamo rather than in a federal court.

“That’s just going to infect everything in this case,” Kammen said. “What this whole process is about is to keep the public from knowing the full extent of the things which he and a lot of other people were subjected to.”

Almost 780 men from around the world have been held at the detention center on the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba since it opened in January 2002. Of the 171 who remain, the Obama administration deemed 44 eligible for prosecution, but Nashiri is the only one currently facing charges.

November 13 marks the 10th anniversary of President George W. Bush’s order creating the Guantanamo tribunals for terrorism suspects.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down that version in 2006, ruling that the president had no authority to create a new court system. It said that power rested with Congress, which created a new version of the tribunals in 2006 and then revised them at the behest of the Obama administration in 2009 to grant the defendants more rights.

Hearings have taken place sporadically amid the legal challenges and in its entire existence, the Guantanamo court has completed only six cases. Four defendants pleaded guilty in exchange for leniency and one was convicted in a trial in which no defense was presented.










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