The Limits to Justice, pt2

More from the 9/11 pretrial hearings at Guantanamo, as reported in yesterday's LA Times:

"The government wants a protective order prohibiting the release of material from CIA "black sites," the secret prisons where the defendants were held before being moved to Guantanamo Bay in 2006. Defense lawyers complain that in addition to hampering them at trial, the restrictions block them from even discussing those events with their clients, including (Khalid Sheikh) Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times.
The issue is crucial to both sides. Prosecutors do not want trial jurors hearing about torture or other "enhanced interrogation techniques," and argue it would be a "sideshow" distracting from whether the defendants are guilty of conspiracy and terrorism in the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
But defense lawyers said that restriction would severely handicap them in strategizing on how best to defend the clients in the capital murder trial, tentatively scheduled to begin in May.
"They're holding our clients in isolation," said an exasperated Navy Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Bogucki, an attorney for Ramzi Binalshibh, who allegedly managed the terrorist cell that carried out the plane attacks at the Pentagon and in New York and Pennsylvania.
Cheryl Bormann, a lawyer for Walid bin Attash, an alleged Al Qaeda training camp steward, was equally frustrated with limited access to her client in the heavily guarded prison.
"He can't call me to say he's sick," she said. "We can't write to our clients. Now on top of it I have additional rules, and this protective order is completely unnecessary. It would be creating more difficulties.""

KSM's approved camo jacket

However, at the same hearing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed won the right to wear a camouflage jacket at his trial in Guantanamo Bay. (For my previous coverage of this issue, look here.) Judge Pohl yesterday stated that while the Guantanamo Bay commanders can determine what the 9/11 mastermind wears inside the prison, the court can determine what he wears whilst present at the court.

Dressed to Kill

The jacket KSM wants to wear in court

The five men now in front of a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay accused of planning the 9/11 attacks are unhappy with their clothing options during the court hearings. They have submitted a  motion - reference AE038A - asking to wear the clothing of their choice during commission proceedings. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed says he wishes to wear a camouflage field jacket and matching turban.  Walid Bin Attash also wants a camo jacket, along with a head scarf and shalwar kameez.  Mustafa al-Hawsawi says he wants to wear an orange jumpsuit whilst Ramzi Binalshibh, had asked to wear a “tan colored kameez, a tan vest, a traditional Afghan hat and a scarf to be used to fashion a turban.” Ali Abdul Aziz Ali wants to wear a cap and black vest.
Defense attorneys say that when Guantanamo officials disallowed these  choices before the May arraignment, they were exceeding their authority. The defendants say that it has not yet been proved beyond all reasonable doubt that they are not lawful combatants under the laws of war and until that point they should be allowed to dress as they choose. They have formally presented their complaints to the military commission and the matter will be decided in August. 

Farcical KSM trial begins in Guantanamo

So the preliminaries to the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-accused have finally begun in Guantanamo Bay. By all accounts the first day- Saturday - was a farce. The prisoners, one of whom was shackled to his chair when first brought into court, talked amongst themselves, generally ignored the court and in a departure from their previous appearances at a military tribunal - the first time they were put on trial at Guantanamo - declined to plead guilty.
Ramzi Binalshibh, who is generally regarded to be insane, spent time praying and comparing himself to the Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, while KSM himself, like a true Bond villain, stroked his beard and removed the headphones that were piping an Arabic translation of the proceedings to him. Several of the accused read The Economist as they sat in the dock in white robes.
What the relatives of those killed during the 9/11 attacks made of all this is hard to know. Several of them, who had been chosen in a lottery, were present in the courtroom.
This is the third attempted trial for the men. The first military tribunal, at which the defendants said they were happy to accept responsibility, was abandoned in 2008. The second, scheduled to take place in a civilian court in Manhattan, never got started after members of the US Congress passed a special law to prevent it taking place. The present military tribunal brings no credit to the US legal authorities, who have lost the opportunity to demonstrate the power of democratic justice to the world.
The trial itself is unlikely to start until next year and will last for years. It should be remembered that the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called twentieth hijacker, took four years to complete. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2006.

Devastating impact of waterboarding

In case you haven't seen it before, this short film demonstrates the devastating power of the waterboarding technique, as used on al-Qaeda's main planner for 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (more than 180 times), and others held at Guantanamo and elsewhere.



I should add that KSM told his interrogators little that he had not already told to al-Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda in an interview in Karachi months before his arrest. The result of Fouda's interviews, which took place over several days in an al-Qaeda safe house, were published in the book we wrote together, Masterminds of Terror. Despite being the only person ever to interview KSM - and his co-conspirator Ramzi Binalshibh - Fouda was not asked to testify to the 9/11 Commission.