GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba: A weeklong hearing into the legal framework for the Sept. 11 terrorism military tribunal came to an end Friday without a ruling on the most significant motions.
After hours of often-arcane debate at the US base in Cuba, the military judge presiding over the case deferred most decisions until later. Notable among them were proposed rules for handling classified evidence that prosecutors said are necessary to protect national security and defense lawyers argued are overly broad and restrictive.
Army Col. James Pohl heard arguments on nearly 20 motions and did resolve some matters, including issuing a ruling that the five men charged with planning and aiding the Sept. 11 attacks may sit out their pretrial hearings. While the extent of the progress was in dispute, both the chief prosecutor and defense lawyers agreed the case was unlikely to be ready for trial in 2013.
“We just scratched the very surface of the trial this week,” said James Connell, a lawyer for Ali Abd Al-Aziz Ali, a Pakistani national accused of transferring money to the Sept. 11 hijackers.
The chief prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, insisted there had been significant forward motion in the long-stalled case, notably hearing all the arguments on the proposed security rules so the judge can issue what are known as protective orders that will allow the defense to begin reviewing classified evidence in the case.
“There are some important motions that we didn’t get to, but I would submit that’s the nature of litigation,” Martins said.
The five defendants facing charges that include terrorism and murder include Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, a self-styled militant mastermind who grew up in Kuwait and attended college in North Carolina. He condemned the US in the court on Wednesday.
None of the defendants appeared in court Friday. Lawyers for the men cited several reasons, including that Friday is traditionally set aside by Muslims for prayers or that they did not recognize the proceedings as legitimate.
In the spectator section of the court the entire week were nine relatives of people who were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. Several said they were pleased to see some movement in the case, which was stalled by legal challenges and a political fight over whether the case should be tried in a civilian court in the US or at Guantanamo.
Some progress, but few rulings in 9/11 case
