The 9/11 trial resumes, but its outcome still seems a long way off as America prepares to mourn, twenty years after the attacks. The alleged mastermind of the attacks, Khaled Cheikh Mohammed, is on trial from Tuesday, September 7, alongside four accused.
The proceedings against the five men accused of having participated in the planning of the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States have progressed extremely slowly before the military commissions of Guantanamo, Cuba, since the announcement of the initial charges, in February 2008. The case was withdrawn and then reintroduced, while the first hearing took place on May 5, 2012. Since then, dozens of hearings have taken place, all preliminary.
The five men, imprisoned for fifteen years in the prison of the US naval base at Guantanamo, had not appeared since the start of 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic brought the proceedings to a halt.
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A trial that may never end
The trial, which falls under exceptional military justice, is expected to resume as it left off, with a defense invoking acts of torture when the accused were in the hands of the CIA, with the aim of having most of the cases invalidated. evidence put forward by the American authorities. The procedure is led by a new military magistrate, Colonel Matthew McCall, who is the eighth to seize it.
The senior official made it clear that he would not rush, deciding that the hearing on Tuesday would be devoted to his own qualifications. He intends to spend the remainder of the week mainly conducting meetings with the prosecution and the defense. In view of the large number of appeals filed by defense lawyers to obtain documents, it could still pass months, or even more than a year, before the trial enters its decisive phase.
One of the defense attorneys, James Connell, even assured that he did not ” her[vait] not “ if this trial would ever go to an end.
The defense argues that the five accused – Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, Ammar Al-Baluchi, Walid Ben-Attash, Ramzi Ben Al-Shibh, Mustafa Ahmad Al-Hawsawi – still bear the aftermath of the torture inflicted by the CIA, while in detention in the secret prisons of the intelligence agency between 2002 and 2006. Without counting, according to their lawyers, the effect of fifteen years of imprisonment in conditions of great isolation.
The death penalty incurred
The five men, accused of “murder” and “terrorist acts”, will appear in a courtroom placed under high security, surrounded by fences with barbed wire. They risk the death penalty. In front of them, the families of the 2,976 people whose deaths are blamed on them, and journalists. The resumption of the trial finds particular repercussions in the context of the commemorations of the attacks which, twenty years earlier, brought mourning to the United States.
Khaled Sheikh Mohammed is considered the mastermind of 9/11. A Pakistani raised in Kuwait, the 50-year-old allegedly suggested the idea of crashing planes to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in 1996. He was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in March 2003. He was arrested. was then taken by the CIA to “black sites” in Afghanistan, then in Poland, to be questioned. In particular, it has been submitted 183 times to the waterboarding (mock drowning) in four weeks.
In September 2006, he was sent to Guantanamo. A year later, he said in a closed hearing that he was responsible not only for the 9/11 attacks but also for the Al-Qaida-related attacks in Bali and Kenya as well as the murder. by American journalist Daniel Pearl. Regarding his accomplices, they are suspected of having planned and coordinated the attacks. All have been subjected to acts of torture by the CIA.
Confidential documents requested by the defense
For the prosecution, even if the CIA interrogations were to be struck down, the conviction of the five men is beyond doubt. Prosecutors ensure that the defendants provided solid evidence during interrogations this time by the FBI, the federal police, in 2007 after their arrival at Guantanamo.
Unbelievable argument, according to the defense, for whom the FBI participated in the acts of torture of the CIA and used, him also, techniques of intimidation. “Have no illusions, these men were taken to Guatanamo to cover up acts of torture [plutôt que d’être présentés à la justice américaine ordinaire] “, commented James Connell, who defends Ammar Al-Baluchi.
The defense is asking for considerable quantities of confidential documents that the government still refuses to provide, concerning both the torture program and the conditions of detention at Guantanamo or the health of the accused. She also wants to hear dozens of additional witnesses, in addition to the twelve who have already marched before the military court, including two men who oversaw the CIA’s interrogation program.
Alka Pradhan, another defense lawyer, blames the lengthy delays on the US government, recalling that it took six years to admit that the FBI participated in the CIA torture program. “This case wears you out, did she say. They withhold documents that it would be normal to share in a procedure [ordinaire]. “
