Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
April 8, 2008
Pg. 5
Four military lawyers were chosen to assist accused terrorists who may face the death penalty during military trials.
By Carol Rosenberg
WASHINGTON -- The chief defense counsel for the war crimes court at Guantánamo Bay on Monday appointed four U.S. military officers to defend four alleged co-conspirators facing possible death-penalty charges in the 9/11 attacks.
But Army Reserves Col. Steve David said he had not yet formally assigned a lawyer to defend their alleged ringleader, reputed al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
The assignments had been seen as a key obstacle in the Pentagon's effort to move forward with its showcase Military Commissions prosecution -- a complex, six-captive capital case alleging they organized the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The Pentagon prosecutor swore out charges against the six on Feb. 11. Now a Bush administration appointee is deciding whether to go forward and whether to make execution the ultimate penalty -- if the men are convicted in the case that lists the names of 2,973 victims in the charges sheets.
''It's daunting,'' said Navy Reserves Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, a former San Diego federal public defender called to service and now assigned to defend Ramzi bin al Shibh.
She also, separately, had been assigned another commissions case -- to defend a Sudanese man who allegedly served as Osama bin Laden's bodyguard, driver and cook, Ibrahim al Qosi.
But the 9/11 case, she said, presented ``the ultimate challenge for a criminal defense attorney when a defendant is facing so much hatred from the general public -- and political backlash, to say the least.''
Bin al Shibh, who was captured on Sept. 11, 2002, is accused of organizing the German-based cell of the suicide squads that hijacked the commercial airplanes that struck the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field a year earlier.
A citizen of Yemen, he has been described as a key intermediary between some of the hijackers and leaders of al Qaeda, in effect meaning he served as the 9/11 control officer. He also has been described as a key lieutenant to Mohammed.
Mohammed and the four other former CIA-held captives accused in the case have never seen attorneys -- military or civilian -- and are held in segregation as special ''high-value detainees'' at the remote prison camps in southeast Cuba.
They arrived there in September 2006 after years in secret U.S. custody overseas.
Now it will be up to the attorneys to get special intelligence clearances and meet with their clients to see whether they will cooperate with their U.S. military lawyers -- who are provided to them free of charge under the Military Commissions Act that created the war court in 2006.
David, in civilian life a judge in Boone County, Ind., near Indianapolis, made the appointments days after several civilian legal groups disclosed that they were organizing a defense fund and recruiting teams of top lawyers with death-penalty experience to help in the cases of Mohammed and the others accused at the war court.
The American Civil Liberties Union is spearheading the effort.
Of the other former CIA-held detainees facing proposed capital charges:
*Walid bin Attash was assigned Navy Reserves Lt. Cmdr. James Hatcher, who has death penalty defense experience as a South Carolina federal public defender. Bin Attash, a Saudi-raised Yemeni, allegedly selected and trained some of the hijackers and allegedly scouted U.S. aircraft as early as 1999 in Malaysia as part of the plot.
*Ali Abd al Aziz Ali was assigned Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, who is already lead lawyer in the non-capital case against Osama bin Laden's former Afghanistan driver, Salim Hamdan -- whose trial is expected to start in June and last at most two weeks. Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al Baluchi, has been described as nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed who allegedly sent about $120,000 to the hijackers to cover, among other things, flight training at U.S. flight schools.
*Azzi Ali's assistant, Mustafa al Hawsawi, was assigned Army Reserves Maj. John Jackson as his defense counsel.
Only one of the six had already been assigned an attorney.
He is Mohammed al Qahtani, a Saudi who has been held by the military, not the CIA, but was subjected to a special course of interrogations approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
As of Monday, his lawyer, Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles had yet to meet with him.
The others need special access from the military to see their clients because the CIA has declared as classified the details of their interrogation and detention at so-called ''black sites'' overseas.
Lachelier said that David had assured the 9/11 defense counsels that they would get a second uniformed military defense counsel -- known as ''a second chair'' -- as well as an investigator and paralegal to work on the case.
In addition, the ACLU was expected to offer each a civilian co-counsel with outside legal resources to assist in the defense.
April 8, 2008
Pg. 5
Four military lawyers were chosen to assist accused terrorists who may face the death penalty during military trials.
By Carol Rosenberg
WASHINGTON -- The chief defense counsel for the war crimes court at Guantánamo Bay on Monday appointed four U.S. military officers to defend four alleged co-conspirators facing possible death-penalty charges in the 9/11 attacks.
But Army Reserves Col. Steve David said he had not yet formally assigned a lawyer to defend their alleged ringleader, reputed al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
The assignments had been seen as a key obstacle in the Pentagon's effort to move forward with its showcase Military Commissions prosecution -- a complex, six-captive capital case alleging they organized the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The Pentagon prosecutor swore out charges against the six on Feb. 11. Now a Bush administration appointee is deciding whether to go forward and whether to make execution the ultimate penalty -- if the men are convicted in the case that lists the names of 2,973 victims in the charges sheets.
''It's daunting,'' said Navy Reserves Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, a former San Diego federal public defender called to service and now assigned to defend Ramzi bin al Shibh.
She also, separately, had been assigned another commissions case -- to defend a Sudanese man who allegedly served as Osama bin Laden's bodyguard, driver and cook, Ibrahim al Qosi.
But the 9/11 case, she said, presented ``the ultimate challenge for a criminal defense attorney when a defendant is facing so much hatred from the general public -- and political backlash, to say the least.''
Bin al Shibh, who was captured on Sept. 11, 2002, is accused of organizing the German-based cell of the suicide squads that hijacked the commercial airplanes that struck the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field a year earlier.
A citizen of Yemen, he has been described as a key intermediary between some of the hijackers and leaders of al Qaeda, in effect meaning he served as the 9/11 control officer. He also has been described as a key lieutenant to Mohammed.
Mohammed and the four other former CIA-held captives accused in the case have never seen attorneys -- military or civilian -- and are held in segregation as special ''high-value detainees'' at the remote prison camps in southeast Cuba.
They arrived there in September 2006 after years in secret U.S. custody overseas.
Now it will be up to the attorneys to get special intelligence clearances and meet with their clients to see whether they will cooperate with their U.S. military lawyers -- who are provided to them free of charge under the Military Commissions Act that created the war court in 2006.
David, in civilian life a judge in Boone County, Ind., near Indianapolis, made the appointments days after several civilian legal groups disclosed that they were organizing a defense fund and recruiting teams of top lawyers with death-penalty experience to help in the cases of Mohammed and the others accused at the war court.
The American Civil Liberties Union is spearheading the effort.
Of the other former CIA-held detainees facing proposed capital charges:
*Walid bin Attash was assigned Navy Reserves Lt. Cmdr. James Hatcher, who has death penalty defense experience as a South Carolina federal public defender. Bin Attash, a Saudi-raised Yemeni, allegedly selected and trained some of the hijackers and allegedly scouted U.S. aircraft as early as 1999 in Malaysia as part of the plot.
*Ali Abd al Aziz Ali was assigned Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, who is already lead lawyer in the non-capital case against Osama bin Laden's former Afghanistan driver, Salim Hamdan -- whose trial is expected to start in June and last at most two weeks. Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al Baluchi, has been described as nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed who allegedly sent about $120,000 to the hijackers to cover, among other things, flight training at U.S. flight schools.
*Azzi Ali's assistant, Mustafa al Hawsawi, was assigned Army Reserves Maj. John Jackson as his defense counsel.
Only one of the six had already been assigned an attorney.
He is Mohammed al Qahtani, a Saudi who has been held by the military, not the CIA, but was subjected to a special course of interrogations approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
As of Monday, his lawyer, Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles had yet to meet with him.
The others need special access from the military to see their clients because the CIA has declared as classified the details of their interrogation and detention at so-called ''black sites'' overseas.
Lachelier said that David had assured the 9/11 defense counsels that they would get a second uniformed military defense counsel -- known as ''a second chair'' -- as well as an investigator and paralegal to work on the case.
In addition, the ACLU was expected to offer each a civilian co-counsel with outside legal resources to assist in the defense.