Judge at Guantnamo Says 9/11 Trial Start Is at Least a Year Away

[Nevilledog]

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Eric Boehlert
@EricBoehlert
·
Sep 14, 2021
this whole thing is an embarrassment for US

trial *might* start 21 yrs after the attack

the judge now overseeing the case has never handled a capital murder case before so he’s going to take an online class during the trial

NYT Politics
@nytpolitics
The new judge presiding in the 9/11 case at Guantánamo Bay said on Monday that the trial of the five men accused of plotting the attacks would not begin for at least another year. https://nyti.ms/3Edrj2k

Eric Boehlert
@EricBoehlert
I’m not making that up btw
1:42 PM · Sep 14, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/13/us/politics/gitmo-9-11-trial-start-date.html


FORT MEADE, Md. — The new judge presiding in the Sept. 11, 2001, case at Guantánamo Bay said on Monday that the trial of the five men accused of plotting the attacks would not begin for at least another year.

The judge, Col. Matthew N. McCall, who took over the case last month, was holding his second week of pretrial hearings at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after a delay of more than a year and half caused by the pandemic.

The timeline set by the judge on Monday would mean the trial of the five men, including the accused mastermind of the plot, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, would not get underway until more than 21 years after hijacked jetliners crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pa.

Colonel McCall was ruling on objections by defense lawyers for two of the defendants, Walid bin Attash and Ramzi bin al-Shibh. The lawyers questioned his qualifications to preside in a death-penalty case because he had not read the filings and court record stretching back to the arraignment of the defendants in May 2012, including the 33,660-page transcript.

They urged him to suspend proceedings until he was properly trained as well as fully acquainted with the rulings by three previous judges in the case.

*snip*

[Thomas Hurt]

1. (rolls eyes)