Why Hasn’t the 9/11 Trial Started?

A new court, a death penalty case and even the weather have contributed to the go-slow process at Guantánamo Bay.

The five men who are blamed of planning in the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults were captured two decades prior, but a trial is still impossible to begin some time recently 2026.

Instead, the passing punishment case has been postponed repeatedly.

An whole era of Americans has no memory of the assaults, which slaughtered about 3,000 individuals, or the creation of the Pentagon jail and court at Guantánamo Inlet in Cuba. Basic witnesses have kicked the bucket, and others have blurring memories.

Prosecutors say the defense legal counselors are attempting to crash the trial or turn away the passing punishment by investigating each conceivable road in the case. Defense attorneys have denounced prosecutors of utilizing national security concerns to anticipate turning over evidence.

Both are genuine. But more principal choices and issues stand in the way of a trial.

The government needed to attempt the men together.

The five men were charged together, meaning an issue including one would direct the pace of the trial for the others. The lead respondent, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, is denounced of being the engineer of the plot and proposing it to Osama canister Loaded. Two other men are blamed of making a difference a few of the ruffians with funds and wire transfers.

For a long time, prosecutors were given to the thought of a one-and-done trial or maybe than attempting the men independently. In 2023, be that as it may, a restorative board concluded that one respondent, Ramzi canister al-Shibh was not competent to stand, and a judge disjoined his case.

Now the case has four litigants, each with his claim group of lawyers.

Three of them, Mr. Mohammed, Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Walid container Attash, arranged an assention with prosecutors to argue blameworthy in trade for life sentences. But Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III cancelled it.

Now the judge has to sort out whether Mr. Austin’s activity was legal, and whether the four will be attempted together.

Torture has ruled the hearings.

After the men were captured in Pakistan in 2002 and 2003, the Bush organization held them in mystery abroad detainment facilities run by the C.I.A., where they were tortured.

The Joined together States was attempting to discover canister Loaded and reveal other fear monger plots, and it put examining the men ahead of their fundamental rights.

They were denied get to to legal counselors, the Worldwide Ruddy Cross and U.S. courts whereas they were held — at times in dungeonlike conditions — and brutally examined whereas held exposed, beaten and denied of rest. Two were waterboarded.

Pretrial hearings in the early a long time centered on what data and which witnesses the defense attorneys might address from that program, and which prove may be made open. Those questions have not been totally settled, but attorneys for both sides have been calling witnesses on a pivotal overarching address: Are the cross examinations of the litigants in 2007, the government’s best prove in the case, as well polluted by torment to be utilized at their trial?

President George W. Bush sent the litigants to Guantánamo Bay.

The Bush organization chose to put the litigants on trial at the U.S. Naval force base in southeast Cuba, which the Joined together States has rented as an seaward office for more than a century.

The Pentagon built a unused national security court there, with military judges directing and military officers mobilized from around the globe to serve on juries.

The C.I.A. and the government control the points of interest of the defendants’ to begin with a long time of detainment and their cross examinations and keep a few of them from the defendants’ legal counselors, who get delicate, high-level security clearances to speak to them.

The insights community has changed the rules more than once on how to handle classified data, causing court closures, disarray and delays.

The open tunes in to the open court on a 40-second sound delay, to anticipate state insider facts from slipping out. Indeed after that, censors ensuring the interface of both the C.I.A. and the Defense Division redact parcels of transcripts of open hearings that they accept the open ought to not have listened. Both forms have moderated progress.

It’s a commuter court, requiring uncommon flights.

Only the litigants live at Guantánamo. For each hearing, the Pentagon charters an plane to fly everybody else, counting the judge, to the base. The commuters routinely incorporate prosecutors, defense attorneys, witnesses, stenographers, court security officers and interpreters — as well as relatives of individuals who were murdered in the Sept. 11 assaults, who observe the procedures as visitors of the indictment. Writers are required to commute to the court that way as well, but pay their claim way.

Travel to Guantánamo requires a extraordinary record, something associated to a visa, a government recognizable proof card or international id — and a ship ride over the cove to reach the court complex. Climate can be a obstacle to the flights and the ferry.

Every time they arrive, the travelers must check in at a security zone, which is called Camp Equity. They are issued room keys, frequently to trailer stop lodging, and security distinguishing proof cards and vehicles for those on the government payroll.

Staffing continually changes at the court and prison.

The watches who work at the court and jail are generally National Protect troops mobilized from civilian life. They serve nine-month stretches. The jail commanders alter each year. The rules can alter with military staff revolutions, causing more court delays and other disruptions.

A unused commander as of late reestablished a run the show requiring jail watches to shackle each detainee by the lower leg to the floor of the cells utilized for legitimate gatherings. The judge requested the detainees unshackled at the court compound amid weeks of pretrial hearings, missing crisis circumstances.

The current judge, Col. Matthew N. McCall, is the fourth military judge to direct in hearings in the case at Guantánamo Cove. But at slightest seven have been relegated to it since arraignment in 2012, since, not at all like in government court, military judges ordinarily serve stretches on the seat and at that point move on to other lawful assignments. A few have served as caretaker judges amid the suspension of hearings. One ventured down after finding he had clashes of interest.

Colonel McCall will resign some time recently any trial starts following year. The another judge will have to audit more than 50,000 pages of transcripts, a few of them classified, and tens of thousands of pages of court filings.

Floods and commotion contribute to delays.

The courthouse offices have been built in stages since 2007 on a split landing area on an deserted landing strip. When it downpours, the court compound surges, and commotion on the metal roof of the court has suffocated out the procedures, driving delays. Form and other pervasions are a consistent concern in the sticky Caribbean climate.

Hurricanes, communications disappointments and the coronavirus have moreover constrained cancellations and postponements.

One morning this summer, the court’s water, phone lines and classified computer organize all went down. The discuss conditioning failed, and form seem be seen spreading over a vent in a unused enormous trailer containing a media center. By evening, inhabitants on the base were told to bubble tap water they needed to expend since of moo line weight conceivably sullying the water supply. Court was at that point canceled for the following two days since the lead litigant had the coronavirus.

Health care is a consistent concern.

Guantánamo has constrained wellbeing care, and anybody with a genuine issue must be restoratively emptied. In 2019, a hearing unexpectedly finished when specialists at the base’s healing center found that the judge’s retina was segregating; he was taken by medevac to Miami.

Progress was regularly crashed for a long time by upheavals by one respondent, Mr. canister al-Shibh, who was disjoined from the case in 2023. He is still actually charged, but a military therapeutic board ruled him unfit to confront trial since of his post-traumatic stretch clutter and other sicknesses, which his attorneys say are activated by recollections of abuse in C.I.A. custody.

The coronavirus constrained suspensions.

All hearings were suspended for around 500 days from the begin of the coronavirus widespread in early 2020. They did not viably restart until September 2023 for two reasons. Specialists designated by the judge were evaluating Mr. canister al-Shibh’s capacity to take an interest in his defense. And amid the same period, in Walk 2022, prosecutors started supplication talks with the respondents, provoking the judge to suspend the hearings to permit talks to take put in the courtroom.

It’s a capital case.

Capital cases take longer to plan since, if the respondents are indicted, a scaled down trial takes after to choose whether a passing sentence is suitable. Variables such as a defendant’s foundation, childhood and conditions of guardianship all figure into trial preparation.

Defense attorneys have sought after the most realistic points of interest of the prisoners’ time in C.I.A. care to display to a jury if the case comes to sentencing. The defense moreover proceeds to look for declaration from C.I.A. representatives; the government has announced that their characters are secured by a national security privilege.

“All we have to do is convince one legal hearer that one piece of data is adequate for them to vote for life,” Rita Radostitz, a defense attorney, told the judge on Sept. 11, 2019.