NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba: Three prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre are expected to get their first day in court after being held for 18 years in connection with the deadly 2002 Bali nightclub bombings and other plots in Southeast Asia.
Indonesian prisoner Encep Nurjaman, known as Hambali, and two Malaysians are to be arraigned on Monday (Aug 30) before a military commission on charges that include murder, conspiracy and terrorism. It is merely the first step in what could be a long legal journey for a case that involves evidence tainted by CIA torture, the same issue that is largely responsible for causing other war crimes cases to languish for years at Guantanamo.
The hearing also comes as the Biden administration says it intends to close the detention center, where the US still holds 39 of the 779 men seized in the aftermath of the Sep 11, 2001, attacks and invasion of Afghanistan.
The three men charged in connection with the nightclub bombings were held in secret CIA confinement for three years, followed by 15 more at the isolated US base in Cuba.
The decision to charge them was made by a Pentagon legal official at the end of the Trump administration, complicating the effort to close the detention center, said Brian Bouffard, a lawyer for Mohammed Nazir bin Lep, one of the Malaysian men.
That made it more difficult for the new administration to add any to the list of those who could potentially be transferred out of Guantanamo or even sent home. “It will even be harder after an arraignment,” Bouffard said.
Whether the arraignment would actually take place was not certain. Lawyers have sought to put the case on hold for a number of reasons, including what they have said is insufficient access to interpreters and other resources to mount a defense. The accused were still expected to show up for the hearing.
The Navy judge presiding over the case in the commission, a hybrid of military and civilian law, is expected to consider that question before the charges can be formally presented in a secure courtroom surrounded by coils of razor wire on the base.