Trial of accused 9/11 mastermind restarts, days before 20th anniversary

not that I'm okay with the acts they are being tried for...but it's absolutely laughable (in the most depressing way) that THEY are treated so inhumanely as war criminals and yet the US presidents who are guilty of far worse sit comfortably in their designer suits.

Yet another deflection to try to change the news cycle. They haven’t been in court since early 2019 so why now?

I hope all five are found guilty and executed. No leniency, no sympathy, no weak excuses.

What they did is beyond rehabilitation, and deserves the ultimate punishment for callously killing all those thousands of innocent people.

not that I'm okay with the acts they are being tried for...but it's absolutely laughable (in the most depressing way) that THEY are treated so inhumanely as war criminals and yet the US presidents who are guilty of far worse sit comfortably in their designer suits.

Ain't that the truth, but since hypocrisy is Mankind's second nature, the heinous crimes committed by governments must not be spoken of by the public who are psychologically conditioned to only see "their Emperors' designer suits". The manifestly inhuman treatment of Guantanamo prisoners is justice seen NOT to be done.

Yet another deflection to try to change the news cycle. They haven’t been in court since early 2019 so why now?

From the exact same sentence in the article, that I already quoted:

*But after a 17-month halt due to the coronavirus pandemic,*

Please do try and read the article. Or, failing that, read the posts you are responding to.

But after a 17-month halt due to the coronavirus pandemic, the proceedings appear likely to continue where they left off, mired in the defense's efforts to disqualify most of the government's evidence as tainted by the torture the defendants underwent in CIA custody.

Attorneys say the five defendants -- Mohammed, Ammar al-Baluchi, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi -- are all weak and suffer the lasting effects of severe torture endured in secretive CIA "black" sites between 2002 and 2006.

Yea being tortured for 4 years might impact what anyone would say, maybe just a little.

Or you can take you own advice realize Covid didn’t start in “early 2019.”

Please do try and read the article. Or, failing that, read the posts you are responding to.

Which is February 2020.

*But after a 17-month halt due to the coronavirus pandemic,**

Khalid shouldn’t be at Guantanamo. No, he should spend the rest of his life at Rikers.

If you torture someone they will say whatever you want them to.

Where is the proof they were "tortured"? Sounds suspiciously like a ploy made up to get Islamist terrorists off the hook.

How are they still alive?

Imprisonment without trial for 15 years?! Makes you wonder if they even have any solid evidence against this guy.

So, here's where we strike up the brass band as loud as possible for the anniversary of our betrayal to drown out any voices pointing out the absolute unlikelihood that these people had ANYTHING to do with demolishing those three buildings.

Some good lines in this story such as "...both sides are allowed in a war crimes tribunal to question a new judge for possible bias." Who might imagine that Air Force Colonel Matthew McCall could possibly be biased?

Or "...the defense is demanding huge amounts of classified materials [evidence] that the government is resisting turning over..." Yeah, a FAIR TRIAL, no doubt, and certainly a 'presumption of innocence'.

And, of course, all of the voices who, at any other time, would say "I don trust da gub'mint no how!" believing every word the government says. After a while, laughing and crying at the same time starts to feel 'normal'...

Fifteen years in Gitmo at the hands of the CIA...their personalities and Humanity were essentially summarily executed long ago and these husks are just the tail end of the Big Lie. Murdering their bodies would be a mercy...

Where is the proof they were "tortured"? Sounds suspiciously like a ploy made up to get Islamist terrorists off the hook.

Ummm, Dick Cheney strongly supported "enhanced interrogation". Also referred to water boarding as a "dunk in the bath". Under Bush and Cheney torture was commonplace.

20 years? The wheels of justice certainly do turn exceeding slow.

This is because American “conservatives” didn’t want American justice for these people.

Absolutely not true, they definitely wanted justice, that is why we went to war in the first, Because of what happened on 9/11 we went to Iraq and then to Afghanistan. Never like the Saudi’s, never trusted them, but I understood the important relationship that the US had to maintain, because without them, a lot of these bad guys we couldn’t of picked off and now that we don’t have Afghanistan, we need to sell these more than ever.

You sure about this order of events? Seems to me we went into Afghanistan first, and that was because of 9/11. We went into Iraq for no reason related to 9/11 beyond republicans using it as an excuse to whip up ignorance-driven fear among their base to attack Iraq.

Seems more like it, admittedly. I still think getting Saddam was the right thing to do and to at least hold a presence in Afghanistan to ensure that the radical Islamists Don’t try and congregate and use that country to train and launch attacks on the US or the rest of the world

None of this is relevant to the Bush administration creating the legal fiction that Gitmo isn’t covered by US law - both substantive law and procedural law. 

You may think that if you’d like

This is a great example of how you engage in conversation here. Make an assertion, that assertion is then resoundingly refuted, and then you go off on a tangent. Sophisticated.

Not at all. Not at all guy.

Gitmo is one of the biggest embarrassments for America,

I vehemently disagree.

They should be tried in America.

No! They are enemy combatants, no country no flag no Insigne no military uniform, no they should be right there where they are and stay there! Until the end.

An enemy combatant

I know what they are and no, I don’t think that any US taxpayer should pay to house and feed any terrorist, it’s not that difficult to figure out, they should be right where they are in Gitmo and suffer the fate that they were dealt with and I personally hope they rot. If you are affiliated or if you have committed that kind of a heinous act, you deserve to be where you are and definitely not in the taxpayers pocket under no circumstance.

You do realize US taxpayers fund Gitmo, correct?

That’s ok, not on the mainland which would cost more, a lot more.

These are all alleged acts. Does innocent until proven guilty mean anything to you?

They joined the Jihad and they’re not American citizens and Gitmo is not America so…..

It's worth remembering, though most people seem reluctant to do so, that Osama bin Laden was never charged by any US government agency in connection with the 9/11 attack, but was instead assassinated first by innuendo followed by malice aforethought. Some documents relating to Saudi involvement in the 9/11 conspiracy may soon be released by Biden, but it is unlikely any light will be shed on a possible role played by bin Laden.

It's worth remembering, though most people seem reluctant to do so, that Osama bin Laden was never charged by any US government agency in connection with the 9/11 attack, but was instead assassinated.

He admitted before as well as others of his involvement. And after what he orchestrated, I mean had we brought him back to America what were going to do with him? He would have been a dead man walking. The best thing they could have done for him was to take him out and get it over with.

That’s ok, not on the mainland which would cost more, a lot more.

No, it wouldn't. We'd still have to pay for all the staff, guards, food, upkeep, etc., but keeping this illegal detention center in Cuba means we also have to pay rent to Cuba for the land, as well as expensive flights to get people in and out.

No, it wouldn't. We'd still have to pay for all the staff, guards, food, upkeep, etc.,

Ok, keep them there and give them canned food. Save some money.

First, this wasn’t your contention. You’ve moved the goalposts.

No, I’m consistent, keep them there and let them rot.

First, the right to the presumption of innocence is not limited to citizens. The 14th Amendment applied the rest of the Bill of Rights to people, not citizens.

Not to Jihadists. Remember, they have no country or uniform or flag. So no, I hope they rot and I don’t want or feel they should be anywhere near US soil.

I hope all five are found guilty and executed. No leniency, no sympathy, no weak excuses.

KSM is an absolute scum-bag and deserves whatever he gets. Part of me wishes that he had not been taken alive.

But this is about us as a nation, not him. We denied what were truly vile people, and some that just got caught up in the dragnet habeas corpus for 15 years which is not in keeping with the "world's greatest protector of human rights".

We tortured them, which may feel satisfying but is ultimately self-defeating as the subject will tell you what they think you want to hear to make the torture stop and gives not a fig if it is true. It also makes conviction in anything resembling a fair trial (where all would have been found guilty and sent to their deaths/ been sent to Super-max years ago) nearly impossible.

No, they are not good or even bad people. They are vile. But their treatment is a stain upon us, not them.

Ok, keep them there and give them canned food. Save some money.

This is so woefully ignorant of how money works and what it takes to run an organisation or institution, especially one as complex as a prison, that I'm glad you'll never be a business owner. You'd go bankrupt in days.

This is so woefully ignorant

No, ask most of the families that lost people and loved ones on 9/11 and allow them to decide, they should have the right. They deserve it.

No, ask most of the families that lost people and loved ones on 9/11 and allow them to decide, they should have the right. They deserve it.

No, they don't. That's why juries are always made up of people who don't know the victim, the accused, or who have ever been affected by a similar crime.

You appear to know about as much about the justice system as you do about money, or how to run a complex institution.

No, they don't

Ok, then leave them at Gitmo. Better for them and the rest of the world.

Keep the terrorists there

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/us/politics/guantanamo-detainees-due-process.html

Now that’s the difference, Putin, Xi, Lukashenko , Kim etc, you’re first falsely trialed and then sit really tortured 20 years in prison. And the U.S., you first sit are tortured falsely for 20 years and then get a real trial. ROFL

It's worth remembering, though most people seem reluctant to do so, that Osama bin Laden was never charged by any US government agency in connection with the 9/11 attack, but was instead assassinated.

He admitted before as well as others of his involvement. And after what he orchestrated, I mean had we brought him back to America what were going to do with him?

Yeah, there was video of a bearded guy in a turban admitting it but...

A Jury Trial? Where are they going to find a venue under US jurisdiction that won't be biased?

Very strange reply.

I disagree. I’m on the side of the victims 100%, keep them at Gitmo

Justice and Retribution. Justice or Retribution. Where does one begin and the other one end?

15 years?

Well jurist prudence went straight out the window.

If the five are considered to be such a threat. a clear and present danger to life, Mohammed, Ammar al-Baluchi, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi

Them execute them all.

I know unthinkable.

However if the threat exists or our families, to our towns and neighborhoods, how far do you turn the other cheek?

You did not say who's paying for GITMO since you stated it was not the American taxpayer?

I also stated I didn’t care, let them rot, I think they should stay until their last breath.

I am also on the side of the victims but equally want to see the correct line of justice.

I think Gitmo is the perfect justice for these Jihadists.

My brother worked at the WTC but was off on the day of the attacks.

A military trial could be held on the mainland.

I pray it doesn’t

How would a justice system find a jury for trial and verdict.

To prove their case, the defense is demanding huge amounts of classified materials that the government is resisting turning over, on everything from the original torture program to conditions at Guantanamo to health assessments.

Over and out right here.

How will any court discount or attempt to step around the duty of disclosure.