Even if found not guilty of the bombing of an American warship more than a decade ago, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri won’t be going free.

 

Al-Nashiri is accused of masterminding the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors and injured 39. He is set to face a military tribunal that has the authority to determine guilt, but not the power to release him if he’s deemed innocent by the jury.

 

His defense lawyers, Rick Kammen and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes, want the presiding judge to inform would-be jurors that acquittal of war crimes charges won’t necessarily mean al-Nashiri will be freed from Guantánamo. They believe that some jurors might not want to take part in a system that does not allow a jury to free an innocent man.

 

Saudi-born al-Nashiri has not been seen publicly since his capture in 2002, having spent the last nine years locked away at secret American prisons or at Guantánamo. A Congressional inquiry reported that he was waterboarded and subjected to other harsh forms of interrogation. Although he has confessed to the Cole bombing, he claims that his confession was a product of torture.

Formal charges are expected to be brought against al-Nashiri on November 9.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Prosecutor: Guantánamo’s War Court Can’t Free Captive Found Innocent (by Carol Rosenberg, Miami Herald)