Long-serving prosecutor closes Guantánamo Bay case on September 11

One of the longest-serving prosecutors in the Sept. 11, 2001, case is stepping down, citing the strain his repeated trips to Guantánamo Bay put on him and his family.

The prosecutor, Edward R. Ryan, is a Justice Department attorney who was part of a team of civilian and military prosecutors who spent 15 years trying to bring the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other detainees accused of conspiracy in the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon.

Mr Ryan's decision was seen as a sign that the case would not go to trial anytime soon.

He represented the government at the original appearance of the Guantanamo detainees in 2008 and has participated in almost all pre-trial hearings since.

On Wednesday, Mr. Ryan told relatives of the attack victims by email that he was leaving “with the deepest heart” to return to North Carolina, where he was a federal prosecutor before his assignment at Guantanamo.

“The challenges that come with the passage of time and trying to work so far from home have simply become too difficult for me and my extended family,” he said.

The case is embroiled in pre-trial hearings over what evidence would be admissible in the national security trial, which is expected to last more than a year when it finally begins.

The defendants were held in the CIA's secret overseas prison network known as black sites from 2003 to 2006, complicating efforts to move past the pretrial phase. A key question is whether the suspects voluntarily confessed at Guantanamo, after years of being deprived of sleep, held in solitary confinement and forcibly interrogated, including waterboarding.

For more than a decade, Mr. Ryan, 62, was in close contact with the Sept. 11 families, both during hearings at Guantanamo and at private meetings of prosecutors in Massachusetts, New York and Florida.

“With all that knowledge, I'm sad to see him go,” said Kathleen Vigiano, whose husband, Joseph Vigiano, a New York police detective, and brother-in-law, John Vigiano Jr., a New York firefighter, were both murdered in the World Trade Center.

At Guantánamo, Mr. Ryan slipped quietly to the back row of news conferences in a dilapidated hangar on the grounds of the wartime courthouse Camp Justice, wiping away tears as family members spoke of loved ones killed in the attack and of the frustration of the long wait for the murder. a test.

He had a commute to a courtroom. When he wasn't at Guantánamo or at home in North Carolina, he worked out of the headquarters of the chief prosecutor for military commissions in Virginia, not far from the Pentagon.

Mr. Ryan repeatedly argued in court that the defendants willingly bragged about their role in the attacks long after their CIA detention ended.

When lawyers learned that some FBI agents had become undercover operatives in the Black Site program, Mr. Ryan defended the scheme as part of a whole-of-government response to the worst attack on U.S. soil in U.S. history.

Ryan's argument of voluntary self-incrimination failed in Guantanamo's other main case, following the bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole off Yemen on October 12, 2000. A judge rejected the defendant's confession, ruling that his will to resist had been: deliberate and literal beaten out of him years ago” by US government agents. Prosecutors are appealing.

Preliminary investigations in the September 11 case will continue next week without Mr. Ryan. He said in his email to the families that he was honored to represent them and the U.S. government despite “the great sadness and frustration that we on the team, and all of you, have felt due to the terrible delays that have caused us tormented.”

Now only two of the original eight prosecutors remain on the case: Clayton G. Trivett Jr., who began prosecuting the Guantanamo cases as a Navy attorney, and Jeffrey D. Groharing, who started as a Navy attorney. Both now serve as civilians.

“We on the prosecution team,” Mr. Ryan wrote, “have done everything within our sense of duty to bring the matter to a successful resolution. I have great confidence that the team will continue the fight and bring justice for you and our nation.”