Hearings on September 11 case may resume despite unresolved issues

A military judge is considering whether to resume hearings on the September 11 case, despite two potential problems: Prosecutors are still awaiting word from the Biden administration about a proposed plea deal, and an inquest is underway to determine whether one of the defendants, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, is healthy enough to face prosecution.

Hearings in the case have been suspended since prosecutors began plea talks a year ago. But in a recent warrant, the judge, Colonel Matthew N. McCall, invited prosecutors and lawyers for the five defendants to propose what issues might be addressed at a July hearing in Guantánamo Bay.

In April, the judge ordered the appointment of a panel of three mental health experts to investigate whether Mr bin al-Shibh “suffers from a mental illness or disorder that renders him mentally incapable of standing trial”. A report will be issued on July 13.

A finding of incompetence would Mr. disqualify bin al-Shibh from pleading guilty or facing prosecution. It could lead to a judicial inquiry to determine what health care providers could do to restore his competence, which may include forcing him to use more aggressive psychotropic drugs.

The review comes at a time of expressed international concern over the Pentagon’s ability to provide complex health care in prison in southeastern Cuba. Last month, the chief of the International Red Cross Washington office issued a rare statement stating that the “physical and mental health needs of the 30 detainees are increasing and increasingly challenging.”

In his order, Colonel McCall granted the doctors access to information about what happened to Mr. bin al-Shibh had happened during his four years of interrogations in the CIA’s secret “black site” prisoner torture network.

The entire report will not be made public. Prosecutors will get the decision, not the underlying facts. But the medical research may offer insight into the long-term effects of the CIA’s use of nudity, sleep deprivation and physical abuse to get the detainees to expose Qaeda plots.

Mr bin al-Shibh claims he was tormented by sounds and vibrations as part of a years-long campaign to deprive him of sleep. Testimony and case files show that he often yells at night, curses guards, destroys his mobile camera, and disturbs the sleep of other inmates. Doctors have put him on antipsychotics, although opinions about his condition vary – from a delusional disorder to psychosis caused by post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental illnesses.

A member of the mental health panel is Paul Montalbano, a forensic psychologist who served as John W. Hinckley Jr. evaluated, the man who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. Mr. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982 and confined to a Washington mental hospital for three decades. Dr. Montalbano assessed his eligibility for release, which took place in stages between 2016 and 2022.

The identities of the other two panelists are unknown.

The question of competence surfaced behind the scenes even before prosecutors entered plea negotiations in March 2022 with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind behind the September 11 attacks; Mr. bin al-Shibh; and the three other defendants. Prosecutors who have been trying to bring the death penalty case to trial since 2009 suggested plea bargains as they struggled to comply with the judge’s orders to give defense attorneys more information about the prisoners’ time with and treatment by the CIA

In exchange for admitting their role in the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, at the Pentagon and in a field in Pennsylvania, the defendants want a guarantee that they will not have to serve their sentences in solitary confinement. to sit. The detainees, who suffer from a range of ailments they attribute to their torture, also want the Pentagon to agree to create a civilian-led trauma care program for them.

Prosecutors have presented some of those questions to Pentagon general counsel as “policy principles,” which require the government to take a position on whether they can be met.

Prosecutors have asked for witnesses to be called at the next hearing, including Frank Pellegrino, a retired FBI agent who participated in Mr Mohammed’s 2007 Guantánamo Bay interrogation.