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Federal judge rules lawyers for Guantanamo detainee may question 9/11 conspirator

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] A judge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia has granted lawyers for another Guantanamo Bay detainee permission to question Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the 9/11 attacks, in a ruling made public Thursday. Attorneys for Abdul Raheem Ghulam Rabbani will be allowed to submit narrow, written questions concerning Rabbani's work for Mohammed. Rabbani has argued he was not a member of al Qaeda, but merely a menial servant. Government lawyers sought to limit discovery in this case because of the sensitive national security information involved, but prosecutors will be permitted to review Mohammed's answers and redact statements involving national security. In December, Mohammed postponed his offer to plead guilty at a military commission hearing because the judge required a competency hearing. In June 2008, Mohammed and four other suspects were arraigned before a military commission after the Pentagon approved death penalty charges in June. In February of that year, CIA Director Michael Hayden publicly acknowledged that Mohammed had been subjected to waterboarding during interrogation. Mohammed also faces a trial in absentia in France for his alleged involvement in a suicide bombing of a Tunisian synagogue located in Djerba in April 2002.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on August 23, 2009 (boomark / email).