Why it matters: Families are waiting.
Survivors of the attack and relatives of the dead sailors have been waiting a long time. Saudi prisoner Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri has been in U.S. custody since 2002 and was first indicted in 2011, making him the longest-running death penalty case at Guantanamo Bay.
Paul Abney, the ship's senior seaman, called the judge's announcement “good to hear.” He appeared in court Monday for a hearing and has visited Guantanamo about 10 times since 2012 to oversee the legal battle.
“I think the fact that he's willing to set a target date and try to make it a goal, even if it doesn't happen next year, I think is impressive,” said Abney, a former Navy chief.
What’s next: Further hearings
Colonel Fitzgerald has 14 more weeks of hearings on the 2024 calendar. Pretrial issues that have not yet been addressed include the admissibility of some evidence, potential witnesses, whether Mr. Nasiri can be tried before a military commission, how a committee of military officers will be set up, and whether Mr. Nasiri These include whether there is a right to administrative credit if the case goes to court. He was convicted but not sentenced to death.
Even before the trial began, the judge issued an order giving both sides a deadline to prepare for trial. The timetable orders Mr. Nasiri's lawyers to submit to prosecutors a list of witnesses they wish to call to testify at trial by January 9.
Fact to keep in mind: An appeal is imminent.
The referee was on the bench and called the goal in the first hour. But he made no mention of the government's efforts to lobby the appeals board to overturn decisions made by his predecessor.
Colonel Acosta excluded Nasiri's confession, which he gave to federal agents at Guantanamo Bay after years of secret imprisonment by the CIA, as tainted by torture, after years of secret imprisonment by the CIA, where he was subjected to waterboarding, rectal abuse and long sleep deprivation. . Prosecutors asked the Military Commission Review Court to reinstate his confession.
Regardless of which panel rules, lawyers for the defense or prosecution are expected to take the matter to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, a process that could last through the rest of the year.
Last time this happened: 2020
In February 2020, Colonel Acosta set a deadline for a February 2022 trial date for Mr. Nasiri. But the following month, the coronavirus pandemic forced the Guantanamo courthouse to close for about 500 days. Col. Acosta retired last year without setting a date for his trial.
Background: The strange judge
Col. Fitzgerald told the bench Monday that he had had an “unconventional military career.” He joined the Army after graduating from high school, and from 1986 he worked as a psychiatrist until 1990, after which he served on Army relief missions in the United States, all until 1999.
He left the military to attend college, taught high school, and then chose law. He was in his second year of law school when the Cole was bombed and was in his final year at the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He returned to the Army as a lawyer in 2003, and in 2008 was deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
At Guantanamo, a legal team created to respond to new court filings against detainees, in light of the Boumediene v. Bush Supreme Court decision that gave detainees meaningful reconsideration of their federal detention, will be working for 90 days. Worked. court. Colonel Fitzgerald called this “the mission that never came” because “no warrants were filed on our watch.”
While there, Col. Fitzgerald said he took the initiative to provide advice to commanders of military police, which do not have lawyers on hand, and toured prisons, including the high-cost detention center where Mr. Nasiri was. It was kept.
Colonel Fitzgerald is the only judge on the military commission known to have inspected the Guantanamo detention facility. However, he avoided eye contact with his detainees and said he had no recollection of who was being held.