Twenty years after the attacks, the trial against the alleged organizer of the September 11 attacks has resumed

Four days after the twentieth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the trial against the alleged sponsor of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, and four other defendants, resumed Tuesday at the US naval base in Guantanamo, in eastern Cuba.

On the bench, in addition to Mohamed, are four of his alleged accomplices: Amar al Baluchi, Walid bin Atash, Ramzi bin al Shibh and Mustafa al Hawsawi. All of them appeared in military court on the island’s US base for the first time in more than 18 months.

The process takes nine years from previous hearings.

However, after just two and a half hours, the newest military magistrate in charge of the case, Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, adjourned the meeting for procedural matters relating to his appointment.

The trial had been interrupted in February 2020 by the pandemic of Covid-19 and it could resume this Wednesday, although it is believed that the substantive proceedings will not begin until next week.

Who are the accused

Mohamed, accused of being the mastermind of the attacks, wore a dense gray-red beard upon entering the room military court hearings filled with prosecutors, interpreters and defense teams from the five accused.

Behind thick glass they met parents of the 2,976 people who died almost 20 years agos, when four hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, and a field in Pennsylvania.

The five accused are detained for almost 15 years at the Guantanamo base and facing the death penalty for murder and terrorism. The trial was bogged down by allegations of torture against detainees after their capture by CIA agents.

The five defendants were present at the hearing. According to AFP, Mohamed wore a blue turban and a mask of the same color.

Beside him was Bin Atash, who was said to have helped plan the attacks and wore a pink kufiya headdress and a beige camouflage jacket.

Al-Shibh, a member of the so-called “Hamburg Cell” of the kidnappers, also wore a sand-colored camouflage jacket over his white cotton pants.

Baluchi, also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mohamed’s nephew, is accused of handling money transfers for the attacks. Meanwhile, the fifth defendant, Hawsawi, was working with Baluchi.

The process

McCall is the eighth to be appointed to chair the process.

The defense lawyers seek to discredit most testing of the accusation because of torture suffered by the five accused while in CIA custody between 2002 and 2006.

But the reboot started slowly. The first day focused on a procedure exclusive to military commissions, which involves an assessment of the judge’s own background to investigate possible bias.

The procedure is crucial because the judge, prosecutors and many defense lawyers are part of the legal body of the Ministry of Defense.