The Washington Post
By Peter Finn
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U.S. military prosecutors on Wednesday charged one of the most prominent detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a death penalty case that could prove to be a major test of the nation”s revised system of military commissions.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, one of 15 high-value detainees at the U.S. military prison, was charged with murder, terrorism and other violations of the laws of war in connection with an October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen.
The military alleges that Nashiri was “in charge of the planning and preparation” of the attack, in which a small boat carrying two suicide bombers pulled alongside the USS Cole and detonated, ripping…
The case is the first capital military tribunal to be announced under President Obama, whose administration recently lifted…
Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent, wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times last year that “there is enough evidence to convict Mr. Nashiri based on confessions we gained legally” from his two indicted co-conspirators. Moreover, in military commissions, FBI agents will probably be able to relay to the court what witnesses in Yemen told them “hearsay testimony that would typically be barred in federal court…”
Nonetheless, the case is complicated by the CIA’s destruction of videotapes of Nashiri’s…
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