The military officer overseeing the prosecution of Khalid Sheik Mohammed is taking a go-slow approach that would bring the confessed Sept. 11 mastermind to trial months, or perhaps years, from now.
It was seven years ago that the CIA in Pakistan captured KSM, as the former senior al Qaeda officer is known, and eventually turned him over to U.S. military custody for a war crimes trial at the Navy base in Guantanamo, Cuba.
It was six months ago that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. relented to political pressure in New York and Washington, and reversed his decision to try KSM in a civilian court in the Big Apple.
Since then, retired Navy Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, who as the “convening authority” is overseeing prosecutions of terror suspects by military commissions, has set out a step-by-step process behind the scenes to begin the most prominent trial of the five 9/11 co-conspirators held in Cuba.
Charles Stimson, former Pentagon adviser to the defense secretary on detainee affairs, said Adm. MacDonald is making sure every possible ‘T’ is crossed to ensure that appeals courts will view the military commission process as fair.
“Unlike previous attempts to get the commission started against KSM and his four co-conspirators, the convening authority has taken a very different approach, and the approach mirrors in practice what happens in the civilian sector at the state and federal level,” said Mr. Stimson, a commander in the Navy Reserve who serves as a military judge.
“People want justice for the acts of 9/11,” Mr. Stimson said. “Justice delayed, in their minds, is justice denied, as the saying goes.
“The fact that there has not been a trial for the acts of 9/11 is frustrating to many people. In their minds, it has just taken too long. They want KSM and any co-conspirators tried in a court of law, and held responsible for their actions,” he said.
“The convening authority has decided, to ensure a fair and impartial trial, each side should be given the resources they need up front. And that just takes time,” Mr. Stimson said.
One time-consuming change by Adm. MacDonald is to hear defense lawyers’ requests for “mitigation experts” – people who would testify for the defense at a post-conviction hearing at which the military would seek the death penalty.
Approving the witnesses now, Mr. Stimson said, would in theory blunt an appeal argument that the defense was denied access to such experts during trial whose information should have gone to the jury then, not at sentencing. Such experts might testify about KSM’s childhood or mental state.
“The convening authority is listening and actively soliciting information from the defense about why they believe capital punish should be off the table up front,” Mr. Stimson said. “At the same time he is soliciting information from them regarding what mitigation experts they would want were there a trial and he was convicted at all.”
“This is smart and it is smart for a variety of reasons,” Mr. Stimson said. “If [Adm. MacDonald] delayed this decision, that would delay the trial even if the trial gets started. It could delay it for a long period of time. And more importantly, it could result in a conviction being overturned on appeal.”
Retired Brig. Gen. Thomas Hemingway, a former top legal adviser to the commission convening authority, said that while Mr. Holder was mulling the KSM case, President Obama changed the Manual for Military Commissions by executive order in 2010. The change requires that defendants facing capital charges in military tribunals have access to a “learned counsel” – a lawyer experienced in death penalty cases.
“Much of the time since April has been consumed by finding ‘learned counsel’ and going through the process to secure such counsel the requisite security clearance,” Gen. Hemingway said.
{The Washington Times/Matzav.com Newscenter}
