15 years after attacks, trial for 9/11 suspects still years away from starting
Fifteen years after the 9/11 attacks, the military trial of the five men accused of plotting the deaths of nearly 3,000 people has not even begun — and defense lawyers and outside experts estimate there are at least four more years of delays and pretrial motions before it will start.
The delay has left family members of the victims in a heartbreaking and frustrating limbo, as some have begun to doubt they will ever see justice done for the murders of their loved ones. Meanwhile, public attention to the trial has all but evaporated, leaving them isolated in their grief.
“Frustrating is not the word for it. Painful is the word for it,” said Rita Lasar, whose brother, Avrame Zelmanowitz, died while waiting for paramedics to rescue his wheelchair-bound co-worker in the North Tower.
Lasar is turning 85 years old next week and fears that she will not be alive to see the trial begin.
“I feel helpless to do anything. It’s just like having grit in your heart,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles was the captain of the American Airlines plane that was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon that morning.
The current military tribunal began four years ago after President Obama abandoned a plan to move the men into the civilian court system, facing fierce political blowback that included opposition from a faction of family members who were worried the men could be acquitted in federal court. Burlingame led the group of 9/11 families who supported a military trial for the defendants, who are being tried together as co-conspirators, while Lasar led a smaller faction that wanted the men tried in civilian court.
While these two groups of family members continue to disagree on a lot, there’s a consensus that the current system has been a disaster.
“I am not of the opinion that the process is failing. I’m of the opinion that it has failed,” Kristen Breitweiser, who became a political activist after she lost her husband in the attacks, said on Friday during a Yahoo News roundtable on the 9/11 anniversary. “We are a nation of laws. If we can’t adequately prosecute the co-conspirators of the 9/11 attacks, then I don’t know what kind of democracy we live in.”
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other four suspected co-conspirators were captured just two years after the attacks, but they were kept in CIA custody and subjected to torture before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay in 2006. Those backing a military tribunal feared that the use of torture could get the government’s case against the men thrown out of a civilian court. They thought military commissions would guarantee swift justice.
But the opposite has been true. The tribunals have only successfully convicted eight people on terror charges, and four of those convictions were later thrown out. Meanwhile, hundreds of terrorists have been convicted in the federal system since 9/11. Ahmed Ghailani, who also faced torture in CIA custody after he was suspected of plotting the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings, was successfully convicted in federal court in 2010, though on only one of the 285 counts he faced.
The 9/11 trial has been bogged down in pretrial motion after pretrial motion since it began in 2012, as defense attorneys, lead prosecutor Brig. Gen. Mark Martins and Judge James Pohl, an army colonel, try to figure out a brand-new system. Everything seems up for debate, including whether the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees a right to a speedy trial, applies in the proceedings. The judge has not yet answered that particular question in a motion by the defense.
“Everyone’s projecting 2020 or 2021 when we might go to trial,” said James Harrington, who defends accused terrorist Ramzi bin al-Shibh. “It’s just kind of being realistic about all the work that’s being done and the time that takes.”
Burlingame, who argued for the trial to take place in Guantánamo Bay, said she blames Pohl, not the tribunal system, for the delays.
“I put it squarely on the judge. He’s the one who controls the courtroom. He does not have to allow an oral argument for every damn motion that comes into his bench,” she said.
But Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas who used to be a defense lawyer at Guantánamo Bay, said he doesn’t think the delays are Pohl’s fault.
“There are two ways to approach this brand-new court system,” says Vladeck. “The first is to walk carefully through every issue, to make sure you’re not skipping a step. And the second is to not care.” The judge and the prosecution care, he added.
Many legal experts believe the five suspects would have already been convicted by now if they had faced trial in federal court.
The government defended the molasses-slow pace of justice in a statement, and called the 2020 estimate of a trial date “speculation.”
“Resolution of remaining or pending motions and completion of discovery are necessary steps in order to hold fair trials that comply with the law, and to seek justice for both the victims and the accused,” said Defense Department spokeswoman Lt. Col. Valerie Henderson. “Prediction of when trial on the merits might start would be speculation at this point. The law requires military commission trials to be deliberate and methodical, free of outside influence.”
Meanwhile, family members of 9/11 victims are growing older as the date of the attacks drifts further into the past. Burlingame says her other brother Brad died of pancreatic cancer in December. “He never got to see justice done for our brother,” she said.
“We feel we’ve been very, very patient with the process, but it’s just overwhelmingly frustrating,” said Colleen Kelly, whose brother, Bill, died in the North Tower. “And you can’t even say there’s not an end in sight … there’s no beginning in sight yet.”
Pretrial hearings are set to begin again in the case on Oct 3.
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