About the 9/11 war crimes trial
Mustafa Ahmad al Hawsawi, a Saudi, is alleged to have helped the hijackers with money, Western clothing, traveler's checks and credit cards. The ICRC says Pakistani authorities arrested him March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Hawsawi served as a witness in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial, saying he had seen Moussaoui at an al Qaeda guesthouse in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in the first half of 2001, but was never introduced to him nor conducted operations with him.
Army Col. Stephen Henley was the earlier trial judge. A military judge since 1998, he took over the complex conspiracy mass murder case in November 2008, five months after the men were arraigned. Henley got his law degree, specializing in environmental law, from George Washington University. He was earlier assigned to preside in the military commission case of an Afghan accused of throwing a grenade at U.S. forces in Kabul in December 2002, and in that case became the first commissions judge to exclude a confession on grounds the U.S.-held detainee had been tortured, in that instance by allied Afghan police. He has prosecuted felonies in the DC Superior Court as a special assistant U.S. Attorney in the DC Superior Court, from 1990 to 1991 and has been a military judge at Fort Hood, Texas, Manheim, Germany and Fort Bragg, N.C. He also presided at the 2007 Fort Meade, Md., court martial of an Army officer accused in the case of abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib, Iraq. As of October 2011 it was not known who would succeed him as presiding judge in the new phase of the case.
The Sept. 11, 2001 military commissions conspiracy charges
Charges include conspiracy in the Sept. 11 attacks, specifically with Osama bin Laden, other senior al Qaeda members and the hijackers, plus eight other charges including murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, and providing material support for terrorism. Mohammed, bin Attash, Bin al Shibh and Baluchi are also charged specifically with hijacking four aircraft -- two that hit the World Trade Center towers in New York, the one that hit the Pentagon and the one that crashed in the western Pennsylvania countryside. According to the Pentagon, the attacks killed 2,976 people
The Pentagon has built a $12 million Expeditionary Legal Complex with a snoop-proof courtroom capable of trying six alleged co-conspirators before one judge and jury. Media and other observers are sequestered in a soundproofed room behind thick glass, at the rear. The judge at the front and a court security officer have mute buttons to silence the feed to the observers' booth -- if they suspect someone in court could spill classified information.
The lead 9/11 case prosecutor during the Bush era was retired Army Col. Robert Swann, formerly the Pentagon's chief prosecutor for military commissions. The rest of his 9/11 prosecution team included: Edward Ryan, a civilian attorney with the Department of Justice; Clayton G. Trivett Jr., a retired Navy lieutenant currently a civilian employee of the Department of Defense; George Toscas, Thomas P. Swanton and Jordan Goldstein of the Department of Justice and Jeffrey Groharing, a former U.S. Marine lawyer who left service to work at the Justice Department.
The lead military defense attorneys detailed by the Department of Defense currently are: Army Lt. Col. Michael Acuff, for Khalid Sheik Mohammed; Air Force Lt. Col. Barry Wingard, for Walid bin Attash; Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, for Ramzi bin al Shibh; Air Force Maj. Sterling Thomas, for Ammar al Baluchi; Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz, for Mustafa al Hawsawi.
On Sept. 6, 2006, President Bush disclosed the transfer of the defendants to Guantánamo and urged legislative approval for the trials: "As soon as Congress acts to authorize the military commissions I have proposed, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, can face justice."

















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