About the war crimes trial of the alleged al-Qaida commander | Miami Herald

ABOUT THE TRIAL

Next Hearing: Jan. 7-14, 2019. The judge has set aside the first portion of the week-plus hearing for testimony from medical providers and prison officials about how to hold a trial and accommodate a captive still suffering complications from five spine surgeries at Guantánamo. The judge’s order is here.

Charges: The captive is charged as Abd al Hadi al Iraqi. He is accused of Denying Quarter, Attacking Protected Property, Using Treachery or Perfidy, and Attempted Use of Treachery or Perfidy in a series of attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan between about 2003 and 2004. Also, he’s accused of conspiring to commit law of war offenses. The U.S. government alleges that fighters who answered to Hadi committed a series of war crimes, including shooting at a U.S. military medevac helicopter, setting roadside charges that killed allied soldiers, and attacking civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Prosecutors seek life in prison. Hadi’s is the only current, contested non-capital trial at Guantánamo.

Arraigned: June 2014

Judge: Marine Lieutenant Colonel Michael D. Libretto, shown in a robe, got the job June 13. He replaced Marine Colonel Peter S. Rubin, who replaced Navy Captain J. Kirk Waits as military judge on Nov. 1, 2016.

Prosecutors: Navy Commander Douglas J. Short is the lead prosecutor with support from Commander Kevin L. Flynn; B. Vaughn Spencer, a demobilized Navy reservist, and Marine Captain Johnathan Rudy.

Defense attorneys: Pentagon-paid attorneys civilian Adam Thurschwell, Air Force Major Yolanda Miller and Susan Hensler, who was hired for the case in the summer of 2017 but didn’t get fully cleared until November 2018. He also has four pro-bono lawyers who don’t appear in court: Washington, D.C., lawyer Brent Rushforth, a former Pentagon deputy general counsel who handled intelligence issues during the Carter administration, international law expert Catherine Moore and attorneys James G. Szymanski and Robert L. Palmer.

Trial date: None. In July 2016 prosecutors proposed a timetable toward a summer of 2017 trial.

ABOUT THE DEFENDANT

Born: In February 1961 in Mosul, Iraq. Charged as Abd al Hadi al Iraqi, although through lawyers he announced in court in May 2016 that his true name is Nashwan al Tamir. His lawyers subsequently said that, on his Iraqi citizenship card, he was identified as Nashwan al-Ramer Abdulrazzaq. Adding to the puzzle, a CIA profile of the captive released on his arrival at Guantánamo called his “true name” Nashwan Abd al-Razzaq Abd al-Baqi. .

Captured: In Turkey in October 2006, his charge sheet alleges, trying to reach Iraq from Afghanistan by order of Osama bin Laden “to advise and assist” al-Qaida in Iraq. He was held for 170 days by the CIA but was not subjected to the spy agency’s Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, according to page 448 of the Senate Intelligence Committee study of the secret detention program, then brought to Guantánamo in April 2007.

Paramilitary background: He is the only known professionally trained soldier to go before the war court. He was part of Saddam Hussein’s army, a non-commissioned officer in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, according to his American lawyers, then fled Iraq for Afghanistan after Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, before the start of Operation Desert Storm.

Health: His attorneys say he arrived at Guantánamo with a degenerative disc disease, discovered before his capture through magnetic resonance imaging in an undisclosed country. In September 2017, as a hurricane was headed to the Caribbean, the condition became so acute he was discovered incontinent in his Camp 7 cell. The Pentagon then scrambled a neurosurgery team to the base for the first of so-far five emergency spine surgeries, which have left him using a wheelchair and a walker. Post-op recovery has forced his trial judge to repeatedly postpone or cancel pretrial hearings.

ABOUT THE VICTIMS

His 2014 charge sheet does not name names but does mention a series of attacks that killed troops.

▪ It alleges he led and executed an attack on U.S. forces near Shkin, Afghanistan, around Sept. 29, 2003 and that killed a soldier and wounded two others. On Sept. 30, 2003, the Pentagon announced that Pfc. Evan W. O’Neill, 19, of Haverhill, Mass., was killed on Sept. 29 in Shkin, Afghanistan. It said O’Neill was on patrol when he was engaged by enemy forces. He died of injuries sustained during the attack. He was a third-generation soldier and an only child, according to a Boston Globe article.

▪ It alleges that he compensated insurgents who ambushed U.S. troops on April 25, 2003 near Shkin. Army Pvt. Jerod Rhoton Dennis, 19, of Oklahoma and Airman 1st Class Raymond Losano, 24, of Texas were killed in that attack. In March 2017, al-Qaida member Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Adam Harun, known as Spin Ghul, was convicted in a U.S. federal court of crimes related to carrying out the attack following his extradition to the United States by Italy.

▪ It also alleges that Hadi funded a Jan. 27, 2004 suicide bombing that killed a Canadian soldier. A CBC report at the time identifies that man as Cpl. Jamie Brendan Murphy, 26, of Conception Harbour, Newfoundland.

▪ It also alleges that Hadi funded a Jan. 28, 2004 suicide bombing that killed a British soldier and wounded members of the Estonian military. A BBC report at the time identifies that man as Private Jonathan Kitulagoda, 23, of Devon, England.

▪ It also alleges he “directed, planned, funded and trained” the people who attacked a Norwegian military convoy with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades around May 23, 2004, killing a member of the Norwegian military. A Norwegian report identifies a casualty on that day as Grenadier Tommy Roedningsby, 29.

▪ It also alleges he “ordered and funded” a May 29, 2004 roadside bomb attack near Qalat, Afghanistan, that killed four “U.S. service members.” News reports describe the four as U.S. Special Forces whose Humvee ran over a land mine in pursuit of Osama bin Laden and identify the dead as Petty Officer 1st Class Brian J. Ouellette, 37, a Navy SEAL from Waltham, Mass., and Army Special Forces Capt. Daniel Eggers, 28, from Cape Coral, Fla., and Staff Sgt. Robert Mogensen, 26, of Leesville, La., and Pfc. Joseph Jeffries, 21, of Beaverton, Ore.

RELATED COVERAGE

▪ Nov. 9, 2018: Guards install hospital bed in war court for alleged al-Qaida commander

▪ Nov. 6, 2018: Alleged al-Qaida commander taken by ambulance from war court with back surgery complications

▪ Sept. 28, 2018: Captive’s surgery recovery thwarts news judge’s week-long bid to hold a hearing

▪ Sept. 24, 2018: Alleged al-Qaida war criminal recovering from 5th spine surgery snarls new judge’s hearing

▪ June 6, 2018: Gitmo commanders seek new prison with hospice-care wing for ex-CIA captives

▪ May 24: 2018: Accused al-Qaida commander undergoes 5th emergency spine surgery

▪ May 10, 2018: Al-Qaida terrorist took his Guantánamo art home as a reward for trial testimony

▪ May 2, 2018: U.S. releases Guantánamo convict to Saudi Arabia in first Trump transfer

▪ April 17, 2018: Defense lawyers balk at mid-2019 trial date

▪ Feb. 20, 2018: A terrorist struck a deal to go home to Saudi Arabia. He’s still at Guantánamo

▪ Feb. 11, 2018: Tortured al-Qaida snitch gets shrimp, strawberry Oreos and U.S. sitcoms at Guantánamo

▪ Jan. 31, 2018: Judge to give liberal bathroom breaks but won’t halt trial of alleged war criminal

▪ Jan. 30, 2018: War court hearing cut short when fragile prisoner can’t get a bathroom break

▪ Jan. 29, 2018: Alleged al-Qaida commander returning to court between spine surgeries and MRI

▪ Jan. 5, 2018: Gitmo North? Judge to hold secret war court session near Pentagon

▪ Sept. 26, 2017: U.S. deliberately withheld medical care at Guantánamo, federal lawsuit claims

▪ Sept. 15, 2017: Alleged al-Qaida commander needs more spine surgery; next Guantánamo hearing in doubt

▪ Sept. 7, 2017: Doctors beat Hurricane Irma to Gitmo to operate on alleged war criminal’s spine

▪ Aug. 15, 2017: To go home, Saudi terrorist IDs al-Qaida commander

▪ Aug. 14, 2017: Alleged al-Qaida commander has lower back problem, skips court session

▪ Aug. 11, 2017: Judge cancels U.S. video feed of terrorist’s time-capsule testimony

▪ April 24, 2017: Prosecutors want Saudi terrors to finger alleged al-Qaida commander

▪ Jan. 9, 2017: Troops force alleged al-Qaida Army commander into war court

▪ Nov. 3, 2016: Prosecutor orders special probe of war court defense teams

▪ Oct. 27, 2016: New, Marine judge assigned to Guantánamo war court case

▪ July 12, 2016: Alleged al-Qaida commander returns to war court, seeks delay

▪ May 17, 2016: Alleged al-Qaida commander reveals new name

▪ Sept. 22, 2015: Alleged al-Qaida commander fires legal team, paralyzing trial

▪ March 1, 2015: Navy judge named in discrimination complaint lifts female guard no-touch order

▪ Jan. 29, 2015: Prosecutor: Female-guard dispute is al-Qaida conspiracy

▪ Jan. 26, 2015: Female guards file discrimination complaints against war court judges

▪ Nov. 17, 2014: Prosecutors: Prison needs female guards touching, moving ex-CIA captives

▪ Nov. 10, 2014: Judge orders prison to stop using female guards to move prisoner to lawyer meetings

▪ Oct. 30, 2014: War court censors word ‘female’ in legal argument

▪ Oct. 16, 2014: New coed guard duty causing ruckus at high-value prison

▪ Sept. 15, 2014: Iraqi captive gets Marine lawyer who invaded Iraq

▪ June 23, 2014: Iraqi wants civilian attorney war court to navigate Afghanistan, Iraq

▪ June 18, 2014: Iraqi appears in Guantánamo court on war crimes charges

▪ June 2, 2014: Pentagon OKs war crimes trial for Iraqi at Guantánamo

updated Dec. 5, 2018