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Judge threatens to delay Bin Laden driver trial
A military judge on Friday threatened to delay the first Guantanamo Bay war crimes trial if prosecutors can't arrange for defense lawyers to question accused September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other possible witnesses.
- Agencies
- Published: 00:14 July 19, 2008
Guantanamo Bay: A military judge on Friday threatened to delay the first Guantanamo Bay war crimes trial if prosecutors can't arrange for defense lawyers to question accused September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other possible witnesses.
Defense lawyers plan to call Mohammed, fellow September 11 suspect Walid bin Attash and other "high-value" detainees at the Guantanamo prison camp as witnesses in the trial of Salim Hamdan, Osama Bin Laden's former driver who is scheduled to be put on trial on Monday.
"We've come to the point where the government needs to move," Judge Keith Allred, a Navy captain, said in response to warnings from prosecutors that security concerns might hamper efforts to arrange for a defense lawyer to question Mohammed and others before trial.
"I'll continue (postpone) the trial. You can send your witnesses home," Allred warned sternly. "It'll cost you an awful lot of money."
Defense lawyers said at the controversial detention center at the US base in southeastern Cuba that if they were not granted access to three detainees they wanted to see during the weekend they did not expect the trial to go forward on Monday.
Hamdan, a Yemeni in his late 30s, is charged with conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists. Prosecutors say he was a member of al Qaeda's inner circle while defense lawyers argue he was just a driver and mechanic in bin Laden's motor pool.
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