The second week of jury selection in the USS Cole bombing case wrapped up at Guantanamo Bay on Friday with six U.S. military officers chosen for the panel, the most recent being two women from the Army Reserve.
The first, a major and former helicopter pilot, was in middle school at the time of the 9/11 attacks, the reason for the creation of the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay. “To me the global war on terror was where we came from,” she said. “I came in on the back end of all that.”
The other, a captain, was even younger on 9/11. “My first-grade teacher was freaking out and everybody was really quiet,” she recalled. In the military, she specializes in protecting against the threat of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.
Neither woman had a memory of where they were on Oct. 12, 2000 when suicide bombers from al-Qaeda attacked the USS Cole while it was on a refueling stop in Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed and dozens of others were wounded in the attack, which crippled the Navy destroyer.
Both women come from Army families. And each officer apparently satisfied the requirements of the defense and prosecution lawyers that, if the defendant, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, is convicted, they would consider the full range of punishment – from time served to death by military execution.
Al-Nashiri has been in U.S. custody since 2002 and was held for the first four years in C.I.A. prisons, where he was tortured. During jury selection, defense lawyers have told the judge that, if the defendant is convicted, they intend to argue for no prison sentence.
Defense lawyers have sought permission from the judge, Army Col. Matthew Fitzgerald, to tell the panel that, even if the defendant is found not guilty, he will not necessarily go free, information that could figure into the prisoner’s sentence, if he were convicted. The judge has yet to rule on the request.
In the course of the week, the judge also excluded four officers who were questioned about their attitude and experiences, including a lieutenant colonel in the Army who enlisted in 1990 and became an officer 20 years later. Prosecutors argued the infantry officer, who is based in Europe, was qualified to serve. The judge focused on the officer’s involvement in Afghanistan in Operation Anaconda, which he described as part of the mission to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, noting that bin Laden is the first named co-conspirator on al-Nashiri’s charge sheet.
The judge also excused a Navy intelligence officer, a lieutenant colonel who listed his opinion on the death penalty as neutral in a questionnaire that he received from the court earlier this year. But on Thursday he told the court that his position on capital punishment had since hardened into opposition to the death penalty. “Not my call to make,” he said.
The court has one more week of proceedings before a Thanksgiving break and five more officers to examine. Jury selection will resume in December with 18 more officers mobilized to Guantanamo Bay in the effort to choose 20 people total: 12 as jurors, six as alternates, and one each for prosecution and defense lawyers to excuse for no reason.
