MAN ACCUSED IN 9/11 PLOT IS NOT FIT TO FACE TRIAL, MEDICAL BOARD SAYS
He is accused of conspiring on plane hijackings
A military medical board has concluded that Ramzi Binalshibh, who is accused of conspiring in the 9/11 attacks, has a mental illness that makes him incompetent to either face trial or plead guilty in the death penalty case, according to a report filed with his trial judge Friday.
The finding is the latest setback to prosecution efforts to bring the long-running capital cases at Guantánamo Bay to trial. Last week, a military judge threw out the confession of a man accused of plotting the USS Cole bombing, Guantánamo’s other capital case, as contaminated by his torture by the CIA.
The question of Binalshibh’s sanity and capacity to help his lawyers defend him has shadowed the 9/11 conspiracy case since his first court appearance in 2008. Then, a military lawyer disclosed that her client was restrained with ankle shackles and that the prison had him medicated with psychotropic drugs. He has disrupted pretrial hearings over the years with outbursts, and in court and in filings complained that the CIA torments him with noises, vibrations and other techniques to deprive of him sleep.
It was unclear whether the prisoner was allowed to see the report, which was filed under seal Friday; for years, he has resisted the idea that he has a mental illness and should be severed from the joint trial with the man accused of being the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and three other defendants. The five men are accused of conspiring in the plane hijackings in 2001 that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.
Now it is up to the judge, Col. Matthew McCall, to decide whether to remove Binalshibh from the case and proceed with a four-man prosecution or to postpone proceedings pending treatment. McCall has scheduled hearings on the topic for the week of Sept. 18 at Guantánamo Bay.
One issue will be whether prosecutors challenge the finding and seek testimony from the board members and other experts about how he might be treated with the limited health care available at the detention center of 30 prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.
Binalshibh’s lawyer, David Bruck, who was reached at Guantánamo Bay on Friday, declined to discuss or comment on the report.
Friday’s report was the result of an order from the judge in April for three mental health experts to investigate whether Binalshibh “is suffering from a mental disease or defect that renders him mentally incompetent to stand trial.” Prosecutors filed it under seal.
But three people who saw the report and spoke on condition of anonymity because it has not been released said he was found not competent. One person who read it said the panel diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder “with psychotic features.”
Binalshibh is accused of organizing the Hamburg, Germany, cell of 9/11 hijackers, including researching flight schools in the United States and wiring money to some of the 19 hijackers in the attack. He also allegedly worked with the cell leader, Mohamed Atta, and reported to leaders of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan that the attack would occur on 9/11.