For years, a thorny question has dominated pretrial hearings in the military commissions case over the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: Did the men accused of plotting them voluntarily confess in 2007 after the C.I.A.
had stopped torturing them, and could those statements be used as evidence at their eventual death-penalty trial?
analyst revealed that in 2009, when the Obama administration was planning to instead try the men in civilian court, federal prosecutors had decided against trying to offer the statements as evidence.
The revelation sets in stark relief the contrary decision by military prosecutors to build their case around summoning the F.B.I.
It also underlines how that decision has opened the door to years of litigation and contributed to a lengthy delay in getting the case to trial.
Persons:
Obama, Mark S, Martins
Organizations:
Brig
Locations:
Guantánamo