New Judge Will Use Summer to Rule on Suppression; Prior Suppression Article Wins Third New York Press Club Award

The fifth judge to preside over hearings in the Sept. 11 case – Lt. Col. Michael Schrama – helmed his first hearing in December. He then decided to resume the suppression cases for the three defendants, including alleged plot mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, who attempted but ultimately failed to plead guilty and therefore are now back in the case. I wrote a lengthy article on the prosecution’s oral arguments this month in which they claimed that the defendants gave voluntary confessions to the FBI on Guantanamo Bay in 2007, even though they had earlier been tortured and held in incommunicado detention by the CIA. The defense teams then gave their rebuttal arguments in Week 2 that contended that Mohammad, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al Hawsawi had been conditioned into saying whatever their interrogators wanted.

If this sounds familiar, that’s because the fourth defendant who did not want to plead guilty – Ammar al Baluchi – took his suppression case to its completion last year. And he won. My article on the prior judge’s suppression of his confessions due to CIA torture just won a New York Press Club Award for “Spot” or breaking news. This is my third award from the NYPC for my Gitmo coverage, and I am once again honored to be included in such a great group of journalists.