Life is the maximum possible penalty for the offenses charged, but Al-Darbi has entered into a pre-trial agreement---which the court now reviews with prosecution, defense, and accused.  Again, we’ll exci...

With Al-Darbi’s guilty plea entered, we turn to the nuts and bolts for pleas under the Military Commissions Act and implementing rules---of which there are many.  Given that numerosity, we’ll summarize t...

The image is different on the Fort Meade screen: we see the rarely-used bench, inside Courtroom One at Guantanamo.  (The 9/11 and Al-Nashiri cases, as y’all now, are conducted in Courtroom Two.)  The mil...

Lawfare returns to Fort Meade's storied CCTV outpost, this time for arraignment in the Guantanamo military commission case of United States v. Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al Darbi.  Along with the usual ar...

As I noted in an earlier post, the UK High Court in an opinion by Lord Justice John Laws dismissed David Miranda’s suit challenging his detention by the Metropolitan Police at London’s Heathrow Airport o...

n AE172, Richard Kammen challenges the Convening Authority’s power to select members of the military commission, come trial-time.  (This incorporates some arguments from another filing, AE117, regarding ...

Our prior motion challenged one charge relating to the attack on the Limburg---hazarding a vessel---and its status under international law.  Our next one, AE174, takes a somewhat different tack. It compr...

It's boat time.  Recall that Al-Nashiri is charged with playing a role in the attack on the M/V Limburg, a French-flagged oil tanker, in Yemen; the episode resulted in the death of a Bulgarian national, ...

Your correspondent returns to the Fort Meade CCTV outpost, to take in almost-live broadcasts of the day's hearing in United States v. Al-Nashiri.  A little after 0900, we learn the answer to an important...

Aaaaand we’re back.  In AE184, Al-Nashiri seeks the military judge’s assistance, in sending a subpoena to Jose Rodriguez pursuant to Rule 703. That’s the controversial former CIA officer and author of “H...

AE197 is up next.  That’s the defense’s motion to dismiss for unlawful "command" influence.  A gentle correction from the bench: the military judge suggests, and defense attorney Army Maj. Thomas Hurley ...

This takes us to presence.  Does Al-Nashiri understand his right to attend the proceedings, and the consequences that might flow from even a knowing and voluntary waiver of that right?  After hearing the...

This morning, the UK’s Royal Court of Justice dismissed David Miranda’s application for judicial review of his nearly nine-hour detention at London’s Heathrow Airport last August. The Metropolitan police...

So does Al-Nashiri want to fire his Learned Counsel? That individual, attorney Richard Kammen, tells the military judge that he met with the accused for several hours Monday and Tuesday---and that lo, Al...