If all goes to schedule, Indonesian Encep Nurjaman (also known as Hambali
...real name Riduan Isamuddin, close personal friend of Osama bin Laden, one of the founders of Jemaah Islamiyah and the planner of the 2002 Bali bombings. He was captured with the help of a mid-Eastern intel service, shipped to Guantanamo to rot but he'll likely be released eventually because that was a long time ago and we were all so much younger then...), and Malaysians Nazir Bin Lep
| ...more formally Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, informally Lillie. He’s one of Hambali’s lieutenants — they were captured together in Thailand in 2003... |
| ... another Hambali lieutenant, he’s known more formally as Mohd Farik Bin Amin, his nom de guerre was Zubair Zaid and while it’s uncertain whether he was captured with the other two, the three spent years with the same interrogators. His cousin was master bomb maker Zulkifli Abdhir, called Marwan, who provided senior management and work product for the Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia, Jemaah Islamiyah, and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters until he intersected a hail of Philippine bullets in 2015... |
When the three were arrested 19 years ago, they were sent to CIA black sites, where they were tortured, before being transferred to the U.S. military prison in Cuba in 2006, according to a 2014 U.S. Senate report.
The military court and the U.S. Department of Defense did not release details of the planned hearing for the three, "all of whom have been charged jointly in connection with their alleged roles in the 2002 and 2003 bombings in Indonesia," in a notice to media interested in covering the proceedings at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo.
The trio first appeared at a military court there during their arraignment in August 2021. At the time, their lawyers lodged a protest before military Judge Hayes Larsen about the poor quality of the audio translations their clients were receiving.
Referred to as "alien unprivileged enemy belligerents" in some court documents, Nurjaman, bin Lep and bin Amin face charges related to twin bombings that killed 202 people in Bali in October 2002 and a bombing at the J.W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta in 2003. None of the men entered a plea to the charges against them following their arraignment last August.
In an effort to improve translations, Larsen ordered military prosecutors to hire and assign qualified interpreters for any upcoming court action.
"The defense teams all indicated they need assurances in order to be able to use their government-provided defense interpreters for attorney-client communications," Larsen wrote in a January court filing ahead of what was supposed to be a pre-trial hearing in late February.
Responding to the judge, prosecutors said in a Feb. 1 filing that they were seeking to hire four full-time interpreters, two for each language.
"Because of the uncertain timeline involved in obtaining clearances for new hires who do not have clearances, it is too speculative to estimate when fully cleared full-time interpreters will be available to assist the commission," they wrote.
James Hodes, who represents Hambali, blasted the prosecutors, noting they had 18 years to prepare their case against his client, which included hiring "qualified commission interpreters."
"This is what you are tasked with and this is what you have failed to provide," he told BenarNews earlier this year while calling the lack of interpreters a "huge obstacle for a fair trial."
Hodes could not immediately be reached on Monday for comment on the proposed court dates.