National Defense

USS Cole Bomber Loses Insanity Appeal

JTF Guantanamo photo by U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Gino Reyes

The terrorist behind the 2000 USS Cole bombing lost an initial competency appeal Friday as his death penalty trial looms.

An Army psychiatrist ruled Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri competent to stand trial, while a federal judge declined to involve himself in the case, and a military judge agreed to hear from mental health experts that disagree with the psychiatrist’s findings, Just Security reported Saturday. This occurs as a jury is selected for his trial, which is set to be the first capital trial by military commission at Guantanamo Bay.

A military official with insider ties to the Office of Military Commissions told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the RMC 706, a rule used to determine if a defendant is mentally competent to stand trial, determined on Friday that there was nothing about al-Nashiri’s mental competency hindering him from standing trial. However, the court is proceeding with an RMC 909 —another ruling used to assess a defendant’s mental competency.

Orchestrated by two Al-Qaeda suicide bombers, the attack targeted the USS Cole, a Navy destroyer fueling at the port of Aden in Yemen on Oct. 12, 2000. The attack killed 17 American sailors and injured approximately 40 more. Al-Nashiri is accused of masterminding the attacks, and overseeing all Al-Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf.

His lawyer, Allison Miller, sought a federal court order to stop the jury selection until jury selection until there could be a more comprehensive evaluation of whether he is competent to stand trial and assist in his own defense, per Just Security.

“There is a real danger that we will go to trial without my client given the competency evaluation he is due,” Miller claimed, according to the outlet. “He is a very damaged man.”

Miller cites al-Nashiri’s CIA detention for calling his mental competency into question. From 2002 to 2004, the CIA held al-Nashiri, mostly in solitary confinement. During this time, he underwent enhanced interrogation techniques.

The impacts of these techniques were so severe that his 2007 confessions to federal agents at Guantanamo Bay were declared inadmissible due to PTSD and a traumatic brain injury, per Just Security.

Miller allegedly acquired two expert testimonies arguing that al-Nashiri was not fit to stand trial. However, U.S .District Court Judge Royce Lamberth, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, rejected the defense team’s request, ruling that the military commission must go on, the outlet reported. A military psychiatrist submitted an 80-page report asserting that al-Nashiri is fit to stand trial.

The trial is set to commence in 2027.