Amid Murky Investigation, Key Defender Asks to Quit 9/11 Case

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — A protracted-serving dying penalty protection lawyer for one of many 5 males accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults has requested to be faraway from the case, stirring new uncertainty about when the trial would possibly start.

It’s finally as much as the trial decide to resolve whether or not the lawyer, Cheryl Bormann, or any protection lawyer can resign. If she is allowed to go away, the decide could possibly be confronted with the conundrum of whether or not to gradual or halt pretrial proceedings till her alternative is employed and introduced on top of things.

Or the decide might resolve that the person she represents, Walid bin Attash, be tried individually as an accused conspirator within the assaults, which killed almost 3,000 folks.

Ms. Bormann first appeared on the courtroom in Could 2012 for the arraignment of Mr. bin Attash and the 4 different accused plotters, together with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the assault. The one feminine capital protection lawyer on the case, she drew consideration by carrying a head scarf and a black abaya, a conventional gown worn by girls in Saudi Arabia, the place her consumer grew up.

In time, most different girls engaged on the protection groups would comply with her instance and canopy their hair; some additionally wore loosefitting clothes, in what they’ve described as an indication of respect for the faith of the lads, whom they take into account to be victims of C.I.A. torture. The apparel has angered some kin of Sept. 11 victims, who interpreted the gesture as submissiveness to the accused terrorists.

It isn’t clear why Ms. Bormann abruptly resigned. However she lately filed a courtroom pleading that disclosed that her “efficiency and conduct” had been beneath investigation by the Army Commissions Protection Group, the Pentagon workplace that gives sources and legal professionals to navy commissions case.

Ms. Bormann mentioned that she couldn’t ethically signify the prisoner whereas the investigation was underway and requested that hearings this month be canceled. As a substitute, the decide, Col. Matthew N. McCall, notified legal professionals on Tuesday that he would maintain hearings with out the participation of Ms. Borman or her authorized group.

They’re scheduled to start out Friday and proceed for the subsequent two weeks.

The decide gave legal professionals and prosecutors till subsequent week to file pleadings on whether or not he ought to launch Ms. Bormann from the case.

Earlier than Guantánamo, she practiced capital protection in Chicago, the place she gained a popularity as a dogged fighter on the Prepare dinner County public defender’s murder job drive. She joined the struggle courtroom bar after Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois abolished the dying penalty in 2011, and has used the plain-spoken language of a death-penalty defender in courtroom arguments to clarify what’s at stake.

“This can be a case the place the federal government seeks to kill Mr. bin Attash and these different 4 males,” Ms. Bormann reminded the decide in November. Protection legal professionals had been urgent Colonel McCall to order the federal government to launch extra info from the C.I.A.’s so-called black websites, the place the Sept. 11 defendants had been held and tortured earlier than their switch to Guantánamo in 2006.

She has referred to prosecutors as “the federal government that wishes to kill him.” At one level, protesting the restricted hours she might spend along with her consumer, Ms. Bormann famous that “no exception is made for a commissions lawyer who’s defending a person the place the federal government needs to kill him.”

On the coronary heart of the difficulty confronting the decide is that Ms. Bormann serves as a so-called discovered counsel, a lawyer with particular abilities and expertise in defending folks at death-penalty trials. By regulation, every defendant in a capital case at Guantánamo is entitled to a discovered counsel.

However no alternative is ready within the wings, mentioned Brig. Gen. Jackie L. Thompson Jr. of the Military. Because the chief protection counsel for navy commissions, he can rent legal professionals for Guantánamo circumstances however doesn’t have authority to fireplace them. He oversaw the investigation of Ms. Bormann.

Neither Basic Thompson nor Ms. Bormann would elaborate on the substance of the investigation.

“My ongoing concern for Mr. bin Attash presents me from commenting,” she mentioned.

The final mentioned that he had taken no actions towards Ms. Bormann in gentle of the investigation and that she nonetheless had safety clearances and full entry to her workplaces. Ms. Bormann met with the decide on Monday; her group members have twice met with him individually, as soon as with Mr. bin Attash. Basic Thompson mentioned that the decide “has what he wants” to resolve whether or not to let her go.

In his view, he mentioned, the opposite legal professionals on her group — three civilians and two members of the navy — don’t qualify as discovered counsel.

After the discovered counsel for an additional defendant, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, obtained permission to go away the case in 2020 due to a coronary heart situation, the Pentagon took a number of months to rent, fund and procure safety clearances for the brand new lawyer, David I. Bruck.

Mr. Bruck, one of many nation’s prime capital defenders, mentioned no five-person capital case had been tried to verdict within the fashionable historical past of the dying penalty and requested for 30 months to organize. The request was by no means dominated upon as a result of the Guantánamo courtroom was closed for greater than 500 days due to the coronavirus pandemic.