Discussion Of Torture Keeps Guantanamo Trials In Limbo

Published January 26, 2016 at 9:20 AM PST

This June 17, 2013, photo shows a sign outside the Courthouse One Expeditionary Legal Complex at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. U.S. prosecutors are asking a military judge to reconsider his decision to try one of the men accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attack apart from the other four. Prosecutors have asked Army Col. James Pohl to hear arguments on their emergency motion involving Binalshibh first thing Monday, Aug. 11, 2014, at a pretrial hearing at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. (Bill Gorman/AP)

President Obama’s goal to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay by the end of his term appears increasingly unlikely. The president announced recently that 10 low-level Yemeni detainees who couldn’t be sent to Yemen as a result of that country’s upheaval, were accepted by neighboring Oman.

Now, just 93 prisoners remain, but there is still an issue that Congress and the president can’t seem to agree upon: What to do with the so-called high-value prisoners – the alleged architects of terrorism – who are either too dangerous or too reviled to release. At the top of that list is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

Here & Now’s Robin Young speaks with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s lead civilian attorney, David Nevin, and reporter James Rosen, who has been covering the story for McClatchy.

Guests

David Nevin, lead civilian attorney for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
James Rosen, reporter for McClatchy’s Washington bureau. He tweets @jamesmartinrose.