Bali nightclub bombing suspects in Guantanamo are charged at protracted arraignment
LA TimesThree men held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center were formally charged Tuesday in connection with the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings and other plots in Southeast Asia after 18 years in U.S. custody, with defense lawyers insisting afterward that the long-delayed arraignment was so flawed it may have to be repeated. The start of their long-delayed case comes as other war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo have languished without resolution for years amid legal challenges and as President Biden says he intends to close the detention center, which now holds 39 of the 779 men who were brought to the base following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “Frankly, after this two-day arraignment, I didn’t see any evidence that he would get a fair trial,” said Christine Funk, the attorney for Mohammed Farik bin Amin, one of the Malaysian defendants. The defense complained that a Malaysian interpreter’s language skills were so poor that at least one defendant couldn’t understand what was being said in court; that another Malay interpreter was improperly working for the prosecution because he previously assisted the prisoners when they appeared before a prisoner review board at Guantanamo; and that an Indonesian interpreter had been overheard disparaging the men as terrorists who should be killed.