Public Education - The International Program

ISN 10015  

Abd Al Rahim Hussein Muhammed Abdu Al Nashiri 

Pre-Trial Hearings November 17-21, 2025 

Events: 

Day 1, November 17 

The November 17 hearing was delayed until 12:03 p.m. due to classified (802 and 505) closed-door hearings and additional time was needed to recalibrate the audio-visual (A/V) feed on GTMO and the mainland. (The hurricane that recently struck GTMO flooded their new A/V equipment, requiring legacy equipment to be hastily reinstalled on both ends to enable coordination between the courtroom and the Remote Hearing Room (RHR).) And an additional remote observation location had been activated in Long Island, NY, with two new counsel appearing on behalf of the government (prosecution) team, who were required to place their credentials on record.  

The judge proceeded to summarize the 802 sessions that occurred since the last hearing. He then reminded personnel they must appear in the courtroom on island unless granted prior authorization to attend from the RHR. At that time, Ms. Miller, Learned Counsel for the defense, brought an oral motion for continuance of the proceedings due to a pulmonary embolism that prevents her from flying to GTMO. The government argued that the RHR, as an extension of the well of the courtroom, is a proper location for the appearance of defense and government counsel, so a continuance was not necessary. Defense counsel countered that when appearing from the RHR, all conversation between ISN 10015 Nashiri (Nashiri) and any counsel at the RHR must take place over a secure video conference, and that arrangement is wholly inadequate. The judge ultimately ruled that the proceedings would go forward but chose to take the arguments under advisement regarding any future issues confining counsel of either side to the RHR.  

Discussion then turned to rearranging the week’s planned schedule to allow a defense-appointed medical examiner to see Nashiri, during which the defense appeared to accuse the judge of intemperate or ill-tempered behavior toward the defense. The judge took the government and defense counsel’s proposed schedules under advisement and placed the commission in recess at 1:28 p.m., to reconvene at 9:00 the next morning.

Day 2, November 18 

The commission came to order at 9:00 a.m. on November 18, with significant static and pixelation on the observer feed. Similar problems on the feed between the courtroom and the RHR led the defense to object to proceeding with the day’s plans until all A/V problems could be resolved, but the judge elected to overrule the objection.  

Defense Motion AE 674 

The judge then admonished all of the lawyers to do their work outside of docketed time and to be prepared for court proceedings. The defense noted that it had done as much preparation as possible, but the government shutdown had canceled investigative travel to the Middle East that might have turned up witnesses to exonerate Nashiri. And since February marks the start of Ramadan, travel approvals requiring 60-day lead times would not be helpful at this time. Although the judge did not respond to this complaint, he did segue into his plan to deny a motion to abate (AE 674) as moot because of the government shutdown, since the government is once again functioning. He noted that he had been through four such shutdowns during his time in uniform, and that he is cognizant of their impact and so has been granting relief for anyone requesting not to travel or, particularly, to use the RHR. He then ruled from the bench denying the AE 674 motion, promising a written ruling later.  

Defense Motion AE 227  

Discussion then moved to defense’s motion AE 227 concerning the use of questionnaires versus voir dire for the choice of trial panel members and written arguments to the contrary that asserted that voir dire was a suitable method but used “fulsome voir dire” and “extensive voir dire” interchangeably, where those terms are considered to have different definitions. Although the defense stated he planned to withdraw the motion, he wanted it on record to prevent future claims that its concerns were not addressed. It was resolved that the government and the defense would work together to create an agreement to proceed under a particular term’s definition.  

Defense Motion AE653  

The defense then brought motion AE 653 to exclude all statements that Nashiri made to the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) on the basis that they were “statements made in the course of plea discussion.” The defense defined the CSRTs as an “alternate procedure for release,” making it a plea discussion that either allowed the release of a given participant, or the continued incarceration of that participant. The judge queried how the CSRTs could be an alternative procedure, when it was the only procedure functioning at the time. 

The defense argued that the Military Rules of Evidence encompass prior-to-charges discussions as alternatives to post-charging procedures. The judge asked if, given that the CSRTs were about status and many alternative release procedures are based on conduct, there is a difference between status tribunals and conduct-based tribunals. The defense responded that the CSRTs were both status-based and conduct-based, which led the judge to ask if military commissions are not conduct-based, how a status-based proceeding would be an alternative to a conduct-based proceeding. He also asked how a CSRT could be seen as “in lieu of “military commissions, when the CSRT established the jurisdictional status of the military commissions over the detainees to be charged. The defense did not answer the first question but contended that Military Rule of Evidence 410 indicates that “in lieu of” is not necessary for defining alternative procedures.  

The government chose to argue on the basis of Military Rule of Evidence 420 allowing the admission of CSRT statements because they were made voluntarily. The government also noted that since the CSRTs authorized some releases based on determinations of participants’ enemy or non-combatant status but did not allow for the offer of a plea to avoid or escape additional charges, they do not meet the definition of a plea discussion. Possibly, it was not even a discussion, the government contended, because there was no offer of exchange. The government also held that since the CSRT determined status and not guilt, it could not be considered an alternative to the military commissions.  

The judge made no rulings and recessed the commission for lunch.  

AE Motion on the status of expert consultants 

Arguments after lunch concerned the status of expert consultants and whether the government or the defense had a better claim on particular expert consultants. Unfortunately, signal fluctuations causing cascades of technical difficulties prevented observation of these arguments.  

AE Defense Motion to exclude some evidentiary items  

The following AE defense motion was brought to exclude some of the government’s evidentiary items, because the precise notice of what the government would be using from a 488-page document was not provided. Further, translations of documents to be used were supplied without the original Arabic documents, or translations were supplied with the interpreter and date of interpretation redacted. The judge showed reluctance to exclude this evidence and asked for a less drastic remedy. The defense suggested the deadline for the defense to submit an evidentiary list be extended and for the government to be penalized for non-compliance in submitting an evidentiary packet. The judge concluded that his order for the creation of the evidentiary submission packets was unclear, and that the government had supplied the evidence from a discovery posture (favoring wholeness of document) instead of a trial posture (favoring precisely what would be provided to the fact-finder), so directed the government to provide more clarity and also originals in addition to translations, and adjusted the defense response deadline.  

Final AE Defense Motion 

The final AE motion argued on Tuesday was 655, which was a defense objection to the government inclusion of a 20-minute Arabic video and two hour-long Arabic videos, as well as one photograph, in the evidence the government intends to use in trial. The government noted that the hour-long videos are martyrdom videos by the suicide bombers that crashed into the U.S.S. Cole, so the whole of each video is directly relevant, but admitted no intent to use the entirety of the 20-minute video. The judge directed the government to edit the videos and to provide the edits to the defense. The judge recessed the commission until 9:00 a.m. the next day.