The Army judge in the U.S.S. Cole bombing case ordered the prosecution on Monday to do its “due diligence” in providing defense lawyers with any evidence the U.S. government might have “regarding Iran’s role” in the attack off Yemen 25 years ago.
The question arose this month when President Trump, announcing his justifications for attacking Iran, said that Iran knew about the attack and was “probably” involved. “Many died,” he said in a recorded message.
In all, 17 U.S. sailors were killed in the bombing by Al Qaeda on Oct. 12, 2000.
Family members of Cole victims have sued Iran in federal court and won default judgments from a U.S. victims assistance fund because Iran never answered the civil complaint.
Defense lawyers say they have seen no evidence of a link between Iran and the attack in hundreds of thousands of pages of documents provided to them in trial preparation.
A Saudi man, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, has been charged with orchestrating the attack and is awaiting a trial by military commission at Guantánamo Bay. He was captured by the United States in the United Arab Emirates in 2002 and first charged in 2011.
Mr. Nashiri’s confessions in the case were thrown out because he was tortured by the C.I.A. before his transfer to military detention at Guantánamo in 2006.
In his order on Monday, the judge, Col. Matthew Fitzgerald, set an April 10 deadline for military prosecutors to report back on whether they had found any information in the possession of the U.S. government about a link that could help or hurt the case against Mr. Nashiri.
Colonel Fitzgerald has scheduled jury selection in the case to start on June 1. The trial is expected to last until the end of the year.
Carol Rosenberg reports on the wartime prison and court at Guantánamo Bay. She has been covering the topic since the first detainees were brought to the U.S. base in 2002.
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