Guantánamo Prosecutor Seeks 2025 Trial in Bali Bombing Case


In federal court, Mr. Hodes said, that is routinely done the day a defendant is charged.

Prosecutors accuse the three prisoners — Mr. Nurjaman, Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep and Mohammed Farik Bin Amin — of murder, terrorism and conspiracy in the Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, and in the 2003 Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta, Indonesia, which killed at least 11 people and wounded at least 80.

The defendants were captured in Thailand in 2003 and spent more than three years in the secret C.I.A. prison network, where, according to their lawyers, they were tortured. They were brought to Guantánamo Bay in 2006. Monday was their first return to the courtroom since a two-day arraignment in August 2021.

At the back of the courtroom, in a spectator’s chamber, guests of the prosecution taped photos of four men into four empty front-row seats, apparently representing victims of the Bali bombing. Col. George C. Kraehe, the lead prosecutor, announced that relatives of the victims “have traveled a long distance to be here participating in these proceedings.”

The defendants, in traditional tunics, trousers and skullcaps, said little in court, but complained to the judge about the translations of the session, an issue they also had during their only other court appearances, in 2021.

Sometimes the Malaysians heard Indonesian dialect through their headsets, and sometimes the Indonesian heard translations meant for the Malaysians. Also, their lawyers protested, the military’s contract interpreters sometimes resorted to English when they forgot a key word. For example, an interpreter could not remember how to say “interpreter” in Malaysian dialect.

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