United States v. Abu Ghayth
United States v. Abu Ghayth
Opinion of the Court
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Defendant Sulaiman Abu Ghayth, a spokesman for Usama bin Laden and al Qaeda in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was arrested abroad by U.S. authorities in 2013 and brought to this district. He ultimately was convicted by a jury of conspiring to kill United States nationals, conspiring to provide material support or resources, knowing or intending that they would be used in preparation for, or in carrying out, a conspiracy to kill United States nationals, and providing such material support or resources.
During trial, and after the government had rested, Abu Ghayth moved to take the testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (“KSM”), who is detained as an enemy combatant at Guantanamo Bay, via live, closed circuit television (“CCTV”) or, in the alternative, that his testimony be preserved through deposition pursuant to Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
Facts
I. Al Qaeda and Abu Ghayth’s Involvement
A. Early al Qaeda Attacks
As is well known, Usama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda until his death in 2011, orchestrated numerous terrorist attacks against the United States. In 1998, bin Laden and al Qaeda planned and executed bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, in which 224 were killed and over a thousand injured. In 2000, they bombed the U.S.S. COLE in the port of Aden in Yemen. Most notably, bin Laden and other al Qaeda members orchestrated the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001 in which airplanes were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, killing thousands of Americans.
B. The Shoe-Bomb Plot
The World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks were only two of the contemplated al Qaeda terrorist attacks involving airplanes. “At the end of September or beginning of October 2001,” it hatched the so-called shoe-bomb plot, which involved packing explosives into shoes to be worn by suicide bombers who would board civilian aircraft within or bound for the United
C. Abu Ghayth
Abu Ghayth appears to have become involved with al Qaeda in the summer of 2001 — that is, after the 1998 Embassy bombings and the 2000 attack on the U.S. S. COLE, during the run up to the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the early stages of the shoe-bomb plot, but before September 11, 2001 and before the shoe-bomb plot was put in motion. In June 2001, he traveled to Afghanistan from his home in Kuwait, where he was a religious leader and teacher.
In the course of that summer, Abu Ghayth returned briefly to Kuwait to retrieve his pregnant wife and seven children.
Four days later, al Qaeda suicide bombers flew hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Abu Ghayth claims to have learned about the attacks after they occurred from the media while staying at a Kuwaiti acquaintance’s house in Kabul.
Following the September 12, 2001 video, Abu Ghayth appeared as an al Qaeda spokesperson in videos dated October 2001,
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the U.S. military entered Afghanistan to combat al Qaeda and the Taliban. In the course of those operations, the military recovered several so-called brevity cards that were introduced into evidence.
II. Events Preceding the Court’s Rulings
Abu Ghayth first was indicted in the thirteenth superseding indictment in this case (“S 13”), filed on March 1, 2013.
Abu Ghayth was on notice for many months prior to trial that KSM might possess information relevant to his defense. Defense counsel conceded that, in or shortly following the summer of 2013, they identified several Guantanamo detainees— including KSM — who might possess information useful to their client as a result of discovery provided by the government.
On December 20, 2013, the government filed a second superseding indictment against Abu Ghayth (“S14”). It contained two additional counts that were based on the same core factual allegations as Count One.
S14 and the government’s Rule 15 motion were filed six weeks before the scheduled start of trial, which at that time was February 3, 2014. Abu Ghayth moved for a sixty-day continuance.
On February 4, 2014 — approximately six weeks after S14 was filed and three weeks before the adjourned start of the trial— Abu Ghayth moved to compel the Department of Defense to grant access to KSM for an interview.
On February 11, the United States Attorney’s Office agreed in writing to an in-person interview of KSM at Guantanamo by a member of the defense team, with certain enumerated conditions.
Abu Ghayth then drafted 452 questions
As of February 25, KSM had not provided a response to defendant’s 452 written questions to the designated, walled off U.S. government personnel for its review.
Approximately one week later — after the jury had been selected and the trial begun — defense counsel informed the Court that KSM had agreed to provide a written response to the walled off Assistant United States Attorney for review.
KSM never did answer defendant’s 452 questions. The defense team instead received thirteen pages of a fourteen-page
The statement provided a few facts about Abu Ghayth, including his position as an imam, and then launched into a lengthy essay detailing “the relationship between Al-Qaeda and the government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”
Finally, KSM included one short paragraph in which he asserted that he never spoke with Abu Ghayth about the shoe-bomb plot and added that “those tasked with giving statements to the media do not necessarily know all the details of an operations [sic] and are sometimes even unaware of the very existence of the operation.”
Abu Ghayth filed the first motion at issue here — the motion to take KSM’s testimony by CCTV or by deposition — on Sunday, March 16.
III. Events Subsequent to the Court’s Rulings
On March 19, after the Court first denied the Rule 15 motion, Abu Ghayth took the witness stand. In relevant part, he denied having had any foreknowledge of the shoe-bomb plot
The Court received page 12 of KSM’s statement that same day. The contents of that page did not counsel in favor of reconsideration. KSM, consistent with Abu Ghayth’s own testimony, there denied that Abu Ghayth played a role in our knew about the September 11 attacks in advance, other than “that there was an impending operation that would be big.”
Finally, during closing statements, defense counsel acknowledged that Abu Hafs al Masri, as opposed to KSM, had been the primary architect of the shoe-bomb plot until Abu Hafs was killed in late November or early December 2001.
Discussion
I. Legal Standard
The Second Circuit has held that witnesses may testify through CCTV where the government satisfies the standard for taking a deposition under Rule 15.
The district court need not grant a motion under Rule 15 that is made after unexcused delay or on the eve of trial.
II. The Proposed Testimony Would Not Have Been Material
Abu Ghayth’s failure to satisfy the exceptional circumstances standard in this case is quite clear, even putting aside his failure to pursue the possibility of testimony from KSM on a timely basis, which is discussed below. This is because Abu Ghayth had failed to show that the proposed testimony would be material, admissible, non-cumulative, and competent.
As an initial matter, KSM prefaced the written statement with the following disclaimer:
“There are extensive areas about which I have no knowledge because of the nature of my work with Al-Qaeda during which I held many different positions during different periods of time and under different conditions. Therefore, my answers in these areas will be based upon my general knowledge.”102
In other words, a great deal of what appears in the written statement consists of assertions and understandings that are not based on personal knowledge. Moreover, it is difficult to discern what is based on personal knowledge and what is based on so-called general knowledge. But Federal Rule of Evidence 602 provides that “[a] witness may testify to a matter only if evidence is introduced sufficient to support a finding that the witness has personal knowledge of the matter.” Thus, by his own admission, much of what KSM said in the written statement would not be admissible even if he testified in person.
This is compounded by the fact that defense counsel, during oral argument, acknowledged that a majority of the KSM statement has “absolutely nothing to do with this trial at all. They’re [ie., the pages of the statement] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed opining about geopolitical issues, geopolitical politics, and the history of A1 Qaeda.”
First, Abu Ghayth claimed that KSM “provides an explanation that is directly at odds with the government’s theory as to what the brevity cards mean.”
Second, Abu Ghayth claimed that KSM would “provide an explanation that is directly at odds with what the government’s theory of bayat is.”
The fact, if it be so, that KSM does not know whether Abu Ghayth swore bayat to bin Laden simply was not material, particularly in light of Agent Butsch’s testimony that Abu Ghayth told him that he did not make bayat to bin Laden, but nevertheless promised that he would assist bin Laden as a religious scholar and orator.
Third, counsel asserted that KSM would have “deal[t] directly with the fact that Sulaiman Abu Ghayth had no knowledge, was not involved with, played no role in the Richard Reid shoe bombing whatsoever” and addressed al Qaeda’s practice of compartmentalization of information, which counsel argued meant that Abu Ghayth would have been ignorant of the
Moreover, Abu Ghayth failed to address the lack of any basis in the KSM statement from which to conclude that KSM was in a position to know what Abu Ghayth knew and did not know. Defense counsel admitted during closing arguments — which occurred after the Court’s rulings — that Abu Hafs al Masri, and not KSM, was the primary architect of the plot during the time at which Abu Ghayth made the “storm of airplanes” videos.
Fourth, defense counsel pointed to KSM’s contention that there were religious figures and speakers who went to Afghanistan but did not join al Qaeda,
Fifth, Abu Ghayth attempted to avoid the basis for the Court’s holding by suggesting in his motion to reargue, albeit only in a footnote, that “the Court is not positioned at this time to determine the materiality of a video deposition of KSM until the conclusion of that deposition.”
Finally, although this point, unlike what precedes it, is ex post in nature, it bears mention that the proof of defendant’s guilt in this case was overwhelming for reasons entirely independent of any awareness of the shoe-bomb plot.
III. The Application Was Untimely
In addition to failing to demonstrate the materiality of the proposed testimony, Abu Ghayth’s motion was untimely. The Court has set out above the lengthy sequence of events that preceded the motions at issue here. From that sequence, the Court distills three important points.
First, Abu Ghayth was aware that KSM might have useful information from as early as summer 2013 but he failed during the months that followed to make any serious effort to obtain access to KSM. While the Court assumes without deciding that he sought access from the Defense Department, his failure promptly to seek relief from this Court if his efforts were not successful was inconsistent with due diligence — unless of course counsel never sincerely regarded KSM as a potentially helpful witness.
Second, Abu Ghayth made no mention whatsoever of KSM when moving for a continuance after S14 and the government’s motion to take Badat’s testimony were filed. He listed numerous others whose testimony he might seek, but not KSM. That issue was not raised until over one month later despite the fact that defense counsel professes to have encountered difficulty with the Department of Defense during the fall.
Third, the Court granted Abu Ghayth continuances totaling twenty-eight days after the government filed S14 and the Rule 15 motion regarding Badat. But defense counsel waited to raise the KSM issue with the Court and then repeatedly changed course, first by shifting the request from one for an in-person interview — which was promptly agreed by the government — to one for written questions and then by revealing at the eleventh hour KSM’s demand that his answers be walled off from his prosecutors. These actions contributed considerably to the delay in receiving KSM’s statement and in making a Rule 15 motion.
In sum, the motion was untimely. Rather than seek relief from this Court well in advance of trial, and rather than act expeditiously to secure the desired information from KSM once relief was sought, Abu Ghayth dragged this process out until the last days of trial, moving to take a deposition or for CCTV testimony nearly three weeks past the Court’s February 26 deadline and after the government already had rested. While the Court need not reach a conclusion on the point, one might well conclude that the object of the KSM exer
Conclusion
The Court denied Abu Ghayth’s motions for CCTV testimony by or a Rule 15 deposition of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and to renew or reargue the CCTV-Rule 15 motion [DI 1545, DI 1562] on the merits and, in the case of the former, as untimely, all as more fully explained above.
SO ORDERED.
. Def. Mot. [DI 1545].
. On December 22, 2001, Richard Reid, an al Qaeda member, attempted to detonate explosives packed into his shoes while aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami. He was subdued by passengers and arrested. In 2002, he pleaded guilty to eight terrorism-related counts and later was sentenced to life imprisonment. See generally United States v. Reid, 369 F.3d 619, 619-20 (1st Cir. 2004).
. Def. Mem. [DI 1597] at 4, 10-12.
. Tr. at 1125:3-1129:24.
. Def. Mot. to Renew and Reargue [DI 1562],
. Tr. at 1266:13-15.
. Id. at 417:12-420:16, 551:21-25; see also supra note 2.
. Id. at 421:16-22, 470:11-14.
. Id. at 532:19-533:9, 423:20-424:20.
. See infra note 91.
. Tr. at 538:22-539:22.
. Id. at 539:4-540:4.
. Id. at 420:17-20.
.Id. at 543:25-544:3.
. Id. at 1150:12-13, 1151:2-19, 1160:13-15.
. Id. at 1162:24-1163:24, 1184:4-6.
. Id. at 713: 6-16.
. Id. at 715:8-717:3; see also id. at 273:7-21. There was no testimony that Abu Ghayth encouraged others to pledge bayat to bin Laden.
. Id. at 1170:6-1171:6.
. Id. at 1171:18-20, 1179:10-19.
. Id. at 720:18-25; see also id. at 1179:13-19.
. Id. at 720:5-10, 1179:20-25, 1181:10-11, 1243:8-21.
. Id. at 721:7-15, 1182:6-16.
. Id. at 721:7-15, 1183:5-13.
. Id. at 722:9-14, 1183:5-1184:3.
. Id. at 1185:3-10.
. Id. at 1186:1-3.
. Id. at 1186:7-9.
. Id. at 1186:10-21.
. Id. at 1186:7-1187:12.
. See GX 1-S.
. GX 7-S. The specific day in October 2001 appears to be unknown.
. GX 8-S.
. GX5-S.
. See GX 5-T at 4 ("Finally, I want to send a message to the U.S. Secretary of State, who expressed doubt about our previous statement and who underestimated what we said that there are thousands of young Muslims who look forward to die for the sake of Allah and that the Storm of Aircrafts will not stop, by the permission of God the Almighty.”); GX 8-T at 2 ("America must know that the Storm of Airplanes will not abate, with God’s permission.”).
. See GX S2. A brevity card is a code card that contains numbers that correspond to names, places, and other words. The numbers were used in lieu of the corresponding names and other words in radio communications in order to maintain secrecy.
. See generally GX 206-1R; GX206-2R; GX 206-3R; GX 207-1R; GX 207-2R; GX 207-3R; GX 208-R; Tr. at 523:24-524:13 (Badat testified that the names Amir Al-Mu’minyn and AlTayyib Agha refer to members of the Taliban, not al Qaeda).
. Tr. at 176:1-177:6, 211:24-214:2.
. S13 Indictment [DI 1154],
. Id. ¶ 6e.
. Cohen Decl. [DI 1469] ¶ 6; see also id. ¶ 7.
. Id. ¶¶ 6-7.
. See Tr. at 1110:20-1111:18.
. S14 Indictment [DI 1409], The superseding indictment added the material support and conspiracy to provide material support counts.
. Gov. Mot. [DI 1411].
. Id. at 8-11.
. Id. at 7-12 (emphasis in original).
. Dec. 23, 2013 Hr'g Tr. at 28:19-24.
Abu Ghayth argued that S14 and Rule 15 application concerning Badat showed that the government’s "theory has changed” and that it “now claims that Mr. Abu Ghayth was in fact aware of the so-called shoe-bomb incident in advance of Richard Reid’s arrest.” Id. at 20:23-21:4.
. Cohen Aff. [DI 1426] ¶¶ 13-14.
. Id.n 17-23.
. The Court so learned on February 4, when Abu Ghayth included as exhibits to his motion for access to KSM several emails with the Department of Defense. See Def. Mem. [DI 1471], Ex. D (Dec. 20, 2013 Ltr. from S. Cohen to A. Liotta, Department of Defense); Ex. E (Jan. 2, 2014 Ltr. from S. Cohen to A. Liotta); Ex. F (Jan. 23, 2014 Email from S. Cohen to L. Apóstol); Ex. G (Jan. 27-28, 2014 Email Chain between S. Cohen and L. Apos-to!); Ex. C (Jan. 27, 2014 Ltr. from D. Nevin, Counsel to KSM, to S. Cohen); Ex. B (Jan. 28, 2014 Ltr. from S. Cohen to A. Liotta).
. Order [DI 1440],
. Def. Mot. [DI 1468].
. Feb. 11, 2014 Ltr. from M. Ferrara to S. Cohen and Z. Dolan [DI 1566],
. Feb. 17, 2014 Ltr. from M. Ferrara to Court [DI 1512]
. See DI 1608, Ex. 1.
. DI 1512 at 2.
. Feb. 18, 2014 Ltr. from M. Ferrara to Court [DI 1513],
The conditions were stipulated to by the parties and set out in the Court’s February 19 order. [DI 1494]. They included: (1) The written questions would be limited to issues related to Abu Ghayth's defense; (2) U.S. government personnel walled off from Abu Ghayth’s prosecutors would review and approve the questions to be posed to KSM; (3) Walled off U.S. government personnel would review KSM’s responses before they would be made available to any third parties; (4) Absent a court order, defense counsel would not disseminate publicly KSM’s responses.
. Def. Mot. [DI 1487],
. Feb. 19, 2014 Hr'g Tr. at 14:4-15:15.
. Id. at 14:18-23.
. Feb. 25, 2014 Ltr. From S. Cohen to Court [DI 1568].
The purpose of the review evidently was to ensure that no classified information would be revealed.
. Id.
. Feb. 27, 2014 Ltr. from S. Cohen to Court [DI 1569].
. Feb. 28, 2014 Ltr. from M. Ferrara to Court [DI 1510], at 1.
. Feb. 28, 2014 Hr’g Tr. at 3:7-17, 7:15-8:4.
. Id. at 6:2-7:4.
.Tr. at 119:22-120:3.
. See id. at 693:13-16. Page twelve initially was omitted from the document.
. DI 1597, Ex. B at 1.
. Id.
. Id. at 2-6.
. Id. at 7-8.
. Id. at 11.
. Id. at 13.
. Compare id. at 10, with DI 1608, Ex. 1 at 4 (“Do you know who decided to include the name of Sulaiman Abu Ghayth to each card and how a number was assigned to his name? Do you know how many cards contained the name of Sulaiman Abu Ghayth? Were you aware while in Afghanistan or Pakistan that the name of Sulaiman Abu Ghayth was listed on any card?”).
. DI 1597, Ex. B at 13.
. Id. at 14.
. See DI 1608, Ex. 1 at 11-22. This includes questions 410 through 416, which ask whether Abu Ghayth's statements in Government Exhibit 8 referred to the shoe bomb plot and who, if anyone, instructed him to make statements threatening a “storm of airplanes.” Id. at 18-19.
. Def. Mot. [DI 1545].
*298 Abu Ghayth appeared to argue, or at least suggest, that he had a right under the Sixth Amendment to compulsory process to obtain testimony from KSM. At the same time, however, Abu Ghayth represented that he would not seek to compel KSM’s testimony. Id. at 7. Thus, Abu Ghayth's apparent attempt to invoke the Sixth Amendment’s protections was misguided. Moreover, although this was not argued explicitly in the motion, the Court notes that there is no Sixth Amendment right to present testimony in a case such as this absent some showing that such testimony would be material. E.g., United States v. Paracha, No. 03 Crim. 1197(SHS), 2006 WL 12768 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 3, 2006); see also United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. 858, 102 S.Ct. 3440, 73 L.Ed.2d 1193 (1982).
. Tr. at 1125:4.
. Id. at 1125:4-1130:1.
. Def. Mot. to Reargue [DI 1562].
. Tr. at 1198:18-1199:13.
. Id. at 1182:6-19, 1243:8-17.
. Id. at 1168:2-1170:5. Abu Ghayth described the first lecture as “a religious speech right after the middle prayer of the day in the mosque. And in the mosque they were sitting on the floor, and I was standing. And the lecture was about to prepare the person to be merciful, and prepare the person to go back to his spirits and his soul.” Id. at 1168:23-1169:2.
. Id. at 1178:15-16.
. Id. at 1200:2-1201:21.
. Special Agent Butsch testified consistently about Abu Ghayth’s lack of specific foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks, the speeches he gave at al Qaeda training camps, and bayat. E.g., id. at 713:6-16, 715:8-717:3, 720:5-10. Agent Butsch did not testify as to whether Abu Ghayth had or had not met KSM or the nature of any such meetings.
. DI 1597, Ex. B at 12.
. Tr. at 1438:4-8 (Cohen closing) ("Remember what Mr. Badat said about the shoe bombing conspiracy. It was put together by Abu Hafs Masri, who was the number three guy in Al Qaeda, who was killed in a bombing in his house after the United States invasion.”).
The record leaves unclear the exact date on which Abu Hafs was killed. Badat testified that Abu Hafs was killed at “the end of November or beginning of December [2001],” Tr. at 538:10-21, while the government’s expert, Evan Kohlmann, testified that he "was killed in October or November of 2001,” id. at 951:1-5. The Court credits Badat’s testimony. Badat recalled first having seen the shoe bombs, which were kept in Abu Hafs’ possession, in mid-November. He testified that they were retrieved from Abu Hafs’ safe in late November or early December, after Abu Hafs had been killed. Id. at 535:15-537:9.
. United States v. Gigante, 166 F.3d 75, 81 (2d Cir. 1999); United States v. Abu Ghayth, No. S14 98 Crim. 1023(LAK), 2014 WL 144653, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 15, 2014).
. Fed. R.Crim. P. 15(a)(1).
. United States v. Johnpoll, 739 F.2d 702, 709 (2d Cir. 1984). Unavailability is not disputed here.
. United States v. Kelley, 36 F.3d 1118, 1125 (D.C.Cir. 1994).
. United States v. Bronston, 321 F.Supp. 1269, 1272 (S.D.N.Y. 1971) ("It is not necessary that defendant show the testimony will surely acquit him.”).
. See United States v. Ismaili, 828 F.2d 153, 161 (3d Cir. 1987).
. Abu Ghayth, 2014 WL 144653, at *2; United States v. Stein, 482 F.Supp.2d 360, 365 (S.D.N.Y. 2007); United States v. Grossman, No. S2 03 Cr. 1156(SHS), 2005 WL 486735, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 2, 2005); see also United States v. Drogoul, 1 F.3d 1546, 1557 (11th Cir. 1993) ("if there is very little chance that a deposition will be admissible ... the district court need not engage in the wasteful practice of authorizing useless depositions”); United States v. Tolliver, 61 F.3d 1189, 1205-06 (5th Cir. 1995) cert. granted, judgment vacated sub nom. Sterling v. United States, 516 U.S. 1105, 116 S.Ct. 900, 133 L.Ed.2d 834 (1996) and cert. granted, judgment vacated sub nom. Moore v. United States, 519 U.S. 802, 117 S.Ct. 40, 136 L.Ed.2d 4 (1996); United States v. Warren, 713 F.Supp.2d 1, 4 (D.D.C. 2010); Fed. R.Crim. P. 15(f) (use of deposition or part thereof subject to Federal Rules of Evidence).
. United States v. Robinson, No. 99 Cr. 1007, 1999 WL 1254436 (Table), at *1 (2d Cir. Dec. 1, 1999); United States v. Whiting, 308 F.2d 537, 541 (2d Cir. 1962) (Marshall, J.); 2 Charles Alan Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure: Criminal § 243 (4th ed. 2008).
. United States v. Chusid, 00 Crim. 0263(LAK), 2000 WL 1449873, *1 (S.D.N.Y. 2000).
. See, e.g., United States v. Vargas, 279 Fed.Appx. 56, 60-61 (2d Cir. 2008) (upholding the district court’s denial of a Rule 15 motion where the defendant’s "motion came a year after discovery commenced and approximately three weeks before the scheduled start of the trial” and "the materiality of the testimony sought was remote, because the fact that two low-level couriers did not know who Martinez or his alleged supplier was did not contradict any of the government’s evidence”).
. DI 1597, Ex. B at 1.
. Tr. at 1114:16-21.
. Id. at 1117:18-1118:10.
. Two of the five points related to Abu Ghayth’s knowledge of al Qaeda plots. See also DI 1597 (describing the same purported bases for materiality).
. Tr. at 1117:18-20.
. Supra notes 37-38.
. Tr. at 1117:21-23.
. DI 1597, Ex. B at 13.
. E.g., id. at 713:4-11.
. Id. at 713:8-16. Although this testimony came after Abu Ghayth’s initial motion, Abu Ghayth himself testified also that he did not swear bayat to bin Laden or encourage others to do so. Id. at 1178:15-25.
. Id. at 271:6-273:21.
. Id. at 1117:24-1118:5; see also DI 1597 at 10-12.
. DI 1597, Ex. B at 7.
. Id. at 14 (emphasis added).
. See supra note 91.
. GX1-S.
. Tr. at 538:7-539:3.
. On page 12 of the statement, KSM asserted also that Abu Ghayth did not have foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks and that he was not a militant. Abu Ghayth does not argue that testimony concerning those topics would be material, perhaps because that page was delivered after Abu Ghayth submitted his motion. In any event, the Court finds that any such testimony would not be material. The government never claimed that Abu Ghayth knew specifically about the September 11 attacks in advance and, in any event, Abu Ghayth provided testimony virtually identical to KSM’s statement. Moreover, KSM’s statement about Abu Ghayth’s nonmilitary role would have been quite consistent with the government’s evidence.
. Tr. at 1118:6-10; see also DI 1597 at 13-14.
. DI 1562 at 2, n. 3.
. The Court understands that Abu Ghayth has not had the kind of access to or, perhaps, cooperation from KSM that he would have liked. But that has not affected his ability to explore the sort of testimony that KSM might have given to the full extent that KSM was willing to cooperate with him.
. In view of the bases for this decision, it was unnecessary to address whether this Court could have compelled the Department of Defense to permit, or KSM to give, testimony in this case.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- United States v. Sulaiman ABU GHAYTH
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