In the nearly 12 years since a prisoner was charged in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole warship, eight parents of the 17 fallen American sailors have died waiting for a trial to begin.
In the two decades since the attack, 10 more shipmates have also died.
Early in the case, relatives and survivors would travel to Guantánamo Bay to observe pretrial proceedings, filling the seats in a special section of the court. Late this June, just two members of that group were there — a sailor’s father and a naval officer who survived the blast.
The bombing of the Cole never garnered the attention of Guantánamo’s better-known prosecution of the five men who are accused of plotting the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That case also grinds on in its second decade.
But the Cole attack came first, on Oct. 12, 2000. And as time ticks by, it has become, for many, a forgotten case on a faraway U.S. military base where the notion of justice seems elusive as the war on terrorism recedes from memory and the conflict in Ukraine takes center stage.
“I can’t name another case in United States history, a criminal case, that has taken 20 years to prosecute,” said Anton J. Gunn, whose brother Cherone, a seaman apprentice, was killed in the bombing at age 22.
Mr. Gunn and his father, a retired Navy chief petty officer named Louge “Lou” Gunn, traveled together to Guantánamo Bay to observe hearings in 2012. Lou Gunn died in 2016. He was 65. Now, both the father and the son are buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
“It’s disappointing and demoralizing,” Mr. Gunn said. “I’m a patient man, and I just want to hear the details. I’m not even presuming guilt at this point. I want to get past the procedural motions of what’s admissible and what’s not admissible, this delay and that delay. Let’s get to the trial.”
One of the two people watching the hearings in late June was Denise D. Woodfin, a retired Navy lieutenant commander with a Purple Heart from the attack. If no one represented the fallen, “it would be a tragedy and a disservice not only to our Gold Star families but also the crew,” she said. Gold Star families are relatives of U.S. military members who died in the line of duty.
She was in the court on Nov. 9, 2011, the day that the prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was formally charged, nine years after his capture. She has returned eight more times to honor the dead, especially those who died after the bombing.
For some, there is a certain comfort or solidarity in coming back to the base, where soldiers in battle dress chaperone them as distinguished visitors. The government has built a cottage for them and their memorabilia. They gather there and keep photos of the crew, memorial plaques and commemorative coins, a quilt with the ship’s crest and a weatherworn Cole flag that had flown above the court compound.
Mr. Nashiri, 58, a citizen of Saudi Arabia, is accused of being the mastermind of the bombing.
Prosecutors portray him as a…
2023-08-15 04:01:16
Original from www.nytimes.com
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