Official: Guantanamo lawyers don’t expect to be ready for Sudanese detainee’s trial until 2011

Attorneys ready for Gitmo detainee’s trial in 2011

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A military judge at Guantanamo Bay on Wednesday said lawyers in the case of a Sudanese detainee don’t expect to be ready for trial until early 2011, according to a military commissions spokesman.

Joseph DellaVedova, spokesman for the Pentagon’s Office of Military Commissions, said in an e-mail from the U.S. base in Cuba that the judge said prosecutors and defense lawyers told her they could be ready by January or February 2011 in the war crimes case of Noor Uthman Muhammed.

He said the judge, Navy Capt. Moira Modzelewski, expects the discovery phase of the case to take up most of the court’s attention for the remainder of 2010.

The detainee, who is accused of working as an al-Qaida weapons instructor, appeared before the judge for his brief pre-trial hearing Wednesday.

Modzelewski scheduled the next pre-trial session for Aug. 9, when the court is to hear a defense motion to determine if the military commissions have jurisdiction over Muhammed’s case.

Muhammed is one of a handful of inmates facing charges in the military courts, known as commissions, that were launched under the Bush administration following the 9/11 terrorist attack.

The commissions were widely criticized because they denied defendants most of the rights they would be granted in a civilian courtroom or even in a traditional military court martial. But the Obama administration revised the system to expand legal protections for defendants.

DellaVedova said the judge anticipates there will be monthly meetings to keep the discovery process on track.