A prisoner jailed for nearly a decade at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is appearing before a military tribunal today on charges of orchestrating the deadly attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Abd al-Nashiri is accused of overseeing the planning of the October 2000 bombing, which killed 17 sailors and wounded 40 others. Nashiri’s case will mark the first death-penalty war crimes trial at Guantánamo under President Obama. The military tribunal was initially canceled in 2009 as part of Obama’s pledge to close the prison. But trials have resumed after Obama reversed his position earlier this year. Nashiri has claimed he confessed to the Cole bombing after undergoing repeated torture in U.S. custody. He was waterboarded dozens of times. On Tuesday, Nashiri’s attorney denounced the military trial as a sham.

Richard Kammen: “It has been publicly reported, of course, that Mr. al-Nashiri was in CIA custody and was tortured. And so, one of the very powerful arguments that we intend to make at every stage of the proceedings is that by torturing Mr. Nashiri, the United States has really lost all moral authority to try and kill him. It’s going to look like a court, but it is not a real court. There is nothing about this that is fair, legitimate. This is a court organized to convict. It is a court organized to kill.”