Judge in 9/11 Case at Guantanamo Retires from Military

MIAMI – The slow-moving Sept. 11 war-crimes case at Guantanamo has outlasted the judge.

Army Col. James Pohl announced his retirement from the military Monday, ending a career that culminated with his presiding over the military commission trial of five prisoners at the U.S. base in Cuba accused of planning and aiding the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Pohl has presided over the case since the May 2012 arraignment and the ensuing years of pre-trial hearings. No trial date has been set in the death-penalty case.

He was also the judge in an earlier version of the commission under President George W. Bush that was halted before trial as well as other major military cases, including the courts-martial resulting from the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq.

The Guantanamo military commission is considered one of the most complex criminal proceedings in U.S. history, set in a courtroom encased in sound-proof glass that is designed to prevent inadvertent disclosures of classified evidence with a 40-second delay of sound.

https://military.com/daily-news/2018/08/28/judge-9-11-case-guantanamo-retires-military.html