GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba_The chief war crimes prosecutor said Sunday on the eve of resumption of pretrial hearings in the 9/11 death penalty case that he's willing to again postpone his retirement to stay on the job past late 2017.
Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins was due to retire in November 2014, and already received a three-year extension.
"Nobody in this process is indispensable. But to the extent I can add some continuity I'm available to do it for as long as necessary," Martins said. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter appointed him to the job in July 2011 when Carter was deputy defense secretary.
In a nod to the fact that the next president could appoint new Pentagon leaders, Martins also said: "I serve at the will of the elected and appointed civilian leadership."
The judge has set no start date for the 9/11 trial. Hearings for the five men who allegedly trained, advised and financed the 9/11 hijackers resume Monday at Camp Justice.
But the judge sent word Sunday evening that he would, unusually, start court without Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four accused accomplices present. Army Col. James L. Pohl, the judge, usually requires all five defendants to attend on the first day. Instead he elected to start two weeks of hearings in a daylong closed session with only the lawyers.
Lawyers are expected to argue a series of defense access questions _ to evidence, experts, witnesses and whether the judge will gag them on publicly discussing unclassified information that the prosecution defines as "propaganda."
Trial preparation is still in an early stage. Martins' 100-member prosecution team is still evaluating evidence, including what they read in the full Senate report on the CIA secret prison network that used brutal interrogation techniques on the five men. Defense lawyers don't get to see it, and prosecutors decide what lawyers for the defendants are entitled to see.
For now, the only deadline is one promised by Martins _ Sept. 30 _ to provide the judge or defense attorneys the evidence that his team decides is relevant. After that, because this is a national security case, the judge decides if prosecution-crafted substitutions for actual evidence are adequate. Then the defense lawyers can seek additional discovery and file pleadings to exclude evidence.
Pohl, 65, was due to retire years ago. He is chief of the Guantanamo judiciary. The Pentagon has extended the colonel's service annually to keep him at the war court.
