USS Cole bombing suspect requests delay

MIAMI, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Defense lawyers in the USS Cole bombing case asked the judge to delay the next hearing to provide time for experts to examine the accused suspect.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Steven Reyes, a lawyer for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, 47, said the Pentagon was in the process of issuing security clearances for two approved case experts, a psychologist and an internist specializing in torture cases, neither of whom will have time to properly examine the accused before the hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, scheduled for Oct. 23-25, The Miami Herald reported.

Nashiri is the alleged mastermind behind the suicide bombing of the warship in 2000, when it was harbored in Aden, Yemen. Seventeen Navy personnel were killed and 39 were injured.

He was interrogated at gunpoint as well as water-boarded by CIA interrogators before his transfer to Guantanamo in 2006, the defense says, and the hearing is expected to consider the prosecution's request that Nashiri be compelled to attend his trial.

The defense argues that he should be allowed to stay in his cell, as he did during a hearing in July, the Herald reported Thursday.