LEAD: USS Cole suspect appears at Guantanamo court to hear charges

Nov 9, 2011, 16:39 GMT

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - The man suspected of masterminding the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole was arraigned Wednesday in his first-ever appearance in public since his capture nine years ago.

Seated next to his lawyers at the end of a long table in a military court at the Nava facility at Guantanamo Bay, Saudi-born Abd al-Rahim Hussayn Muhammad al-Nashiri, 46, declined to say he was guilty or not guilty, opting to do so at a later time.

Nashiri, who wore a loose, white prison-issue T-shirt, is charged with plotting the bombing of the US Navy vessel when it was docked off the coast of Yemen. Seventeen 17 US sailors were killed and 40 more were wounded in the attack, which blew a massive hole in the side of the ship.

It is the first new case brought before the military tribunals since US President Barack Obama in March ordered the resumption of the hotly debated process for trying some terror suspects held at Guantananmo.

It is also the first Guantanamo tribunal in which the accused could face the death penalty.

At the arraignment Wednesday, the judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, read the charges, which included conspiracy to commit terrorism, attacking civilians and and violating the law of war.

The Pentagon, which is prosecuting Nashiri, also alleges that al-Nashiri was behind an attempted attack on USS The Sullivans in the Port of Aden in January 2000 and the attack on the French civilian oil tanker MV Limburg in the Gulf of Aden in October 2002 that left one person dead.

Nashiri was subjected to a number of waterboardings - a procedure intended to make the recipient feel as if he or she is drowning - according to documents released in 2009. In 2007, the defendant said he confessed to the Cole attack as a result of being repeatedly waterboarded.

If found not guilty, Nashiri's attorneys want the suspect to be freed, according to documents released this month.