Trial in Bombing of U.S. Warship Set to Start 25 Years After Attack

The death-penalty trial of a prisoner accused of plotting the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole warship has been set to begin in October 2025. If the plan holds, the trial would coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Qaeda attack, which killed 17 U.S. sailors off the coast of Yemen.

Col. Matthew S. Fitzgerald, an Army judge, reserved a courtroom at Guantánamo Bay for the trial from Oct. 6, 2025, until Dec. 19 of that year, according to an order released by the court on Friday. Based on the court calendar, it would reach trial before the Sept. 11 case, whose judge has set 23 weeks of pretrial hearings for next year.

Military judges in the Cole case have set and then abandoned more than a half-dozen proposed trial dates since the prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was arraigned in 2011. Mr. Nashiri, who is from Saudi Arabia, was captured in 2002. He is accused of helping to orchestrate the suicide attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer while it was on a refueling stop in Aden, Yemen. The bombing, on Oct. 12, 2000, was seen as a precursor of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Colonel Fitzgerald has yet to publish deadlines for pretrial matters, a step that typically accompanies a trial date. His schedule envisions 12 weeks of pretrial hearings next year.

“I’m a cautious optimist,” the judge said in court on May 31, disclosing plans to set the dates. “I believe that’s a fair and reasonable date based on my voluminous review of the voluminous record.”

At least eight parents of the fallen sailors, many whom had regularly attended pretrial proceedings, have died while waiting for a trial.