Cole families wait, as usual, this time for Gitmo answers

Waiting is nothing new to these families.

The spouses, children and parents of sailors killed aboard the destroyer Cole in 2000 have grown used to the wheels of justice turning slowly - when they turn at all.

The latest wrinkles - whether to prosecute terrorism suspects in federal court or through military commissions, and whether to keep open the prison camp at Guanatamo Bay, Cuba - are just the latest in a long string of disappointments.

They waited years until a suspect was captured in 2002 - Abd al-Rashid al-Nashiri, thought to be the mastermind of the bombing in Aden, Yemen.

Then they waited years for al-Nashiri to be formally charged, last summer, with murdering their loved ones.

Most recently, they were days away from al-Nashiri's scheduled arraignment and preliminary hearing when Barack Obama took office and halted everything at Guantanamo for 120 days.

Now they are waiting again, for President Obama and Congress to decide what to do with the prison camp - and how to proceed against al-Nashiri, whose handling by the CIA has compromised the legal case.

The CIA has acknowledged that al-Nashiri was waterboarded - an interrogation technique considered by some to be torture.

Lorrie Triplett knows the drill.

Her husband, Andrew, was an ensign on the Cole. His death left her raising their two daughters, now teenagers, alone.

Triplett, who lives in Suffolk, isn't surprised by the latest delays.

"I'm not keeping close track of the process," she said Thursday. "I'm not Googling it everyday, making it my priority."

She and her daughters met with Obama and came away buoyed by his commitment to try al-Nashiri in federal court. But Obama recently changed his mind, telling Americans that military commissions might be used for some suspects, though he pledged to revamp them to make them more transparent.

Thursday, the president pledged to try all the Guan-tanamo inmates or transfer them to third countries. That option might work for al-Nashiri: A Yemeni court found him guilty, in absentia, of the Cole bombing, and sentenced him to death. But other Cole suspects have disappeared in jailbreaks in Yemen, and the United States might not be willing to take that chance.

Nancy Hollander, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represents al-Nashiri, said this week that she has no idea when he might be charged again or where the case will end up.

"I think it should have moved along in the judicial process several years ago," Hollander said. "What bothers me is that my client has been locked up for many years, he's never been charged with a crime - except very briefly - and that was to go before a court I don't consider a legitimate American court. And he was tortured. He's entitled to the same justice that anyone charged within the United States is entitled to have."

Most important to Hollander is that al-Nashiri be tried in a federal court or the military's court-martial system. Both afford defendants the right to face their accusers in court. Military commissions, as used by the Bush administration, did not.

Trying suspects in a court that has less stringent rules "is an attempt to convict someone when you're not sure you would get a conviction if the person gets all the rights they're entitled to," Hollander said. "The reason we have rights is to make sure we have reliable results."

Kirk Lippold, the now-retired commander of the Cole, took issue with Obama's speech Thursday and the announcement that one Guantanamo detainee, implicated in the bombing of a U.S. embassy in Africa in 1998, will be tried in federal court in New York.

That decision, Lippold said in a news release, "demonstrates a clear break from his promise to keep the USS Cole and 9/11 families involved and informed about his policy developments" regarding Guantanamo detainees.

He also accused Obama of a "lack of compassion toward the families that have already suffered so much at the hands of these terrorists."

Lorrie Triplett doesn't share Lippold's views.

She doesn't relish the thought of her husband's accused killer coming to the United States and the possibility he could win his release.

But she thinks the president is trying to do the best thing with a messy situation he inherited - first from Bill Clinton, who was in office when the Cole was bombed, and then George W. Bush.

"I know his hands are tied in some aspects," Triplett said. "I believe he kept his word to the best that he could do."

But while she knows that Obama has a lot on his plate, the most important thing for her is seeing al-Nashiri brought to justice.

"I really want for him to get prosecuted," she said. "It's a personal thing for me."

Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com