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Twist of fate: terror, torture and justice in the 9/11 trial in Guantánamo Bay

There is a fundamental contradiction: between government efforts to prevent disclosure of the crimes they themselves have committed; and defence lawyers’ struggle to defend their clients’ fundamental rights.

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A sculpture of José Antonio Elvira to protest about the situation in the nearby Guantanamo prisoner, 2005 camps.Wikicommons/Zosimo.Some rights reserved.

Five men stand accused for planning the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 when al-Qaeda hijacked four planes and crashed them down into the west's collective memory. Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day. In its wake followed what we now refer to as the Global War on Terror, with US-initiated military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and other territories outside bounded and conventional theatres of warfare.