An Army psychiatrist has found Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri fit to stand trial, and a federal judge has refused to stop jury selection in the capital case linked to the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.
The ruling lands as the first death-penalty military commission trial at Guantanamo Bay moves forward. Al-Nashiri is accused of masterminding the attack that killed 17 American sailors. His defense team is still pressing mental-competency claims built around his CIA detention and later medical findings.
For families who lost sailors at Aden, and for a military justice system long delayed on this case, the practical stakes are plain. A capital trial is taking shape. The defense says the accused man is too damaged to face it. Military evaluators have now said otherwise, at least in an initial round.
Under Rule for Military Commissions 706, officials ran a mental-competency review. A military official with insider ties to the Office of Military Commissions told the Daily Caller News Foundation the Friday determination found nothing about al-Nashiri’s mental competency that would block him from standing trial.
A military psychiatrist backed that conclusion in an 80-page report asserting he is fit for trial. The commission is also proceeding with an RMC 909 assessment tied to the same competency track.
That initial result is a loss for the defense on the first competency appeal. It does not end the dispute. A military judge has agreed to hear from mental health experts who disagree with the psychiatrist’s findings, keeping the fitness fight alive inside the commission process even as jury work continues.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reported the sequence as jury selection got underway for the capital case, with the trial itself set to begin in 2027.
Defense lawyer Allison Miller sought a federal court order to freeze jury selection until a broader competency evaluation could be done. U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, rejected that request.
Lamberth declined to insert himself into the case and ruled that the military commission must go on. The defense bid to pause the Guantanamo process from a federal bench failed. Selection of the panel continues under military commission rules.
Just Security reported the psychiatrist’s fitness finding, Lamberth’s refusal, and the military judge’s decision to take testimony from experts who contest the Army psychiatrist’s conclusions. Those points frame the current procedural map: an official fitness finding on the books, a federal hands-off order, and a still-open lane for conflicting mental-health evidence before the military judge.
Miller has argued that al-Nashiri’s CIA custody from 2002 to 2004, spent mostly in solitary confinement and involving enhanced interrogation techniques, puts his mental competency in doubt. She has also pointed to expert material on her side of the ledger.
The defense acquired two expert testimonies arguing he is not fit to stand trial. Miller’s public warning is blunt about what she says could happen if the case races ahead of a fuller review.
Just Security carried her comments on the risk she sees in the current posture.
"There is a real danger that we will go to trial without my client given the competency evaluation he is due."
She added a stark description of her client’s condition.
"He is a very damaged man."
Those lines state the defense theory in plain terms. They do not overturn the Army psychiatrist’s 80-page fitness report or the RMC 706 result. They do explain why the military judge’s willingness to hear opposing experts still matters to the defense even after the first appeal failed.
On Oct. 12, 2000, two al-Qaeda suicide bombers struck the USS Cole (DDG 67) while the destroyer fueled in the port of Aden, Yemen. Seventeen American sailors died. Reporting on the toll has described approximately 40 injured; a Navy remembrance post cited 37 injured.
Al-Nashiri is accused of masterminding the Cole attacks and of overseeing al-Qaeda operations across the Persian Gulf. The case now queued at Guantanamo is described as the first capital trial by military commission at the detention site.
Years of pretrial combat already reshaped the evidence picture. In 2007, al-Nashiri gave confessions to federal agents at Guantanamo Bay. Those confessions were later declared inadmissible because of post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury. Prosecutors must try a death-eligible case without that material.
The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations marked the attack’s anniversary in an Oct. 12, 2026 post that kept the human cost at the center of the public record.
"Today, we pause to remember the 17 Sailors who were killed and the 37 who were injured during the terrorist attack on USS Cole (DDG 67) on Oct. 12, 2000. We will never forget their sacrifice and the crew’s bravery as they conducted more than 96 hours of sustained damage control to save their ship."
Crews fought more than four days to keep the ship alive. That fact sits beside the legal fight now unfolding a quarter-century later over whether the accused man can lawfully face a capital panel.
Investigators and the commission still have work that the public docket has not closed out in detail. Authorities have not released the full text of the 80-page psychiatric report beyond the core fitness conclusion. The names and full conclusions of the two defense experts are not laid out in the public account beyond the claim that they find him unfit.
The military judge’s hearing on those opposing experts will test how far the defense can push back against the Army psychiatrist. RMC 909 work continues in parallel. Jury selection is already in motion for a trial set to open in 2027.
Competency in this setting is a functional legal question. It asks whether the accused can understand the proceedings and assist counsel, not whether he is sympathetic or whether his past custody was harsh. The RMC 706 finding answered that question in the government’s favor on the first pass. The defense is using medical history, CIA detention, the suppressed 2007 statements, and outside experts to try to reopen it.
Lamberth’s order keeps the federal courts from choking off that Guantanamo timeline. The commission, not a district judge, will be the main arena for the remaining mental-health evidence.
A capital military commission is among the hardest forums the United States runs. Evidence rules, classification fights, and years of pretrial litigation have already marked this prosecution. The exclusion of the 2007 confessions shows how medical findings can erase major proof even when a case still heads toward a death-qualified panel.
For the government, the psychiatrist’s report and the RMC 706 result clear a threshold obstacle and let jury selection proceed. For the defense, Miller’s “damaged man” claim and the two contrary experts are the remaining tools to slow or reshape a 2027 trial. For the Navy community that still marks every October 12, the legal machinery is finally assembling a panel in a case that began with 17 dead sailors and a crippled destroyer in Aden.
None of that converts accusation into a final verdict. Al-Nashiri remains a defendant facing trial, not a convict. The commission must still hear contested expert proof, finish selecting members, and try the charges under the Manual for Military Commissions framework that governs these cases.
When a capital case tied to dead American sailors reaches a competency ruling, the system either holds the line on fitness and proof or it invites endless delay. The first ruling held that line. The rest of the process now has to finish the job without losing the plot.
