Alleged USS Cole bombing mastermind pleads innocent [Archives:2008/1208/Local News]

Kawkab Al-Thaibani
For the Yemen Times
SANA'A, Nov. 12 ) The American lawyers of Abdul-Rahim Al-Nashiri, alleged mastermind of the October 2000 USS Cole bombing, stressed his innocence during a press conference held last Wednesday by HOOD, the National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedoms.

Despite the order from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to the U.S. government to disclose all evidence against the detainees, the U.S. has not complied with this order and has not revealed any evidence against Al-Nashiri, said Gerald Bierbaum, a volunteering American lawyer.

“In the USA, lawyers are trained to give people the benefit of presumption of innocence [being innocent until proven guilty],” said Richard Kammen, 62, a counselor at law, who has won 40 death penalty cases in the U.S. “If the U.S. has strong evidence, why do they have to hide it for four years? Why the fight [for them] to disclose it?” ask Kammen and Bierbaum. “”I have been in cases when the prosecutor cannot wait to bring the evidence