A More Personal View of a Detainee’s Trial

The trial of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani has attracted intense interest as a test of the Obama administration’s strategy to try Guantánamo detainees in civilian court. But few have as much personal connection to the case as the group of onlookers who fill several rows of the Manhattan courtroom.

Some are family members of those who died in Al Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; others worked in the embassies at the time.

And although a dozen years have passed since the attacks, which killed 224 people — including 12 Americans in the Nairobi bombing — and wounded thousands, one spectator made clear that she would not have missed this trial.

“I felt that it was an obligation to come,” said Sue Bartley, 63, who has traveled from the Washington suburbs each week to attend the trial since it began last month. Ms. Bartley lost two family members in the Nairobi bombing: her husband, Julian L. Bartley Sr., who was the consul general; and her son, Julian L. Bartley Jr., who was a college student working as an intern at the embassy.

“That was half of my family,” Ms. Bartley testified in 2001 in the first trial stemming from the attacks, in which four Qaeda operatives were convicted in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

Ms. Bartley, who is not testifying in the trial of Mr. Ghailani, the first such detainee tried in civilian court by the Obama administration, was accompanied to court last week by her daughter, Edith, 38.

“It’s important to have a presence,” Edith Bartley said. “These were human beings, and it’s important to put a name, a face, a family behind each of those victims.”

For family members who attended both the 2001 trial and this one, there are stark differences. For one, at the time of the first trial, the 9/11 attacks were still months away.

Edith Bartley, who has become an advocate and spokeswoman for the families of the Americans killed in the Nairobi bombing, said those families, represented by the law firm Crowell & Moring, have pushed for years to receive compensation like that provided to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. But despite bipartisan support, she said, they have been unsuccessful.

Most recently, said one of their lawyers, Florence W. Prioleau, a bill pending in the House would provide a total of about $11 million for the families, and the hope is that such compensation will be part of a final bill.

The long debate about where to try terrorist detainees, in which President Obama has said his goal is to use federal courts whenever feasible, has not escaped the family members observing Mr. Ghailani’s trial.

“The emotional side of me says I would like them to be tried in military court,” said Leah Colston, 39, whose brother, Jesse Nathanael Aliganga, a 21-year-old Marine security guard, died in the Nairobi blast. Ms. Colston flew up from Florida with her mother, Clara Aliganga, 55, to attend the trial last week.

Ms. Colston said using the military system seemed appropriate to her because Al Qaeda lived by a code “where everything is war,” but said she also saw the argument for using civilian courts in cases in which there were many civilian victims.

“The heart of the matter for me is that justice be brought for them somewhere,” Ms. Colston said. “It’s not going to bring back any of our loved ones.”

Susan F. Hirsch, 50, whose husband, Abdurahman Abdalla, was killed in the Tanzania attack, has made several trips from Washington to watch the proceedings and plans to return this week. She wanted to bear witness not only as a victim, she said, but also as a citizen who believes terrorism cases should be subjected to the rigorous standards of the criminal justice system.

“I really was very adamant that we needed to move back into courts,” said Ms. Hirsch, a professor at George Mason University. “Having made that statement, I wanted to be sure that I had made the right determination, and watching the trial going forward, I think I did.”

The family members attending the trial have received assistance from the government to cover travel expenses. Some said they had been asked by prosecutors for their views on whether the government should seek the death penalty after Mr. Ghailani was moved to civilian court. The opinions varied: two said they strongly supported it; another opposed it; and another had no strong opinion. (Ultimately, capital punishment was not sought.)

It has been easier to sit through the trial in the presence of those who can relate, family members said; no one is surprised if someone feels standoffish, or tears up during testimony. “They understand,” Clara Aliganga said. “They’ve been through it.”

Some relatives, though, have not been able to sit through parts of the trial. Ms. Hirsch said she left the courtroom when prosecutors played video of the chaos and carnage in the immediate aftermath of the bombings.

And when a prosecutor displayed the names of each of the 224 victims on a screen on Wednesday, Sue Bartley said she averted her eyes. “I think sometimes you have to put a little shield up to protect yourself,” she said.

She added that when other fugitives in the embassy plot are captured and put on trial, she will not hesitate to return to the Manhattan courthouse. “I’ll be here,” she said.