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Another round of pretrial hearings is underway this week at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The hearings are part of the military commission’s case against five men accused of plotting and supporting the September 11th attacks.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for alleged 9/11 “mastermind” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants. This is the 26th set of pretrial hearings since Mohammed and the other suspects were indicted over five years ago and some, including President Trump, have been critical of the slowness of the whole process. It is also the third attempt to try Mohammed and his co-defendants, who were originally arraigned in a military commission back in 2008.

Arun Rath, a correspondent with our partner WGBH, has covered many of the pretrial hearings for this case at Guantanamo Bay and is reporting on the current one. He tells The Takeaway that the big issue of the week is whether the war court has the authority to try the five defendants.

This segment is hosted by Todd Zwillich