NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – An alleged al Qaeda chieftain accused of launching a deadly bomb attack in 2000 on a U.S. Navy ship was arraigned on Wednesday at a U.S. military tribunal hearing marked by questions about how the judge would handle potential evidence of torture.

Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a round-faced 46-year-old Saudi with close-cropped black hair and dark stubble, appeared in public for the first time during his nine years in U.S. custody.

In a top-security courtroom at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba, he postponed entering a plea and waived the reading of war crimes charges that include murder, attempted murder, conspiring with al Qaeda and attacking civilians — charges that could eventually lead to his execution if he is convicted.

Nashiri is accused of orchestrating the October 2000 attack that killed 17 sailors and wounded three dozen more on the USS Cole. Suicide bombers rammed a boat full of explosives into the ship while it refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden, blowing a 30-foot (9-meter) hole in the hull. He is accused of launching a similar attack that killed a crewman aboard a French oil tanker off Yemen.

Nashiri sat unshackled with defense lawyers at one side and a row of Navy guards in camouflage uniforms on the other. He listened through earphones to an Arabic-English interpreter as the judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, asked if he was satisfied with his four U.S. military and civilian lawyers. Nashiri said that he was.

When the case is ready for trial in a year or two, a military jury is expected to hear gruesome details of the attack on the Cole, descriptions of bloody decks and sailors’ mangled bodies embedded in metal walls shredded by the blast.

John Clodfelter, a Vietnam veteran whose son Kenneth was among the sailors killed, watched the hearing from the glassed-in spectator’s gallery and said Nashiri seemed “cocky” and “pitiful looking,” and deserved the death penalty. Clodfelter said his son’s body was in so many pieces that there were three separate burials.

NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – An alleged al Qaeda chieftain accused of launching a deadly bomb attack in 2000 on a U.S. Navy ship was arraigned on Wednesday at a U.S. military tribunal hearing marked by questions about how the judge would handle potential evidence of torture.

Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a rotund 46-year-old Saudi with close-cropped black hair and dark stubble, appeared in public for the first time during his nine years in U.S. custody.

Facing a top-security courtroom at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba, he postponed entering a plea and waived the reading of war crimes charges that include murder, attempted murder, conspiring with al Qaeda and attacking civilians — charges that could eventually lead to his execution if he is convicted.

Nashiri is accused of orchestrating the October 2000 attack that killed 17 sailors and wounded three dozen more on the USS Cole. Suicide bombers detonated a boat full of explosives alongside the ship while it refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden, blowing a 30-foot (9-meter) hole in the hull. He is accused of launching a similar attack that killed a crewman aboard a French oil tanker off Yemen.

Nashiri sat unshackled with defense lawyers at one side and a row of Navy guards in camouflage uniforms on the other. He listened through earphones to an Arabic-English interpreter as the judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, asked if he was satisfied with his four U.S. military and civilian lawyers.

Nashiri said that he was although “I do not pronounce the names perfectly.”

“Neither do I,” the judge replied, prompting a smile from Nashiri.

NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – Members of the U.S. public will be allowed to watch a broadcast of Wednesday’s arraignment hearing for a Guantanamo prisoner accused of masterminding a deadly attack on a U.S. Navy warship, but only if they can get to an army base in Maryland by Wednesday morning.

The chief judge in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal signed an order on Monday granting permission for the public to view the closed-circuit broadcast being beamed to the Fort Meade Army base in Maryland.

The order was made public late on Tuesday, giving potential viewers little notice.

Defendant Abd al Rahim al Nashiri is to be arraigned at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba on death-penalty charges that include murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and terrorism.

The 46-year-old Saudi captive is accused of conspiring with al Qaeda to launch the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Adan.

Suicide bombers detonated a boat full of explosives alongside the Cole and blew a gaping hole in its side, killing 17 U.S. sailors and wounding three dozen more.

Nashiri’s hearing in the military tribunal at the remote base in eastern Cuba will be the first beamed to the United States for viewing, albeit at restricted sites.

NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – Nine years after his capture and a decade after the United States first authorized military tribunals for terrorist suspects, the alleged mastermind of the deadly bombing of the USS Cole will face a judge in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal.

Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a 46-year-old Saudi of Yemeni descent, is to be arraigned Wednesday on charges that include murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and terrorism.

He is the first high-ranking al Qaeda figure to face charges at Guantanamo under the Obama administration and could face the death penalty if convicted. But attorneys expect it will be a year or two before the case goes to trial.

Nashiri is accused of conspiring with Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders to bomb U.S. targets, including embassies in Africa and ships in the Gulf of Aden.

In the attack on the Cole in October 2000, two suicide bombers in civilian garb waved at the crew and then drove their boat full of explosives into the side of the warship as it refueled in the Port of Aden. The blast tore a 30-foot (9 meter) hole in the ship, killing 17 U.S. sailors and wounding three dozen more.

Nashiri, described by U.S. investigators as al Qaeda’s one-time head of operations in the Arabian Peninsula, is accused of planning and preparing the attack, choosing the suicide bombers and helping buy the boat and explosives.

He is accused of plotting similar boat-bomb attacks on another U.S. warship and a French oil tanker off Yemen. The January 2000 attack on the other warship, the USS The Sullivans, failed when the would-be suicide bombers ran their boat aground. The October 2002 attack on the tanker, the MV Limburg, killed a crewman and dumped 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden.

MIAMI (Reuters) – The U.S. war crimes tribunal that will try the alleged planner of a deadly attack on a U.S. warship has no power to free him if he is acquitted, military prosecutors said in court documents made public on Wednesday.

Defense lawyers have argued that the trial of Guantanamo prisoner Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri would be merely a show trial if there was no meaningful possibility of reprieve if he is found not guilty.

Nashiri is to be arraigned next week at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba on charges he conspired with al Qaeda suicide bombers to ram an explosives-filled boat into the side of the USS Cole while it was in port in Yemen in 2000.

Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed in the attack and three dozen more suffered injuries ranging from broken bones and concussion to ruptured ear drums.

Nashiri, a 46-year-old Saudi Arabian of Yemeni descent, could be executed if he is convicted of charges that include conspiracy, murder and perfidy.

But the U.S. government has said that regardless of the trial’s outcome, it has authority to hold the alleged al Qaeda conspirator until the end of hostilities in the U.S. war against terrorism — essentially for the rest of his life.

Defense lawyers want the military jurors to be told up front that Nashiri could be executed if convicted and held forever if acquitted.

MIAMI (Reuters) – Florida is expected to set its U.S. presidential primary election for Jan. 31, setting off a game of leapfrog as various states try to increase their influence by moving ahead in the nominating process, state officials said on Wednesday.

The date will not become final until Florida’s date selection committee meets in Tallahassee on Friday.

But the governor, the Florida Senate president and the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives — who appointed the nine-member date selection committee — have asked for the Jan. 31 date, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Dean Cannon said.

“The three principals shared a goal of Florida being early in the process. Speaker Cannon felt that Jan. 31 would preserve that,” said Katie Betta, Cannon’s spokeswoman.

That means the four states authorized by the Republican National Committee to go first would almost certainly move up their primary elections and caucuses.

In the process of choosing the presidential nominees fielded by the two major political parties, candidates compete in primary elections or other contests in the U.S. states to win delegates who ultimately will pick the nominees in later party conventions.

Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina are authorized by the party to kick off the contests that will eventually produce a Republican nominee to challenge President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election. Those states had planned on holding their contests in February.

MIAMI (Reuters) – A Saudi Arabian prisoner accused of plotting the deadly attack on the warship USS Cole in 2000 could be executed if he is convicted in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

The Pentagon official overseeing the Guantanamo trials formally approved nine terrorism, conspiracy and murder charges against prisoner Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri, and referred the case for trial by military tribunal as a capital case.

Two suicide bombers rammed an explosives-laden boat into the Cole off Yemen, blowing a massive hole in its side and killing 17 U.S. sailors. Nashiri is accused of planning and preparing the attack, which also wounded more than three dozen sailors.

Defense lawyers argued unsuccessfully that he should not face execution because the case was tainted by torture and brutality.

Nashiri was subjected to “waterboarding” — an interrogation technique that creates the sensation of drowning — and mock executions while held at secret CIA prisons after his capture in Dubai in 2002. He was sent to the detention center at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba in 2006.

The CIA has acknowledged it destroyed videotapes of Nashiri’s interrogations.

“We think there were a lot of compelling reasons to say it shouldn’t be a death penalty case but we’re not surprised at all,” said Rick Kammen, one of Nashiri’s attorneys.

MIAMI (Reuters) – Florida is expected to set its presidential primary election for January 31, setting off a game of leapfrog as various states try to increase their influence by moving ahead in the nominating process, state officials said on Wednesday.

The date will not become final until Florida’s date selection committee meets in Tallahassee on Friday.

But the governor, the Florida Senate president and the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives — who appointed the nine-member date selection committee — have asked for the January 31 date, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Dean Cannon said.

“The three principals shared a goal of Florida being early in the process. Speaker Cannon felt that January 31 would preserve that,” said Katie Betta, Cannon’s spokeswoman.

That means the four states authorized by the Republican National Committee to go first would almost certainly move up their primary elections and caucuses.

In the process of choosing the presidential nominees fielded by the two major political parties, candidates compete in primary elections or other contests in the U.S. states to win delegates who ultimately will pick the nominees in later party conventions.

Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina are authorized by the party to kick off the contests that will eventually produce a Republican nominee to challenge President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election. Those states had planned on holding their contests in February.

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – Former pizza executive Herman Cain surprised rival Rick Perry with an upset victory on Saturday in a nonbinding Republican presidential straw poll in Florida, dealing a disappointing loss to the Texas governor two days after a shaky debate performance.

Perry, leading in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, had needed a victory in the key test of strength in a crucial state to salve the wounds left over from a debate with his rivals on Thursday in which he struggled.

Instead, former Godfather’s Pizza executive Cain, who is far behind the two top-tier candidates Perry and Mitt Romney, won with 37 percent of 2,657 votes cast.

Perry was a distant second at 15 percent, just ahead of Romney, who won 14 percent despite not participating in the poll. Further back were Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Michele Bachmann.

Florida’s straw poll is a nonbinding popularity poll and is significant only in terms of showing a candidate’s strength in the state. The state contests to determine the Republican nominee do not start until early next year.

The Perry camp shrugged off the results.

“Cain won, we still have work to do,” said Perry spokesman Mark Miner. “It’s his day. The conservative message won today. We’ve been in this race for five weeks. We’re going to continue campaigning hard.”

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – Republican Rick Perry on Saturday hoped to rebound from a shaky debate performance to win a Florida straw poll that is an important test of strength in a state crucial to victory in the November 2012 U.S. presidential election.

Perry, the Texas governor, created doubts among some conservatives at a debate with his Republican rivals on Thursday when he appeared to struggle to answer a foreign policy question and had difficulty driving home an attack on chief adversary Mitt Romney.

As many as 3,500 Florida Republican delegates were to vote in the straw poll later on Saturday with the results expected about 6 p.m. EDT. The straw poll is important to Perry because he actively participated in it.

Delegates were to hear remarks from longshot candidates Herman Cain, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Videotaped statements were expected from Perry and Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul was to have a surrogate speak for him.

Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and a third candidate, Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann, chose not to compete in the straw poll but since they took part in the debate and spoke earlier to delegates at the convention in Orlando, the Florida Republican Party put their names on the ballot.

At a breakfast attended by 1,000 people, Perry took a jab at both Democratic President Barack Obama and Romney, who was widely viewed as having won Thursday’s debate.

“You’ve seen what happens when our country chooses a leader who emphasizes words over deeds,” he said. “We get a president like we have today. Americans don’t need more slick promises. We need a principled leader who will stand on his conservative values.”