America's Trial - by John Ryan (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The behind-the-scenes look at the biggest--and perhaps the strangest--case in US history: the prosecution of the five detainees accused of planning 9/11.

Told with exceptional and colorful detail, America's Trial is the only comprehensive account of the effort to prosecute the five Guantanamo Bay detainees accused of planning the worst crime in US history--the September 11th terrorist attacks. While ignored by most media outlets, the result has been a riveting courtroom drama to determine if a democracy has the legal and moral authority to prosecute the men it previously tortured. Our government, so willing to break from norms and its own values with the CIA rendition program, has spent a maddening amount of time trying to fit the victims of illegal interrogations into a court of law. America's Trial captures these events from the vantage point of one of only two journalists in the world to live part-time on the base over the past ten years.

In telling this story over fifty-five reporting trips, award-winning journalist John Ryan takes readers into an ecosystem that so few get to see, capturing the unique life experience of having one of the most notorious places on earth as a second home. The historic legal effort is inseparable from the surreal context and the absurdities of hosting the biggest case in US history in what is effectively a small Caribbean beach town. America's Trial serves as a necessary bookend to events that have defined much of the war on terror.

Review Quotes

"Exquisitely told, John Ryan's America's Trial unveils the human drama behind the legal quagmire of the 9/11 trial. Ryan invites us to witness the courtroom and the personalities whose paths have converged in the notorious war on terror court, deftly portraying the detainees and their lawyers, as well as the judges, the victim family members, and the journalists in attendance. His is an indispensable and revealing portrait of the devastating consequences of torture, an untested legal regime and the passage of time. A must-read for anyone interested in the war on terror." --Karen Greenberg, director of the Center for National Security at Fordham University School of Law and author of The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo's First One Hundred Days, Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump, and Rogue Justice: The Making of the Security State

"Unusual for a book about such a large, loud public event, this is a quiet, almost contemplative study of the 9/11 trials. Ryan doesn't shout, doesn't blow you away with a double-barreled shotgun; he eases into the 9/11 trial with a sharp thin blade, cutting out the noise to reveal the quiet terrifying heart at the center of the horrible mess the US government has made." --Terry McDermott, author of The Hunt for KSM and Perfect Soldiers

"America's Trial is a gripping exposé that pierces the veil of secrecy of the military commission's proceedings at Guantanamo Bay, revealing the human cost of torture and debunking the propagandized narrative that the FBI opposed torture. A witness to the Kafkaesque pretrial proceedings, John Ryan probes the depth of depravity of gruesome techniques like waterboarding and rectal penetrations and reveals how the FBI was a co-conspirator in the CIA's torture program, even recruiting a defense team mole. An Orwellian ecosystem of secrecy so perverse that listening devices were discovered in smoke detectors, and even these comments had to be cleared for open publication." --Mark Fallon, author of Unjustifiable Means

"America's Trial sheds a bright light on what the author has aptly called, 'the pretrial of the century.' This is a story that had to be told, and no one but John Ryan could do so. His peerlessly dedicated on-site chronicling and sharp legal analysis is presented in riveting prose. The topic is grim and infuriating, but the book is an effervescent read." --Lisa Hajjar, author of The War in Court: Inside the Long Fight Against Torture

About the Author

John Ryan is a co-founder of Lawdragon Inc. and has won numerous accolades as a legal affairs journalist over the past twenty-five years. Since 2015, John has been one of just two reporters in the world to report regularly on the military tribunals from Guantanamo Bay, earning two New York Press Club Awards for his work.