GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — The sister of a New York firefighter who died in World Trade Center while trying to help people escape in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks told the story of her brother’s heroism while defending the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay and said she wanted justice handed down against the plotters after 20 years.
“The United States is not on trial. The terrorists are on trial,” said Elizabeth Berry, a clinical psychologist, who along with her husband, Paul Berry, a retired attorney, attended this week’s pre-trial hearings at the Cuban island war court — the first in-person proceedings in the 9/11 case since February 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, which ground everything to a halt.
Her brother, New York Fire Department Capt. William “Billy” Burke died when the North Tower collapsed and was last seen trying to help paraplegic and wheelchair-bound Ed Beyea and his friend Abe Zelmanowitz, who had refused to leave his side, get out of the building after he had ordered the firefighters under his command to evacuate before it was too late.
Berry and her husband strongly defended the U.S. government’s efforts to try the five men accused of conspiring and facilitating the al Qaeda terrorist attacks that killed almost 3,000 US. citizens and said they had come to Gitmo for the 20th anniversary of the attacks because they believed in the prosecution. More than 300 firefighters, including Burke, as well as chaplain Fr. Mychal Judge, deemed “Victim 0001,” died on 9/11.
Berry told reporters that she was the oldest of six children, and although Billy was the oldest of the brothers, he was her little brother.
“My brother, Captain William F. Burke Jr. was one of the 343 firemen killed on 9/11,” Elizabeth said, describing her brother as “kind of a larger-than-life character.” She added: “His story is a pretty iconic story, and it’s fairly representative of what the firemen, the first responders, and a lot of people did that day. The story is quite heroic. … It is an iconic story, but it’s not a unique story — there were an awful lot of heroes that day.”
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Burke refused to leave fellow programmers Beyea and Zelmanowitz stranded by themselves, and he stayed behind when sending the other firefighters out of the building.
“He said to the companies of firemen, ‘Keep going. I’ll be right behind you.’ But he wasn’t. He stayed behind with the two civilians. All of Billy’s men got out. On the way down, many of his men found other civilians and got them out. There’s a couple of famous stories of firemen who miraculously got out, that Billy had sent out, who still attribute the fact that they’re alive to my brother. … My brother and these other two men died together,” Berry said.
In the two decades since 19 hijackers crashed commercial airlines and killed nearly 3,000 people, five men believed to be responsible for the planning and execution of the plot have yet to stand trial. The key unresolved question is the admissibility of confessions obtained by the FBI after the CIA subjected them to “enhanced interrogation techniques” — called “torture” by some.
Berry said she first came down to Gitmo roughly 11 years ago and told reporters that “walking into the courtroom for the first time was extremely emotionally powerful for me.” She added: “I want to see resolution. This event happened 20 years, and it had a profound effect on me, on my family, and on the families of over 3,000 people, and it’s continuing to have a profound effect.”
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, dubbed “KSM” and described as “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks” in the 9/11 Commission Report, was a close ally of Osama bin Laden, who orchestrated the attacks and was killed by U.S. forces 10 years ago. Mohammed is being tried alongside four co-defendants: his nephew Ammar Baluchi, alleged hijacking trainer Walid bin Attash, 9/11 facilitator Ramzi bin Shibh, and al Qaeda money man Mustafa Hawsawi. The defense teams are seeking to throw out confessions that the five men made to FBI “clean teams” at Guantanamo Bay after they had been subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” at the CIA black sites.
“As you know, the world has moved on. … It’s not something you hear a lot about in the media anymore, and just personally coming down here helps me keep in touch with what’s going on,” Berry said, adding that she came down to Gitmo for the 9/11 anniversary because she was optimistic that the case would start moving toward a trial again. “Because we were going back into pre-trial, because I felt a sense of optimism and hope that we could actually move this thing forward, and I thought, what better place to honor my brother than here with other family members and with the prosecution team and the people who have been very supportive of me over the years. This is where I wanted to be,” she said.
“I get frustrated, sure, I do,” Berry said. “I get frustrated, especially when I hear people who have lost family members have never had resolution to this. … But I feel much more optimistic now that we’re back in session and that we have a judge who seems to be determined to stay on the bench and to move the proceedings forward.” In terms of a potential punishment if the accused terrorists are convicted, she said, “Am I in favor of capital punishment in this particular case? Yes.”
Paul Berry defended the military commissions where Mohammed and the others were being tried, saying, “It is so big, it is so complex, and it appears that, to me anyway, and I think to most of the families, that what this country and what the prosecution has done is go far beyond anything they’ve done before to do the right thing, not to just rush to prosecute and convict, but to provide due process in a way that is monumental.” Paul Berry added, “There have been accommodations made for these defendants that would never be made to any of us if we were charged with a capital crime in the United States.”
Clay Trivett, the managing trial counsel for the prosecution, said Friday that there had been 601,150 pages of discovery provided to the defense so far, adding that 20,908 pages relate to the CIA’s interrogation programs. After multiple scuttled military commissions, numerous retired judges, battles over classified information, and accusations of torture, the death penalty trial had been set for 2021, but COVID-19 upended all of it. Air Force Col. Matthew McCall oversaw the 9/11 case’s first hearings in more than 500 days this week, although Mohammed’s lawyer wants the new judge to recuse himself.
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Berry repeatedly stressed the importance of a 9/11 trial actually happening.
“It is frustrating for the families — we all want to see it done, we all want to see it this come to an end sometime, but it has to be the correct end — and by correct end, we mean, the trial has to be finished, what happened has to be made public, what these terrorists did to murder our family members has to come out, and the world has to see that the government has presented it in enormous detail and that they’ve done it correctly, they’ve done it justly, and they’ve done it with due process,” he said. “But this is really going to be an opportunity, when the trial finally comes around, how these people murdered our loved ones.”
He added: “Justice is telling the world, in a trial, what these terrorists did to murder so many people. That’s justice. And from that, the verdict will be the verdict.”
Ciaran Canavan, his wife Jean, and their 19-year-old son, Liam (who was not yet born on 9/11) also attended this week’s 9/11 proceedings at Guantanamo Bay. Canavan’s brother, Sean, was a carpenter working on the 98th floor of the World Trade Center’s South Tower. He saw American Airlines Flight 11 smash into the North Tower before he was killed in the other tower.
