Families told accused Bali bomber Hambali to face 202 life terms

US military prosecutors have revealed details of their case against the man accused of planning the 2002 Bali bombings, telling affected Australians his trial could finally begin next year.

But some victims' relatives and human rights advocates doubt the trial will ever proceed after years of setbacks over concerns about the CIA's use of torture to obtain information.

Encep "Hambali" Nurjaman is one of the last remaining detainees at the US's Guantanamo Bay military prison, where he is awaiting trial before a military commission.

Prosecutors have told victims' loved ones that they intend to seek 202 life sentences — one for each person killed in the bombings — to be served at Guantanamo Bay, with no prospect for repatriation to his home country of Indonesia.

In a recent video call with victims' friends and relatives, prosecutors said depositions from four Singaporeans who testified against Hambali would form a key part of their case.

Co-conspirators Mohammed Farik bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir bin Lep have also provided statements. The men, who acted as money couriers for the terrorists involved in the attacks, were given reduced sentences as part of a deal in which they gave evidence against Hambali.

Prosecutors also confirmed they would use police statements by convicted Australian terrorist Jack Roche, who was jailed in 2004 for conspiring to blow up the Israeli embassy in Canberra and has since died.

Melbourne man Jan Laczynski, who lost five friends in the bombings, said the video call was the most comprehensive update that prosecutors had provided for years.

"I was blown away," he said.

"This was the most amount of detail we have ever heard in this case.

"It was the first time for over 12 months that they gave us pretty much a full picture of what their understanding of the case is."

But others are unconvinced the case is genuinely progressing.

Sandra Thompson, whose son Clint was on an end-of-season football trip when he died in the bombings, said she had been given too many false assurances in the past.

"I thought, here we go again," she said.

"I've been told this every October, every year, that I would be going [to give the court] the victim impact statement.

"You think it's going to end, but it doesn't. It just goes on and on and on."

Long road to trial

The bombings, in Bali's party district Kuta in October 2002, killed 202, including 88 Australians. They were the deadliest terror attacks since September 11.

Hambali was captured in a joint US–Thai police raid in 2003. He was taken into the CIA's secret "rendition and interrogation" program, where he spent three years incommunicado in a network of secret CIA facilities, known as "black sites", before he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

The US alleges Hambali led the Al Qaeda-linked terror group, Jemaah Islamiyah, which was responsible for the bombings and plotted several global terror attacks.

In their recent briefing with loved ones, prosecutors said the trial could last between five weeks and two months. They said it would be prosecuted similar to a racketeering case, in which authorities link the crimes of a group to an individual.

The case would draw on evidence from multiple countries to demonstrate Hambali's role in planning and directing the attacks, prosecutors said.

"They said that they had something like 20 FBI agents working on this, gathering evidence in Singapore and Australia, here in Bali and in Jakarta," Mr Laczynski said, adding that prosecutors said they were awaiting evidence from the Australian Federal Police.

But some advocates believe the trial will never go ahead. Yumna Rizvi, a policy analyst with the Centre for Victims of Torture, said the prosecution's case risks being undermined by evidence obtained through, or tainted by, torture. Under both US and international law, evidence obtained from torture is inadmissible.

"It's incredibly cruel of them [prosecutors] to be saying that [the trial could begin next year] to family members and playing on their emotions,"

she said.

Prosecutors blamed repeated delays on the complexities of coordinating international evidence to prepare the case.

Secret tactics

Hambali's lead defence lawyer, Lieutenant Todd Fanniff, said disputes remained unresolved over whether evidence linked to Hambali's time in CIA detention could be used at trial.

"I wouldn't bet my house on it," he said of the prosecution's 2027 trial timeline. "But I would say it's more likely than it's ever been before.

"My client wants to move forward and get this to trial. He does not want to indefinitely sit there in this limbo."

Lieutenant Fanniff described Hambali's case as "uncharted territory", noting that most military commission cases had ended in plea deals. He confirmed no plea deal offers were being negotiated in Hambali's case.

"This is just so much longer than what I considered a long time for a case to be tried and resolved in my lifetime," he said.

"I've never seen anything like this."

For years, details of the CIA tactics were kept secret until a US Senate report in 2015 revealed detainees had been subjected to torture and coercive interrogation techniques.

The report found Hambali was stripped naked, shackled and held in long periods of solitary confinement. He was also forced into stress positions and subjected to "walling", an interrogation technique that involved repeatedly slamming his head against a wall.

The report also noted that a US interrogator allegedly told Hambali his case would never go to court because "we can never let the world know what I have done to you".

While the report is damning, it remains heavily redacted, meaning the full extent of the torture program has not been fully exposed.

"It's much easier for the government to want to cover that up rather than say, 'We messed up, we violated black letter domestic and international law, and we have to now face account for it,'" Ms Rizvi said.

'Put an end to it'

Ms Thompson has for years wanted to deliver her victim impact statement at Hambali's trial.

"He needs to know the damage that he's done, because it wasn't only the people that they killed on the day, it's the ripple effect,"

she said.

"I would like him to hear and see us, that we're humans, that I'm a mother.

"This can't go on and on. Finish it. Put an end to it."

But the protracted legal saga has left her with a deep distrust of the judicial system.

"You don't hold somebody in a prison in Cuba for 20 years and not have a court case. It's not natural," she said.

"I don't think it will ever happen anyway."

As far as Mr Laczynski is concerned, Hambali deserves no mercy.

"A life sentence is still getting it easy… the fact that he's still alive in jail, he should be grateful," he said, referring to the three Bali bombers executed by firing squad in Indonesia in 2008.

"We just want to see this guy sentenced and dealt with. We just want to move on."