Sept. 11 Mastermind Suspect
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba _ Defiant, confessed Sept. 11 attacks mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed went before a military judge on Thursday, refused his U.S. defense counsel and said he would welcome a death sentence.
Mohammed, 43, became the first of a succession of five alleged co-conspirators in the 2001 terror attacks to refuse the legitimacy of the first U.S. war crimes tribunal since World War II.
"In Allah I put my trust," he intoned in Arabic from a Koran, then personally translated the verse into English for the benefit of the audience.
Judge Ralph Kohlmann, a Marine colonel, asked Mohammed whether he understood that the crimes for which he was accused are punishable by the death sentence.
"This is what I wish_to be martyred," Mohammed replied in the broken English he learned as an engineering student in his 20s in North Carolina.
It was the first appearance of the alleged senior al Qaida leaders, whom the United States have held secretly and interrogated overseas since their capture in 2003.
According to the Pentagon’s charge sheet, the men conspired with Osama bin Laden to orchestrate the U.S. airline hijackings that toppled the World Trade Center, shattered the Pentagon and slammed into a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001, killing 2,973 men, women and children.
A Pentagon spokeswoman said all came willingly to the military commission. Ramzi bin al Shibh, one of the five, was shackled at the ankles_with his chains bolted to the courtroom floor.
Air Force Maj. Gail Crawford, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon commissions, said he had "mental issues." Bin al Shibh’s civilian attorney, Thomas A. Durkin, said he had learned on the eve of the hearing that the Yemeni was on medication.
In contrast to his disheveled appearance in photos taken at the time of his capture, Mohammed was tidily attired in pristine white tunic and turban_and had grown a massive, mostly white, bushy beard that reached his chest.
He wore dark-rimmed, prison-issue eyeglasses and had an uncanny resemblance to Ayman al Zawahari, the still at-large bin Laden deputy and founder of Egypt’s radical Muslim Islamic Jihad movement.
Throughout it all, a U.S. security officer had his finger on a mute button for the microphones in use, in case any of the men uttered something that Kohlmann said "would be harmful to national security."
The eavesdrop-proof courtroom segregated media and other observers behind a soundproofed window that let the officer stop an audio feed, if the men divulged national security secrets_such as their treatment in CIA custody.
The CIA director, Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, has confirmed agents employed a controversial interrogation technique called waterboarding on Mohammed.
"I do not mention the torturing. I know this is a red line," Mohammed told the judge.
For spectators in the courtroom booth, his lips moved but the audio came through 20 seconds later. For those watching a closed-circuit video feed from the court, the words and lips matched_but arrived five minutes later.
The first mention of "torture" came at 10 a.m. and the hearing had been underway for nearly an hour. Audio of it was permitted, apparently because Mohammed didn’t mention the details.
At the time, Kohlmann was repeatedly questioning the captive known in CIA circles as KSM on whether he understood the dangers of serving as his own attorney.
"You fully understand that, if you are ultimately convicted of the charges in this case, you could be sentenced to death?" the judge asked Mohammed.
"I will not accept any attorney. I will represent myself," Mohammed said. "I will not accept anybody, even if he is Muslim, if he swears to the American Constitution."
Mohammed said he recognized Islamic shariya law and rejected the U.S. Constitution, in part because it allows for "same sexual marriage and many things are very bad."
The accused sat under the steady, sober stare of a specially trained U.S. guard force inside a windowless bunker-like courtroom with two or three guards within feet of each man’s chair.
Teams of U.S. military and civilian attorneys also sat alongside each alleged terrorist, as Mohammed, Waleed bin Attash and bin al Shibh rejected their appointed counsel_and the legitimacy of the U.S. war court.
"You have killed my brother, who is younger than me, in this war," said bin Attash, 30. "This is my time to be in your hands."
It was unclear whether bin Attash was aware that his younger brother Hassan, 23, was likewise detained at a separate prison camp at Guantanamo_and had arrived here two years before him.
Several of the civilian defense attorneys assigned to the case by the American Civil Liberties Union sought a delay in Thursday’s proceedings, arguing that the men did not fully understand the implications of firing their attorneys.
"Mr. bin al Shibh has a distrust of American military personnel. He believes that he is a warrior, and that he should be treated as a warrior and not a criminal," said Thomas Durkin of Chicago.
Bin al Shibh was the most animated, chatting with the other detainees.
The 92-page charge sheet alleges that the Yemeni, in his late 30s, tried to get a U.S. visa to train at a Florida flight center for the attacks, and joined two of the 19 hijackers in recording a "martyr’s will" months before they traveled to the United States to hijack American airliners and turn them into missiles.
The hearing was an arraignment, a formal reading of charges, and was expected to take up much of the day. Kohlmann, the judge, said a noon lunch break would continue through a 1 p.m. prayer time for the five men.
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