Mohammed Wants to Be ‘Martyred’ for Sept. 11 Attacks
James Rowley 1 hour, 3 minutes ago
June 5 (Bloomberg) — Self-proclaimed al-Qaeda commander Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, appearing at a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said he would welcome the martyrdom of execution for masterminding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.
“This is what I wish,” Mohammed, speaking in English, told a judge who warned that he might be executed if convicted. “I am looking to be martyred for a long time.” Mohammed, 43, said he was rejecting legal representation and will defend himself. “Nothing shall befall us, save for what Allah has ordained for us.”
Mohammed, identified in the 9/11 Commission report as the “principal architect” of the strikes, is accused of murder with four co-defendants who also appeared in court. The charges carry the death penalty. Mohammed said he and his co-defendants were tortured following their capture by U.S. forces and now face a proceeding that “is inquisition, it is not trial.”
“After torturing, they transferred us to inquisitionland in Guantanamo,” said Mohammed. “We don’t have a right to anything.”
The five defendants are charged with conspiring to finance, train and direct the 19 hijackers who seized four airliners used in the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon outside Washington. They are charged in the deaths of 2,973 people killed in the attacks and the crash of one airliner in Pennsylvania.
Translated to Arabic
The men spoke to each other and laughed as they pointed to reporters seated in a glassed-in spectators’ gallery.
“It seemed to be a reunion” of the five suspects, Navy Commander Suzanne Lachelier, who represents Ramzi Binalshibh, 36, told reporters during a break. Her client was the only defendant to sit with his legs shackled to a bolt in the courtroom floor. Such restraint is standard procedure for a detainee on medication, she said, adding that security rules forbid disclosure of the drug or why he is taking it.
Robert Swann, a civilian Defense Department lawyer, told presiding judge Marine Colonel Ralph Kohlmann that he charges, translated into Arabic, were served on each defendant May 21.
Mohammed, who wore a traditional white Arab turban and tunic, stroked his long salt-and-pepper beard as his lawyers introduced themselves to the court. He wore black horned-rim glasses that he frequently pushed onto his forehead.
His attendance at court proceedings at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base marked his first public appearance since he was captured in Pakistan in 2003. He was held by the CIA until his 2006 transfer to Guantanamo.
From `A to Z’
During a March 10, 2007, Guantanamo hearing to declare him an enemy combatant, he bragged he was “responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z,” according to a Defense Department transcript. He claimed that in 2002 he personally beheaded Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter kidnapped in Pakistan.
Mohammed cited religious and political reasons for refusing to be represented by a lawyer. “I cannot accept any attorney who is governed” by law “rather than the Lord of the law,” he said.
Kohlmann repeatedly warned Mohammed that it was unwise to reject the representation of expert lawyers familiar with rules of evidence and procedure.
“God is all-sufficient, understand?” Mohammed replied. Asked if he had any formal legal training, Mohammed said, “I am expert in the gospel of Koran” that is “the law of the Lord.”
A second defendant, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, also said he would represent himself. “You have killed my younger brother; this is my time to be in your hands,” said Bin ‘Attash, 30.
Order to Lawyers
Kohlmann cut short complaints by civilian defense lawyers that they didn’t have enough time to meet with their clients, and he ordered attorneys to be seated when they persisted in trying to argue the point.
“Anyone suggesting we can’t proceed today is not going to be accepted by the court,” Kohlmann said.
Mohammed said he doesn’t need a translator. He questioned the accuracy of translators at a hearing last year on his status as an enemy detainee, saying “they put words in my mouth.”
The other defendants also spoke English, though they requested translators. Defendant Ali Abdul Aziz Ali told the judge he needs a translator who can understand the Arabic accent common to residents of his native region of the Middle East. “Previously I had some problem with the translators who mistranslate or misunderstand me,” he said.
Showcase Commissions
Today the five defendants are being asked to enter their pleas. The arraignments will help President George W. Bush’s administration showcase military commissions for trying about 70 of the 270 detainees at Guantanamo. Sixty journalists were flown to Cuba on a military plane to cover the proceeding.
Five years of legal challenges have so far prevented any war-crimes cases from going to trial, and defense lawyers plan to continue contesting the fairness of the procedures.
The military commission is “definitely not a search for justice on the merits of the case itself” because investigators “can interview a bunch of informants in the field and just come in and say what they heard,” Lachelier said in a telephone interview before today’s proceeding.
Air Force Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, who oversees the commissions, said in an interview that the defendants will get prior notice of plans to introduce such “hearsay” evidence. Defense lawyers will have 30 days to challenge the evidence.
Osama bin Laden
Mohammed was born in the Baluchistan region, an area along the Pakistan-Iran border, and grew up in Kuwait. He is accused of proposing the Sept. 11 operation to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 1996 and training hijackers to hide knives in carry-on bags before boarding the planes. Under Mohammed’s direction, the hijackers learned how to slit the throats of passengers by practicing on sheep, goats and camels, the government claims.
He is accused of giving $100,000 to co-defendant Ali to provide to the hijackers.
Binalshibh tried four times without success to enter the U.S. in 2000. The charging document says he wired $2,708 to one hijacker and in late August 2001 sent a message to Mohammed that the hijackers’ leader, Mohammed Atta, had chosen Sept. 11 for the date of the attacks.
Justice Department and military officials have said they expect a host of legal challenges from defense lawyers on issues such as the admissibility of evidence obtained from Central Intelligence Agency interrogations, which human-rights advocates say included techniques amounting to torture.
`Waterboarding‘
The spy agency acknowledged that Mohammed was one of three al-Qaeda operatives who underwent “waterboarding,” which simulates drowning. The CIA says it no longer uses the technique.
Justice Department officials said prosecutors are trying to limit use of information from CIA interrogations.
Still, individual trial judges may decide to admit statements from interrogations that involved waterboarding, Hartmann told reporters yesterday at Guantanamo Bay. A judge will decide whether waterboarding is coercion rather than torture “based on the facts he has heard,” Hartmann said.
Such coerced statements may be used as evidence if the judge determines they are “reliable” and “probative” and their use is “in the best interest of justice,” Hartmann said.
The defense is seeking to disqualify Hartmann as the legal adviser overseeing the military court in the case.
Lee ADDS: This is a time to UNITE as we try these man and, hopefully, convict them. They claim to be ‘eager martyrs.’ If that is so, lets give them a chance. I see no need for any mercy as NONE was granted the people that died on 9/11 or in Iraq!
