Long-delayed 9/11 case begins at Guantanamo
US: Long-delayed efforts to try self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four Al-Qaeda co-defendants finally got under
way Monday with a pre-trial hearing at Guantanamo.
Eleven years after the attacks and nine-and-a-half years after his
capture in Pakistan, KSM sat on a court bench wearing a white turban,
his beard dyed with henna, as victims’ family members looked on from
behind a glass screen. KSM is accused of orchestrating the hijacked
airliner plot that left 2,976 people dead, while his alleged Al-Qaeda
accomplices are charged with providing funding and other support for
those who crashed the planes.
All five face the death penalty if convicted, but their trial by
military tribunal at the US naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba is not
expected to start for at least another year.During the five-day
pre-trial hearing, the defense is seeking to prevent President Barack
Obama’s administration from arguing that the treatment and alleged
torture of the defendants during interrogations in secret CIA prisons
before being sent to Guantanamo in 2006 is classified for national
security.
Media organizations and rights groups are demanding that the judge
guarantee the transparency of proceedings amid fears that some sessions
will be conducted in secret.
“The public has the right to see the proceedings,” said James
Connell, representing KSM’s Pakistani nephew Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, who is
believed to have helped with logistics and funding for the September 11,
2001 attacks.
The American Civil Liberties Union and media groups petitioning the
court are also protesting a 40-second audio delay for journalists and
others following the proceedings from behind the soundproof glass.
They say the delay, which allows a military censor to blur statements
whose content is deemed a threat to national security, violates speech
and press freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment of the US
Constitution.
Initially set for June, the pre-trial hearing has been delayed on
several occasions for reasons including Ramadan, scheduling conflicts, a
train derailment that sparked an Internet outage at the base and a
tropical storm.
Judge James Pohl turned down a request for a further delay due to rat
excrement and mold being discovered in the offices of defense lawyers.
Wearing a hijab out of respect for her Yemeni client Walid bin
Attash, defense attorney Cheryl Bormann brought up the issue again on
Monday, saying the condition of the workspace “makes the staff sick.”
Pohl did rule that the defendants can leave the courtroom during the
hearings or opt not to attend at all, as long as they “understand their
rights.” That decision takes effect as of Tuesday.
The ruling came after Michael Schwartz, the military defense attorney
for Bin Attash, argued that a discussion of torture was necessary to
decide that issue, but Pohl shut down his line of reasoning as
“irrelevant.”
KSM, a Kuwaiti-born Pakistani who attended university in the United
States, is the self-confessed architect of the 9/11 attacks and a host
of other anti-Western plots.
The trained engineer was regarded as one of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin
Laden’s most trusted and intelligent lieutenants.
In addition to felling the Twin Towers, KSM claims to have personally
beheaded US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 with his “blessed right
hand” and to have helped in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that
killed six people.
Bin Attash is accused of masterminding the attack on the destroyer
USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, which killed 17 US soldiers.
AFP
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