Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Home Front: WoT

'They don't want closure, they want justice!' Fury from 9/11 families as it's revealed five Guantanamo Bay prisoners accused of planning terror attack are negotiating for PLEA DEALS that would take death penalty off table

2022-09-12

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news]

Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles was the pilot on American Airlines Flight 77 which crashed into the Pentagon that day, is angry about the possibility

She says she's not alone: 'The families are outraged. They don't want closure, they want justice'

Burlingame says there is no justice for her brother and the families without a death penalty sentence

It was first revealed in March that guilty pleas in exchange for a life sentence could finally bring to a close the over two decade-long case

The anti-war group 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows , has said that the plea deals are in part a good faith agreement due to CIA torture of the five

It was first revealed in March that guilty pleas in exchange for a life sentence could finally bring to a close the over two decade-long case, the longest ever at the war court.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ammar al-Baluchi were all expected to face the death penalty if convicted.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Pentagon prosecutors working on deal to SAVE 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his accomplices from death penalty before his Guantanamo Bay trial

2022-03-16

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news]

Guilty pleas in exchange for a life sentence could finally bring to a close the over two decade-long case, the longest ever at the war court

The cases have been bogged down in pretrial proceedings due to the CIA's use of terrorism, but plea agreements could ignite fury from 9/11 families

The al-Qaeda terrorists have been charged with terrorism; hijacking aircraft; conspiracy; murder in violation of the law of war; attacking civilians and more

The five men were allegedly directly involved with hijacking four airplanes and carrying out the coordinated attacks across the US that led to the death of 2,977

They are: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,

...also Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistain in 2002 and interned at Guantanamo...
Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash,

... Walid bin Attash and Waleed bin Attash, a Yemeni who ran an al-Qaeda training camp in Logar, Afghanistan, where two of the 19 hijackers were trained. Bin Attash is believed to have been bin Laden's bodyguard. Authorities say bin Laden selected him as a hijacker, but he was prevented from participating when he was briefly detained in Yemen in early 2001...

Ramzi Bin al-Shibh ,

...a.k.a. Ramzi ibn Al-Shaiba, senior Al Qaeda man involved in the famous Hamburg cell. The unhandsome Yemeni helped find flight schools for the hijackers, helped them enter the United States, and assisted with financing the operation. He was supposed to be a hijacker, but was unable to get a U.S. visa. He also took the lead in a foiled plot to crash aircraft into London's Heathrow Airport...

Ali Abdul Aziz Ali,

...KSM’s nephew and one of KSM’s many relatives in the Karachi cell, also known as Ammar al-Balochi, helped nine of the hijackers travel to the United States and sent them money for expenses and flight training. He was also part of the Heathrow team ...

and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi ,

... also Mustafa al-Hawsawi, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi, and no doubt other variations. Saudi Arabian accused of giving financial backing to the group, he testified in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, saying he had seen Moussaoui at an al-Qaeda guesthouse in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in early 2001, but somehow was never introduced to him or conducted operations with him...

all expected to face the death penalty if convicted

Update from PJ Media at 10:10 a.m. ET

During the Trump administration, prosecutors tried to work out a plea deal that would have sent the plotters to a supermax prison in Florence, Colo. with life sentences. Those negotiations fell through when the prisoners demanded they serve their life sentences in Guantanamo, which is far less restrictive.

Now the Biden administration, the guys that caused the debacle in Afghanistan

Biden administration, the guys that caused the debacle in Afghanistan

...the pack of self-imagined masterminds of strategy and intrigue at the service of the Biden Crime Family and a grateful nation...
is trying once again to settle the legal situation for KSM and the other plotters and has opened negotiations that would give the snuffies life sentences.

Even with successful negotiations, any deal would have to secure the Pentagon’s approval.
Lapdogs Milley and Austin would surely do whatever they're told
Even the suggestion of a deal during the Trump administration enraged then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who complained to Defense Secretary James N. Mattis about the convening authority, Harvey Rishikof. Shortly after that, Rishikof was fired.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Death penalty trial date for men accused of planning 9/11 is finally set

2019-09-01

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

mastermind of the 9/11 attacks for Al Qaeda, he is also indicted an outstanding terror indictment for the unsuccessful Bojinka plot to simultaneously take down multiple airliners over the Pacific Ocean in the 1990s...

and four other accomplices charged with plotting attacks that killed 2,976 people will be held at Guantanamo Bay in January 2021.

Colonel W. Shane Cohen of the Air Force announced on Friday that the trial is set for January 11, 2021

The case will take place at Camp Justice at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba

Date announcement was included in a 10-page trial scheduling order that also said that prosecutors had until October 1 to get material to defense teams

Cohen's announcement marks the first time that a trial judge in the case actually established a date

Prosecutors had tried to get the ball rolling with two previous judges after the 2012 arraignment of the five men

The other men also charged include: Walid bin Attash,

...also Waleed bin Attash, a Yemeni who allegedly ran an al-Qaeda training camp in Logar, Afghanistan, where two of the 19 hijackers were trained. Bin Attash is believed to have been bin Laden's bodyguard. Authorities say bin Laden selected him as a hijacker, but he was prevented from participating when he was briefly detained in Yemen in early 2001...

Ramzi bin al-Shibh,

...also Ramzi Binalshibh, the unhandsome Yemeni who allegedly helped find flight schools for the hijackers, helped them enter the United States, and assisted with financing the operation. He allegedly was selected to be a hijacker and made a "martyr video" in preparation for the operation, but was unable to get a U.S. visa. He also is believed to be a lead operative for a foiled plot to crash aircraft into London's Heathrow Airport.

Ammar al-Baluchi

...born in Pakistan and reared in Kuwait, KSM’s nephew is also known as Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali. He allegedly helped nine of the hijackers travel to the United States and sent them $120,000 for expenses and flight training. He is believed to have served as a key lieutenant to Mohammed in Pakistan...

and Mustafa al-Hawsawi

...also Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, a Saudi who allegedly helped the hijackers with money, western clothing, traveler's checks and credit cards. Al-Hawsawi testified in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, saying he had seen Moussaoui at an al-Qaeda guesthouse in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in early 2001, but somehow was never introduced to him or conducted operations with him...

Link

Home Front: WoT

9/11 Defense Attorney Calls For women To Wear 'Appropriate' Clothing

2012-05-07

The defense attorney who wore a traditional Islamic outfit during the rowdy arraignment of the accused Sept. 11 terrorists is defending her courtroom appeal that other women in the room wear more "appropriate" clothing to the proceedings -- out of respect for her client's Muslim beliefs.

Appropriate attire for a woman attorney in a U.S. courtroom is a dark blue or gray business jacket and skirt (slacks okay, I'm told) with a white or pastel-colored blouse. Conservative cut, of course, and tailored. An American flag lapel pin is a nice touch.

Cheryl Bormann, counsel for defendant Walid bin Attash, attended the arraignment Saturday dressed in a hijab, apparently because her client insisted on ~~making the proceedings a circus~~ it. She further requested that the court order other women to follow that example so that the defendants ~~can make the proceedings even more of a circus~~ do not have to avert their eyes "for fear of committing a sin under their faith."

Imagine all this playing out in a New York federal courtroom...

At a press conference Sunday at Guantanamo Bay, Bormann said she dresses in a hijab at "all times" when she meets with her client "out of respect" for his beliefs. Asked why she requested other women do the same, Bormann said, "When you're on trial for your life, you need to be focused."

She's just begging to antagonize the court, and all this does is further her clients' goals of turning the proceedings into a travesty.

Bormann, who is not Muslim, claimed the issue came up several years ago, when a paralegal wore "very short skirts" and it became a distraction for the defendants.

They were rolling their eyes like mad, and they couldn't even have gun sex...

And their right hands weren't working?

She said that on Saturday, "somebody" was also dressed "in a way that was not in keeping with my client's religious beliefs."

Her clients need to get a thicker skin. And blinders...

Link

Home Front: WoT

Five 9/11 accused get May 5 Guantanamo court date

2012-04-11

[Dawn] The alleged criminal mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks and his four accused co-plotters will be formally arraigned by a military tribunal on May 5 at Guantanamo Bay, US officials said Tuesday.
After enough political convolutions to incite a national gag reflex...
Military judge James Pohl has fixed the date for the hearing on Saturday, May 5, and it will start at 9:00 am local time, the Pentagon said in a statement. Lawyers for the five could still ask for the hearing to be delayed.
And probably will, because that's what they're paid to do...
US officials last week cleared the way for a long-awaited trial of self-confessed 9/11 criminal mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators unveiling charges that carry a possible death sentence.
It's going on eleven years and the bastard's not dead yet. Don't mention the word "justice."
The five are accused of planning and executing the attacks against New York and Washington as well as the downing of a hijacked airplane in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The attacks led to the deaths of 2,976 people.
But, really, it was we who violated KSM's human rights by extracting information from him. The 2,976 people are dead and some in their graves, but he's still alive so he's more important...
Mohammed and his accused conspirators have been held for years at the US-run prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, while a legal and political battle has played out over how and where to prosecute them.
More like a circus than a battle, unless clowns swatting each other with slapsticks can be called a battle...
The 46-year-old Mohammed, along with Walid bin Attash of Soddy Arabia, Yemen's Ramzi Binalshibh, Pakistain's Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali -- also known as Ammar al-Balochi -- and Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi of Soddy Arabia will appear in court for arraignment proceedings.
There was some guy that tried to assassinate President Roosevelt in Chicago, I think it was. It took about a month to try him and fry him. But that was 80 years ago and we're all so much more civilized now.

Our guys have gotten fat eating what's given to them as they sit in their chain link cages, cut off from the war that was to have got them houris in Paradise, and pretending that flinging poo at their captors makes them noble lions of Islam. I imagine they would have preferred the old way, too.

Their joint trial, which could be months away, will also be held at the American naval base in Guantanamo Bay, where the US government has set up special military commissions to try terror suspects.

Link

Home Front: WoT

US Charges 9/11 Mastermind And Four Others

2012-04-05

[AFP] - The United States charged the self-proclaimed criminal mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, along with four alleged plotters on Wednesday, vowing to seek the death penalty in a much-awaited military trial.

"The charges allege that the five accused are responsible for the planning and execution of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in New York and Washington DC, and Shanksville, Pa., resulting in the killing of 2,976 people," the Defense Department said in a statement.

"The convening authority referred the case to a capital military commission, meaning that, if convicted, the five accused could be sentenced to death."

KSM, along with Walid bin Attash of Soddy Arabia, Yemen's Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Pakistain's Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali -- also known as Ammar al-Baluchi -- and Mustafa al-Hawsawi of Soddy Arabia will appear in court for arraignment proceedings within 30 days.

The trial, which could be months away, will be held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the US government has set up military commissions to try terror suspects.

Link

Home Front: WoT

9/11 Mastermind Set To Face US Military Court

2012-03-12

WASHINGTON: Nine years after his arrest in Pakistain, self-proclaimed 9/11 criminal mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed could soon be back in court for the much-awaited "trial of the century."
So much for the "right to a speedy" trial. 'Course, if the concept of "justice" came into it he'd have been pushing up daisies within a month of going into our custody.
After years of delays, a significant step took place last week when a former aide to Mohammed, Majid Khan, accepted a plea deal with US authorities that will require him to testify against other terror suspects at a tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

More than a decade after the 2001 attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead on US soil, the 46-year-old bully boy known simply as "KSM" remains the ultimate figurehead in a legal battle fought by two successive US administrations.

President Barack Obama
Why can't I just eat my waffle?...
"can claim credit for killing (Osama) bin Laden and (al-Qaeda holy man Anwar) Al-Awlaqi, so nailing KSM would complete the hat trick and help quiet the conservative fearmongers who say he's weak on terrorism," former chief US military prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis told AFP. Victory in the trial could prove critical to Obama this year in his re-election bid, where he faces Republicans critical of his approach to terrorism.

The Democratic president had sought to hold a trial for KSM and his four accused accomplices in New York, just steps from the Ground Zero site where the World Trade Center's twin towers fell. But congressional Republicans put an end to those plans by blocking the transfer of terrorism suspects to the United States.

Correctly understanding that the entire trial would be a farce, especially since the Attorney General guaranteed a conviction. That sort of certainty hasn't been seen since the show trials in 1930s Moscow...

The five September 11 defendants, known as the "Guantanamo Five" for their incarceration at the US naval base in southern Cuba, will face a trial under special military tribunals created by the George W. Bush administration after the attacks. Procedures for the military tribunals, also known as commissions, were modified by the B.O. regime.

KSM, along with Walid bin Attash of Soddy Arabia, Yemen's Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Pakistain's Ammar al-Baluchi or Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustafa al-Hawsawi of Soddy Arabia, all face possible death penalties.

The 88-page indictment lists 2,976 murder counts for each of the victims of the coordinated attacks.

"Let's get rid of the alleged. KSM has admitted (the crimes) many times," said Michael Mukasey, who served as US attorney general under Bush.

KSM's first confessions were made when he was subjected 183 times to a simulated drowning method known as waterboarding and other so-called "enhanced" interrogation techniques at a secret CIA prison after his March 2003 capture. But "no statement obtained as a result of coercion can be used" in a military commissions trial, chief prosecutor Brigadier General Mark Martins said in an interview.

We won't need them. And the info that KSM provided saved lives...

Although KSM has since repeated his confessions, the prosecution needs to obtain statements that are legally admissible in court.

This is where Khan's awaited testimony fills the gap. The Pak national, who lived legally in America and graduated from a US high school, pleaded guilty at Guantanamo to a reduced charge of "conspiracy" to commit terrorism in exchange for a lighter sentence. "If Khan provides information on KSM and others, as has been suggested was part of the deal, it will no doubt speed up the prosecutions," said Karen Greenberg, a terrorism expert at Fordham Law School. With Khan's testimony in hand, KSM can be officially tried before a Guantanamo judge, which observers say could take place at any time.

The person who presides over the commissions, a judge known as the convening authority, now has "everything he needs to make the decision but he's not under a timeline," Martins said.

Baluchi has requested that he be spared the death penalty, saying he played a lesser role in the attacks. But, following a vote in Congress, if the Guantanamo Five plead guilty, "they're allowed to be executed," said Adam Thurschwell, a general counsel in charge of defending Guantanamo detainees.

Baluchi's lawyer, James Connell, said it is the convening authority's choice to decide a date for the trial. "We don't want them to rush into a decision but on the other hand, we don't want them to drag their feet," he added.

Although the defendants might make pre-trial appearances soon, the crucial trial could be months away. "KSM wanted to use the rest of the trial as an opportunity to deliver a diatribe against US policy," said appellate attorney David Rivkin.

KSM himself has declared that he wants to die and become a martyr.

Link

Home Front: WoT

US files new charges against Sept. 11 accused

2011-06-02

[Dawn] US military prosecutors filed new conspiracy and murder charges on Tuesday against five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 and asked that they be executed if convicted in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals.

Self-described 9/11 criminal mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators were charged with conspiring with al Qaeda to carry out the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

All are being held in a high-security prison at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

All five faced similar charges at Guantanamo during President George W. Bush's administration. The charges were dropped while President Barack B.O. Obama's administration tried to move the trials into federal civilian court in New York, near the site of the World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the attacks by hijacked aircraft.

Obama yielded to political opposition and announced in April the prosecutions would be moved back to Guantanamo.

Human rights activists have criticized Obama for failing to make good on his order to shut the Guantanamo detention camp.

But his approval ratings on national security issues have risen since he authorized the military raid that killed al Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden
... who has left the building...
in Pakistain in early May.

The official overseeing the Guantanamo tribunals, retired Vice Admiral Bruce MacDonald, must decide whether the case will proceed to trial and whether the death penalty should apply.

Hearings could begin around the time of the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

In addition to Mohammed, an al Qaeda leader captured in Pakistain in 2003, the defendants include his nephew Ali Abdul Aziz Ali as well as Walid bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa al Hawsawi.

They are charged with conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, hijacking aircraft and terrorism.

"The prosecutors have recommended that the charges against all five of the accused be referred as capital," the Pentagon said in a news release, referring to plans to seek the death penalty.

During a pretrial hearing at Guantanamo in 2008, all five said they wanted to plead guilty. The charges were dropped before the military judge could determine whether they were all mentally competent to make that decision and whether the murky tribunal rules allowed them to be executed without a jury verdict on their guilt.

Link

Home Front: WoT

9/11 suspects are meeting to lay out strategy for NY trial

2009-12-25

Thanks Bambi. You wanted a circus, you're getting a circus.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four co-defendants accused of organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks are meeting to plot legal strategy in advance of their transfer to New York and are learning as much as possible about criminal procedure in U.S. federal court, according to sources familiar with the detainees' deliberations.

While the five men wanted to plead guilty in a military commission earlier this year to hasten their executions, sources now say that the detainees favor participating in a full-scale federal trial to air their grievances and expose their treatment while held by the CIA at secret prisons. The sources, who cautioned that the detainees' final decision remains uncertain, spoke on the condition of anonymity because all communications with high-value detainees are presumptively classified.

One hopes most sincerely the meetings are also presumptively and thoroughly bugged. One is, however, not sanguine.

The detainees' "brothers' meetings" were set up to allow them to prepare for a trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The military has allowed the gatherings to continue because charges have not been formally withdrawn in the commission process, despite the announcement last month that Mohammed and the others would face trial in Manhattan.

The five accused have held two all-day meetings at Guantanamo Bay since Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said they would face federal criminal prosecution, according to Joseph DellaVedova, a spokesman for the Office of Military Commissions. DellaVedova said they break only for meals and prayers during the get-togethers. The military has also provided the men with computers in their cells at Guantanamo Bay to work on their defense.

It is unclear when the men will be transferred to New York. The Obama administration has yet to file a 45-day classified notice with Congress that it intends to move the prisoners into the United States, according to Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman. That suggests that their initial appearance in court in Manhattan will not come before February; the trial isn't expected to begin until late 2011.

A federal grand jury in New York is hearing evidence and testimony, according to a report by NBCNewYork.com, the Web site of a local station. Both the Justice Department and the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan declined to comment on the report.

Courtroom as pulpit?

In hearings at Guantanamo Bay, the five detainees have trumpeted their role in the 9/11 attacks and broadcast their fealty to Osama bin Laden, causing some consternation among observers that the men will use their federal trial as a pulpit of sorts. Federal officials, though, say they are confident that some of the rhetorical flourishes that Mohammed, in particular, offered at Guantanamo Bay will be kept firmly in check in U.S. District Court.

"Judges in federal court have firm control over the conduct of defendants and other participants in their courtrooms, and when the 9/11 conspirators are brought to trial, I have every confidence that the presiding judge will ensure appropriate decorum," Holder said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month.

Facing trial with Mohammed are four other alleged key players in the Sept. 11 conspiracy: Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni; Walid bin Attash, a Yemeni better known as Khallad; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Mohammed's nephew and a Pakistani also known as Ammar al-Baluchi; and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a Saudi.

Among other issues being raised at Guantanamo, Mohammed and the others are discussing defense counsel, sources said. At the military tribunal, Mohammed, bin Attash and Ali represented themselves with assistance from both civilian and military lawyers. Lawyers for both Binalshibh and Hawsawi, however, had challenged the mental competence of their clients to represent themselves, and the issue had not been resolved when the Obama administration suspended proceedings at Guantanamo Bay.

The lawyer question

The issue of self-representation will have to be taken up again in federal court for all five defendants.

In New York, lawyers for defendants in death cases are usually drawn from a "capital panel," a short list of attorneys with experience in death penalty cases. Attorneys will also need security clearances to handle classified evidence that is off limits to the defendants.

The American Civil Liberties Union plans to ask the court to consider allowing some civilian lawyers from outside New York who worked at Guantanamo Bay to continue in the case. Mohammed's civilian attorneys at Guantanamo, for example, are from Idaho. They declined to comment on the issue of representation in federal court.

The sources said the five have not yet established a common position on the role of defense counsel. But, the sources said, the five are beginning to understand the harsh conditions they will face in Manhattan and that meetings with lawyers will be their only human contact apart from any interaction with their jailers.

The strategy meetings in Guantanamo will almost certainly end. Federal authorities are likely to impose "special administrative measures" on the defendants, according to Boyd.

Apart from measures already in place at Guantanamo Bay -- including bans on social visits, phone calls and access to the media -- special measures can limit access to other inmates, a privilege currently enjoyed in Cuba by high-value detainees such as the 9/11 defendants.

The attorney general can order the Bureau of Prisons to impose such conditions to protect national security and prevent the leak of classified information, according to federal guidelines.

At Guantanamo Bay, Mohammed and 15 other high-value detainees held at the top-secret Camp 7 can share recreation time with another detainee; visit a media room with movies, newspapers and electronic games; or work out in a gym, according to a Pentagon study, which recommended even more communal activities. Mohammed and the others have been told by military defense lawyers that once in New York, they will be in a sparse 23-hour-a-day lockdown with one hour of individual recreation, according to the sources.

"They are quite anxious about the new system and the new living conditions," one of the sources said. "They've been treated like rock stars compared to other detainees at Gitmo. And they know that all of that is about to change."

Link

Home Front: WoT

Accused disrupt the US military court for 9/11 case

2009-07-19

FIVE alleged 9/11 plotters who were to appear before a judge at Guantanamo Bay disrupted the US military court yesterday. The five accused, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, refused to attend the hearing, the BBC reported.

The judge rejected prosecution calls for them to be compelled to attend but three did appear after a two-hour delay.

If they want to be judged without being present, fine by me ...

Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul al-Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi entered the courtroom. But Mr al-Hawsawi asked to leave after he was refused the opportunity to speak. He was escorted out by military guards.

Mr bin Attash asked the judge whether he could question a witness. When told he could not, he asked: "Even if he told lies?" When the judge insisted he could not question the witness, Mr bin Attash replied: "This is good justice!"

Yesterday's hearing was meant to focus on whether Mr Hawsawi and another defendant, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, were mentally competent to represent themselves.

The military lawyer representing Mr bin al-Shibh said he suffered from a delusional disorder. When the lawyer went into detail about how he had been deprived of sleep, her microphone was cut off by a censor.

"The government can't hide the fact that they used sleep deprivation," she said before the audio feed outside the courtroom was cut. The audio is on a 40-second delay that allows a security officer to block material believed to be classified.

Sleep deprivation is an 'enhanced interrogation technique'. Works, too ...

The prosecutor later said Mr bin al-Shibh's complaints of sleep deprivation could be explained by the diagnosis that he suffers from delusions.

And they were such informative delusions ...

Link

Home Front: WoT

9/11 accused Khalid Sheikh Mohammed grills Guantanamo judge: Are you an extremist?

2008-09-24

The man accused of being the architect of September 11 has turned the tables on a Guantanamo judge by demanding to know whether he is an "extremist".

Mohammed, acting as his own attorney, asked Marine Colonel Ralph Kohlmann about his views on religion and torture at an unusual pre-trial hearing of five accused September 11 co-conspirators.

"We are well-known as extremists and fanatics, and there are also Christians and Jews that are very extremist," Mohammed told the judge.

"If you, for example, were part of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson's groups, then you would not at all be impartial towards us," he said, referring to U.S. evangelical Christian leaders who have denounced Islam as violent.

Kohlmann replied that he did not belong to a congregation.

"When I have attended church, I was a member of various Lutheran churches and Episcopal churches, and I have not attended any of them for a long time because I have moved so often," the judge said.

Kohlmann dismissed as "inaccurate," an assertion by co-defendant Ramzi Binalshibh that he had a "Jewish name."

Kohlmann was also asked about how he followed news coverage on the day of the attacks and replied that his memory was imprecise.

He also said he had no opinion on the facts of the September 11 incident, which triggered President George Bush's "war on terror."

Binalshibh, Mohammed and three other defendants -- Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali -- are charged with conspiring with al Qaeda to kill civilians in the attacks.

The men face 2,973 counts of murder, one for each person killed when hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. Prosecutors want to execute them if they are convicted.

Extensive exploratory questioning of a judge's qualifications and bias by the defense is unique to military courts, including the commissions set up by Congress to try suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo U.S. Naval base.

Defence attorneys said they had not yet decided whether to ask Kohlmann to disqualify himself based on his answers.

Mohammed is one of three al Qaeda suspects known to have been subjected to CIA waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning used in interrogation that human rights groups consider torture.

He asked Kohlmann about a high-school seminar the judge conducted in 2005 on interrogation and torture, and about his views on waterboarding.

Kohlmann said he had given two articles to the class at his daughter's high school, discussing the pros and cons of harsh interrogation techniques in circumstances such as when a suspect knows of an imminent attack. "I set out the scenarios ... to try to show it's a complex question," he said.

Binalshibh was absent from Monday's session, but appeared on Tuesday after his co-defendants urged him in letters to appear rather than be brought in by force under the judge's order. Binalshibh appeared relaxed and unrestrained at the hearing, and chatted with co-defendants.

Kohlmann put a firm stamp on court proceedings.

He ruled out a late start to accommodate the Ramadan fasting schedule of the five Muslim defendants, and brushed off a request to end the day early for Ramadan. He denied Mohammed's request that he order some women participants to dress more modestly.

And after rejecting one request by the lead prosecutor for a bathroom break, Kohlmann relented 3 1/2 hours into the morning session, with an admonition that court participants should watch their fluid intake. "You all should be able to go as long as me without having to step out," he said.

Link

Home Front: WoT

US Drops Charges Against Alleged '20th Hijacker' in September 11 Attacks

2008-05-14

The United States has dropped charges against the alleged "20th hijacker" in the September 11th, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. The Defense Department says charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani of Saudi Arabia were dropped without prejudice, meaning they can be filed again later. Charges against five other suspects in the attacks were referred to trial. Those suspects include the alleged mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman could not say why the charges against al-Qahtani were dropped, but did say that the reasons could include the nature of the charges, the evidence and commission rules, among other potential factors. Whitman says the five suspects referred to trial should be arraigned within 30 days, and the trial could begin within 120 days. The Pentagon says the five men will be tried jointly in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and that they face the possibility of being sentenced to death.

U.S. prosecutors said al-Qahtani did not take part in the attacks because he was denied entry into the United States by an immigration agent. Al-Qahtani recanted a confession he made at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, alleging it was made after he was tortured and humiliated.

Prosecutors filed murder and war crimes charges in February against the suspects, who also include Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi. All of the men are being held at the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay.

Link

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