Chaos besets 9/11 court hearing

Scenes of chaos have gripped a US military court in Guantanamo Bay where five alleged 9/11 plotters were due to appear together before a judge.

All five, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, initially refused to attend the hearing.

The judge rejected prosecution calls for them to be compelled to attend but three did appear after a recess.

The hearing focuses on whether two of the accused are mentally competent to represent themselves.

The 11 September 2001 attacks, in which hijacked airliners were flown into buildings in New York and Washington, killed nearly 3,000 people.

Microphone cut off

Walid Bin Attash, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi appeared in the courtroom after the recess.

But Mr Hawsawi asked to leave again after he was refused the opportunity to speak. He was escorted out by US 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?"

Five 9/11 Suspects Offer to Confess
But Proposal Is Pulled Over Death Penalty Issue

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 9, 2008; A01

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Dec. 8 -- Five of the men accused of planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks said Monday that they wanted to plead guilty to murder and war crimes but withdrew the offer when a military judge raised questions about whether it would prevent them from fulfilling their desire to receive the death penalty.

"Are you saying if we plead guilty we will not be able to be sentenced to death?" Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed operational mastermind of the attacks, asked at a pretrial hearing here.

The seesaw proceedings Monday raised and then postponed the prospect of a conviction in a case that has become the centerpiece of the system of military justice created by the Bush administration. A conviction would have capped a seven-year quest for justice after the 2001 attacks, but the delay in entering pleas will probably extend the process beyond the end of the Bush presidency.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/623820.html
Posted on Wed, Jul. 30, 2008

Alleged 9/11 mastermind won't testify - live
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Reputed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed has balked at testifying in person at the trial of Osama bin Laden's driver, defense lawyers said Wednesday. Instead, the jury will get written statements from the al Qaeda kingpin and another alleged plotter in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Lawyers for Salim Hamdan, 37, plan to use the testimony of Mohammed and Walid Bin Attash to try to exonerate the driver, Hamdan, of being an al Qaeda co-conspirator.

One of those men has already written Hamdan's lawyers that the Yemeni with a fourth-grade education ''Was not fit to plan or execute,'' according to defense attorney Harry Schneider of Seattle. ``He is fit to change tires. And oil filters.''

The argument dovetails nicely with the driver's defense that he never joined al Qaeda, did not know in advance about the details of al Qaeda terror plots and merely drove for $200 a month -- and not for ideology.

Amy Goodman has published a piece on AlterNet calling the trial of Australian David Hicks a "kangaroo court," but there was no similar condemnation just weeks ago when the alleged KSM confession was released. How is Hicks, according to the title of her essay, the "first victim" of Guantanamo? About Hicks, Goodman writes:

"The case of Hicks offers us a glimpse into the Kafkaesque netherworld of detentions, kidnappings, torture and show trials that is now, internationally, the shameful signature of the Bush administration. Hicks' passage through this sham process affords us all an opportunity to demand the closure of Guantanamo and an end to these heinous policies."

All of this is true. It is a "sham process" built on "heinous policies." But why no similar denunciation when KSM was allegedly dragged before a military tribunal? We have no reason to believe KSM is in custody, and if in custody we have no reason to believe his tortured confession. But clearly Goodman is emboldened because Hicks is white and not attached to 9/11 in any way. She writes:

Source: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54724

Thursday, March 15, 2007

MEDIA MATTERS

Rosie defends 9/11 mastermind
Suggests U.S. tortured, 'robbed him of humanity' to get false confession

Posted: March 15, 2007
5:16 p.m. Eastern

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

(Rosie O'Donnell discussing Khalid Sheik Mohammed's confession. Photo: Media Research Council)

Rosie O'Donnell, hosting ABC's popular "The View" morning show, came to the defense of terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed today, suggesting the government elicited a false confession from the 9/11 mastermind by using torture, robbing him of his humanity and treating him like an animal.

A transcript of Mohammed's confession to 31 terrorist attacks was released today, but O'Donnell argued it came only after having a "hood on his head and being beaten to death."

The hood was a reference to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq in which U.S. military personnel were punished for humiliating prisoners.