[The way I read it, he says he wants death because our constitution does not forbid same sex marriage. ?]
9/11 mastermind suspect: I want death
Posted on Thu, Jun. 05, 2008
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba --
One by one, the U.S. military brought five accused 9/11 co-conspirators before a war court judge Thursday, and four rejected their free-of-charge American lawyers. Two said they welcomed death.
''In Allah I put my trust,'' reputed attack mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed told his trial judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann.
In response to a question of whether he understood that the crimes for which he was accused are punishable by a death sentence, Mohammed replied: ``This is what I wish -- to be martyred.''
It was the first appearance of the alleged senior al Qaeda leaders, whom the United States has held secretly and interrogated overseas since their capture in 2003.
They are accused of conspiring 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.
All were brought from the prison camps several miles away to the special, eavesdrop-proof maximum-security war court, and sat one behind the other.
A security officer on several occasions hit a mute button to prevent journalists watching from remote sites from hearing the men speak. Once after a reference to American torture. Another time over a detainee's mental health medication.
Ramzi bin al Shibh, 36, was shackled at the ankles, and bolted to the courtroom floor. A Yemeni, he allegedly tried to join the Sept. 11 suicide squads, and obtain flight training in Florida, but failed to get a U.S. visa from Hamburg, Germany.
''I've been seeking martyrdom for five years. I tried for 9/11 to get a visa. And I could not obtain that visa,'' Bin al Shibh said in rejecting his defense lawyer. ``If this martyrdom happens today I will welcome it. God is great, God is great.''
He is also accused of making a videotaped ''martyr's will'' along with two of the 19 hijackers before they traveled to the United States in 2001, hijacked four airliners and turned them into missiles.
Air Force Maj. Gail Crawford, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon commissions, said he had ''mental issues.'' Bin al Shibh's military attorney, Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, said defense lawyers had learned only at 8 p.m. Wednesday that the Yemeni was on ``psychotropic drugs.''
The hearing was meant to be an arraignment, a formal reading of the charges in advance of legal motions, discovery of evidence and a Sept. 15 opening of their trial.
But it went on for hours as the judge, Kohlmann, asked each man at length whether he was competent to act in his own defense.
Each man rejected the legitimacy of the war on terror court, in which U.S. military officers serve as judge and jurors -- at times with the power to issue death sentences.
''I am in the wrong court. I am not a criminal. My case is political,'' said Ammar al Baluchi, Mohammed's 30-year-old nephew, accused of sending money to the suicide squads.
''Even though the government tortured me free of charge for all these years, I cannot accept lawyers under these circumstances,'' he said. ``The lawyers are decoys or decorations.''
Waleed bin Attash, 30, who allegedly trained some of the 9/11 hijackers at an Afghanistan camp, likewise refused his lawyer.
By late afternoon, when the judge broke to give the men their second prayer break, only alleged financier Mustafa Hawsawi had yet to be questioned. The Saudi sat at the last defense table, awaiting his turn.
Mohammed's appearance was striking. The Pakistani looked 20 years older than the disheveled man in a T-shirt who was rousted from his bed in a photo of his 2003 capture. This Mohammed was tidily attired in pristine white tunic and turban -- and had grown a massive, mostly white, bushy beard that reached his chest.
He spoke in the broken English he learned as an engineering student in his 20s in North Carolina. And he wore dark-rimmed, prison-issue eyeglasses, which gave him an uncanny resemblance to Ayman al Zawahari, the still at-large bin Laden deputy and founder of Egypt's radical Muslim Islamic Jihad movement.
The session opened with the judge explaining that a U.S. security officer was monitoring the men's words, and could mute the audio feed if any of the men uttered something that Kohlmann said ``would be harmful to national security.''
Immediately after Ammar mentioned torture, a screen broadcasting the proceedings to a media room went blank -- and white noise blared from the screen.
In Bin al Shibh's case, the screen went to white noise during a discussion with the judge of his prison-mandated medication.
A military escort explained that it was in keeping with the U.S. Health Information Privacy Act, on a base where the Bush administration argues that the U.S. Constitution does not apply to foreigners.
The eavesdrop-proof courtroom was specially designed to mute the alleged terrorist's audio feed, if they 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.
The first mention of ''torture'' came at 10 a.m. and the hearing had been underway for nearly an hour.
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 follows 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.
''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 Guant?namo -- 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.
Mohammed's ACLU attorney, David Nevin of Boise, Idaho, protested a ruling by the judge to let the defendant represent himself. ''Mr. Mohammed is not in a position to understand the impact, the reach of the decision he has made today,'' he said. ``He is willing to die.''
Bin al Shibh was the most animated, chatting with the other detainees.
His lawyers asked for a continuance of the hearing to give defense attorneys time enough to examine Bin al Shibh's competency to defend himself. Kohlmann rejected the request.
''It is not true that I can't represent myself. Or I am weak or sick,'' said Bin al Shibh. ``I am worthy to represent myself.''
Kohlmann ruled that, while the others were competent to act as their own attorneys, he wanted to clarify Bin al Shib's mental health situation in light of the revelation of his medication.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/559162.html
