WORLD> America
|
WORLD> America
|
|
Accused 9/11 mastermind asks judge to be executed
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-06-06 10:05 "It hardly comes as any surprise that after holding individuals in solitary confinement for five years and subjecting them to torture, these detainees would reject the legal system and offers to represent them," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York. The Bush administration has acknowledged that Mohammed was subjected to harsh interrogation techniques including waterboarding — a technique that gives the sensation of drowning — in secret CIA custody before he was transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.
Mohammed is the most valuable al-Qaida official in US custody and the central figure in a trial that will put the Pentagon's military tribunals under an intense spotlight. The tribunals have faced repeated legal setbacks, including a Supreme Court appeal on the rights of Guantanamo detainees that could produce a ruling this month halting the proceedings. Defense attorneys harshly criticized the military commissions, which were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2006 before being resurrected in an altered form by Congress and President Bush. "I think the American people, if they ... understood the ramifications in the long term to our Constitution, to their Constitution, I think they would be ashamed," Lachelier said outside the heavily guarded courtroom. The defense attorney tried to raise another pending Supreme Court decision in the courtroom, on the benchmark when defendants can be allowed to represent themselves, but Kohlmann told her to keep quiet. "What part of 'no' do you not understand?" the judge said, peering down from the bench. "Sit down." Binalshibh's civilian attorney, Thomas Durkin, said the men should be tried in US federal courts. "We have had many terrorism cases in our federal court system," Durkin said. "I think it is a shame that for whatever reason the Bush administration has put on what we think is a show trial." The military commissions plan to allow coerced testimony, although evidence obtained by torture is not allowed. Attorneys for Mohammed have said they will challenge evidence obtained through harsh interrogations. Air Force Brig. Gen. Tom Hartmann, a top tribunal official, told reporters it was up to the judge to determine whether to allow as evidence statements obtained during waterboarding. Hartmann said waterboarding has not officially been classified as torture. Mohammed said he was tortured after being captured in Pakistan in 2003 but didn't elaborate, indicating he understood he should not discuss it in the courtroom. "I can't mention about the torturing," said Mohammed, who received an engineering degree from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. "I know this is the red line." Kohlmann said he would try to minimize the chance that classified information will come out, in part by delaying closed-circuit video and audio of the proceedings by 20 seconds. The defendants spoke with each other in Arabic, appeared to pass notes among them and at one point looked back and chuckled at reporters watching from behind a courtroom window. All appeared to be in robust health except for al-Hawsawi, an alleged paymaster for some of the 19 hijackers. He looked thin and frail and sat on a pillow on his chair. The other defendants are Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew and lieutenant of Mohammed; and Waleed bin Attash, who allegedly selected and trained some of the hijackers. About 35 journalists watched on closed-circuit TV in a press room inside a converted hangar, while two dozen others watched through a window from a room adjacent to the courtroom. No photographs were allowed inside the courtroom, but a sketch artist was allowed to draw the scene. Mohammed saw the sketch made of him when it was given to the defense team and he complained that it made his nose look too big. The artist said she would alter the sketch accordingly. With less than eight months remaining in Bush's term, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain both say they want to close the military's offshore detention center. Obama also opposed the Military Commissions Act, which resurrected the military commissions in 2006. McCain supported it. |
