Guantamo men admit to 9/11 plot

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-03-11 07:49

The five detainees at the US Guantanamo Bay prison camp charged with plotting the Sept 11 attacks have filed a document expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting responsibility for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people, The New York Times reported on Monday.

The document, which the newspaper said might be released publicly Tuesday, describes the five men as the "9/11 Shura Council," and says their actions were an offering to God, according to excerpts of the document read to a reporter by an unidentified government official, the report said.

"'To us,' the official read, 'they are not accusations. To us they are a badge of honor, which we carry with honor,'" the paper said.

The document is titled The Islamic Response to the Government's Nine Accusations, the military judge at the US Naval base said in a separate filing, obtained by the Times, that described the detainees' document.

The document was filed on behalf of the five men, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who has called himself the mastermind of the attacks.

Some of the men had said earlier that they planned the 2001 attacks and that they wanted to be martyrs. The reason for the new filing, which the report said reached the military court on March 5, was not clear. The brief court order describing the filing said the men sought no legal action.

Military judges on January 21 suspended the trials of the five alleged September 11 co-conspirators, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Top officials discuss Gitmo

President Barack Obama plans to shut down by early 2010 the detention camp in Cuba, which became a symbol of perceived excess in the "war on terror" under his predecessor George W. Bush.

Top officials of the Obama administration met privately on Monday to discuss how to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

Attorney-General Eric Holder hosted the first Cabinet-level meeting of Obama's Guantanamo task force. Participating in the meeting, among others, were Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, CIA Director Leon Panetta and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Officials must decide which suspects to ship away to foreign countries and which to bring to trial in US courts, or to try and hold in some other fashion.

At Monday's high-level meeting, the group discussed standards for reviewing detainee cases, which detainee decisions to give the highest priority, and what has been done to date.

According to an official familiar with the process, detainees are being grouped into categories, and government officials from multiple agencies are being grouped into teams assigned to examine particular categories of detainees. The review teams then would recommend action to the Guantanamo task force.