Sept. 11 Suspects Offer to Plead Guilty ‘in Full’

Self-described Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants today offered in a Guantanamo Bay courtroom to plead guilty to charges that could lead to the death penalty.
The five reached agreement to “announce our confessions and plea in full,” according to a document read in court by Judge Stephen Henley, an Army colonel.
“I do not trust Americans,” Mohammed, who has previously said he wanted to be martyred, told the judge today. He claimed the existence of an “agreement between Bush and CIA who tortured me,” and the court, though he didn’t explain what he meant.
Military prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against the five alleged Sept. 11 conspirators including Mohammed, who has said he organized the al-Qaeda attacks that killed almost 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania seven years ago. Relatives of five victims of the attacks sat in the gallery; it was the first time victims’ relatives were present in the courtroom with the terrorism defendants.
“Are you prepared to enter pleas to the charges against you today?” the judge asked Mohammed.
“Yes,” Mohammed responded.
The document read today in court was filed by all five defendants on Nov. 4 following a series of meetings among them.
“Our success is the greatest praise of the Lord,” the judge read from the document.
‘Without Any Pressure’
“All of these decisions are undertaken by us without any pressure or influence by Khalid Sheikh,” co-defendant Ali Abdul Aziz Ali told the judge. “What was said or will be said by Khalid Sheikh will be repeated by us, also.”
Mohammed and the others are among 250 being held at Guantanamo, a U.S. military prison camp in Cuba that has become the target of international criticism for jailing hundreds of suspected terrorists without charges. President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to close the prison, located in a remote patch of a U.S. Navy base on land leased from Cuba.
Henley asked military prosecutors to submit legal briefs on whether the commission can “accept a plea of guilty to a capital offense.”
Navy Commander Suzanne Lachelier objected to including her client, Ramzi Binalshibh, a nephew of Mohammed, in the filing of the Nov. 4 document. She said he had “been permitted to go to this meeting” and others “without notice to me.”
The court has reserved decision on Binalshibh’s request to dismiss his lawyer pending a hearing on the results of a psychiatric examination of Binalshibh.
Lawyer Denounced
Binalshibh denounced his lawyer in court, saying, “She is a person who is not cooperative and she lies.”
Defense lawyers have alleged that Binalshibh and defendant Mustafa al Hawsawi were intimidated by Mohammed to waive their right to legal representation.
The court has also reserved decision on al Hawsawi’s request to dismiss his military lawyer, Army Major Jon Jackson. Today, the judge granted Jackson’s request for a psychiatric examination to determine his client’s mental capacity to plead guilty. The judge said Jackson had described concerns about his client’s mental state in a secret court filing.
Al Hawsawi told the judge he decided to plead guilty “with all my complete mental capacity and voluntarily.”
The relatives in the gallery were chosen at random from 115 family members of Sept. 11 victims who applied for permission to travel to Guantanamo to witness the proceedings.
Obama has criticized the military commissions, saying the Guantanamo detainees should be tried either in federal court or before a military court-martial. Seventeen prisoners face war- crimes charges and Pentagon officials say as many as 80 at Guantanamo may be charged.
To contact the reporter on this story: James Rowley in Guantanamo Bay at jarowley@bloomberg.net