Five try to plead guilty in 9/11 attacks

A sketch shows Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (center) and Walid Bin Attash (left) at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. (Janet Hamlin/ AP Illustration/ Pool)

WASHINGTON - The self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and four alleged coconspirators unexpectedly told a military judge yesterday that they want to plead guilty, an apparent bid to avoid trial and become martyrs before President-elect Barack Obama follows through on a promise to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

Before a packed courtroom at the US Navy base on the southern Cuban coast, with victims' relatives and the defendants in the same room for the first time, a military judge read from a letter from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the others stating that "we all five have reached an agreement to request from the commission an immediate hearing session in order to announce our confessions."

All five men face the death penalty if convicted of charges in the death of as many as 3,334 people in the highjacking attacks in Washington, New York, and Pennsylvania, including hijackers and rescue workers.

The handwritten note, which was reportedly written Nov. 4, also stated that the men wanted to withdraw all pending motions filed on their behalf by military-appointed legal advisers, whom they said they do not trust. The judge received the letter Sunday, because it is classified and only available at Guantanamo.

At one point, Mohammed, who has previously said he planned the attacks "from A to Z," told the judge he wanted to end the proceedings because "I am not trusting any Americans," according to reporters in the courtroom.

The military judge, Army Colonel Steven Henley, asked Pentagon prosecutors and military defense lawyers to file papers on whether guilty pleas in the case might rule out use of the death penalty because there would be no unanimous conviction by a military jury, a requirement for capital cases in the law that established the process.

The defendants' unusual request to plead guilty was seen by some specialists as a boon to the Bush administration, which wants to prove it can mete out justice for the "worst of the worst" terrorists after seven years of legal wrangling over the military tribunals being held at the facility in Cuba.

If accepted by the presiding judge, the confessions could give family members of the victims some closure before Bush leaves office and avoid a lengthy trial that military prosecutors fear might compromise classified evidence and intelligence sources.

"A guilty plea is the best outcome," said David B. Rivkin, a former Justice Department lawyer and a partner at Baker Hostetler in Washington who has testified before Congress on detention policy. "Whatever their motivations might be, they are confessing. . . . Who can seriously be unhappy with that?"

When arraigned in June, four of the five men expressed their desire to be "martyred."

But longtime opponents of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility said that allowing the men to be executed after a process that legal scholars have widely criticized as unfair would be a public relations victory for Al Qaeda.

"I think the biggest favor we could do for Al Qaeda right now is to execute these men after a process that has no legitimacy internationally or even in the United States," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch.

"If the five want to become martyrs, what is the point of handing them their wish, rather than a sentence of life in prison?" said Clare Algar, executive director of Reprieve, a legal defense organization that has defended many Guantanamo detainees.

The judge will have to decide whether to accept the guilty pleas by determining whether the accused made their confessions voluntarily, with full knowledge of their legal situation and whether they are mentally competent to make such a decision.

Military lawyers for at least one of the defendants, Ramzi bin al Shibh, have raised questions in court about his mental state, contending that psychotropic drugs given to him at the facility and solitary confinement may have affected his mental health.

Shibh and another detainee, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, have military-appointed lawyers, while the other three defendants are representing themselves, with advice from civilian and military lawyers.

The three men who represent themselves declined to enter an official guilty plea yesterday, choosing to wait until the other two are found mentally competent to enter their plea.

If Henley accepts the guilty pleas, a jury of 12 military officers may be convened to sentence the men.

Next, the case of the accused men would go to a special military court set up to hear appeals. Defendants in death penalty cases cannot waive their right to appeal, according to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which set up the current system of trials at Guantanamo Bay.

Finally, the president, who will probably be Obama by the time the process is completed, must approve any death sentence before it can be carried out.

Obama has repeatedly criticized the legal system at Guantanamo and said he would seek to close the detention facility and either try remaining prisoners under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is used to try US soldiers, or move the cases to civilian federal courts.

Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and held in an undisclosed location until September 2006, when he was transferred to Guantanamo.

Mohammed claimed responsibility for the attacks and for beheading Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl at an early Guantanamo hearing, according to a transcript the Pentagon released in March 2007.

Shibh is accused of serving as the main intermediary between the hijackers in the United States and Al Qaeda leaders, according to government documents. He was slated to serve as one of the hijackers but could not get a visa, US officials allege. He was captured in Pakistan in 2002.

Abd al-Aziz Ali, a nephew of Mohammed's, is accused of helping Mohammed plan the attacks by transferring money to US-based operatives, according to government documents. He was captured in April 2003 in Pakistan as he waited for delivery of explosives for an alleged plot against the US consulate in Karachi, according to a summary of evidence released by the Pentagon.

Hawsawi is accused of arranging the funding for 9/11 attacks, while Waleed bin Attash allegedly trained some of the 9/11 hijackers and served as a bodyguard for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to government documents.

Globe correspondent Jenny Paul contributed to this report. Material from the Associated Press was also used.