Monday, December 8, 2008

9/11 suspects ask to 'plead guilty'

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged planner of the September 11 attacks, and four other suspects have asked to plead guilty to the charges they face at a Guantanamo Bay tribunal.

"We all five have reached an agreement to request from the commission an immediate hearing session in order to announce our confessions," said a note said to be from the five read out by the judge, Army Colonel Steven Henley, at a hearing on Monday.

The note said the confessions were being made "without being under any kind of pressure, threat, intimidations or promise from any party," Henley said.

Mohammed, a Pakistani, and four others - Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali - were charged earlier this year with conspiring with al-Qaeda to kill civilians.

The judge also allowed defendants Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali to withdraw all their motions and go to pleas, but he refused to allow the same for two other defendants saying he had concerns over their mental competence, AFP reported.

All five face the death penalty if convicted.



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Comment:

I have been unable to determine why the mental competence of bin al-Shibh and Hawsawi is in question.

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