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.

'Split verdict' on bin Laden driver

A US military jury at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp has reached a split verdict in the trial of Osama bin Laden's former driver, clearing him of some charges but convicting him of others.

Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni citizen, was cleared on Wednesday of conspiracy to commit war crimes but was found guilty of providing material support to terrorism.

He had been held at the detention centre for more than six years and faced 10 specific charges.

Hamdan had denied the allegations against him, saying he worked for bin Laden only as a driver and had no knowledge of al-Qaeda attacks.

The trial is first US war crimes tribunal since the second world war.

Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman, who is at the trial in Guantanamo Bay, said that the jury, comprised of US military officers, has since retired and is to resume deliberations on Hamdan's sentence on Thursday.

The jury had deliberated for about eight hours over three days following the two-week trial.

Hamdan, wearing a white turban and long white robe, stood tensely in the courtroom beside his lawyers as the verdict was announced, listening via headphones to the tribunal's English-Arabic interpreter.

He later wept into his hands when the guilty verdict was announced.

War crimes charge

The Bush administration has faced heated criticism over the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and the special tribunals, which operate under different rules to other military courts or civilian ones.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said after the verdict that the Bush administration was pleased that Hamdan had received a "fair trial".

However our correspondent says the prosecution is likely to be disappointed by the verdict.

Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in southern Afghanistan in November 2001, allegedly with two surface-to-air missiles in his car but was cleared on conspiracy to commit war crimes.

"The jury had apparently heeded the defence's contention that it cannot be a war crime to intend to use weapons against soldiers on the field of battle," Ackerman said.

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Comment:

Now the question is, will the time he's spent in Guantánamo count towards his sentence?

US court deals blow to Bush

The US Supreme Court has said foreigners held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison have the right under the US constitution to challenge their detention in US civilian courts. The court ruled on Thursday that detainees in the US jail in southern Cuba "have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus".

The ruling, passed by a vote of five to four, is a setback to the administration of George Bush, the US president.

"It's a very significant milestone in this very long running battle," Rob Reynolds, Al Jazeera's senior Washington correspondent, said.

"Really its a victory for the proper system of justice. The reason that Guantanamo was chosen was because it was not on American soil ... the White House believed that because they would be on foreign soil they would be beyond the reach of American justice," he said. "It's been a very long process but through a series of lawsuits ... the justices have chipped away at the unusual means under which these individuals are being detained."

Constitutional rights

The court ruled that even if the base was officially on Cuban territory, it was in fact operating as if it were on American soil and therefore detainees had the same constitutional rights as all Americans. The ruling is the third on Guantanamo that has gone against the Bush administration. Detainees and their legal teams could now demand that the government reveal the evidence against them to justify their continued detention. The government has refused to do this arguing it would be against the interests of national security. Detainees have long protested that they had been mistreated, and rights groups have questioned the legality of the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals.

Via Al Jazeera.


Comment:

Hallelujah. Justice returns to America.

9/11 Trial Begins

So. This is Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the man who bears the single greatest responsibility for the horrors of September 11.

I'll have a more detailed analysis of the trial later on, when I'm more awake.

9/11 'mastermind' to face tribunal

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001, is set to face a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay on nearly 3,000 counts of murder. Mohammed and four other detainees will be arraigned for the first time on Thursday inside a high-security courthouse at the US naval base.

The United States claims Mohammed confessed to masterminding the September 11 attacks but his lawyers say the confession was extracted by torture. Mohammed, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2003, will be given the chance to address the tribunal, officials said.

Death penalty

All five suspects could face the death penalty if convicted. They were transferred to Guantanamo in Cuba in September 2006 after spending about three years in secret CIA prisons. Thursday's arraignment poses the highest-profile test yet of a US military tribunal system that faces an uncertain future. The US supreme court struck down an earlier system as unconstitutional in 2006, and is to rule this month on the rights of Guantanamo prisoners, potentially delaying or halting the proceedings. With less than eight months remaining in office for George Bush, the US president, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain both say they want to close the military's offshore detention centre.

Via Al Jazeera.


Comment:

Nobody tortured him into starring as himself in an Al Jazeera documentary on the attacks.

US drops 9/11 'hijacker' charges

The Pentagon has dropped charges against a man alleged to have been the "20th hijacker" in the September 11 attacks, his US military defence lawyer has said.

Mohammed al-Qahtani, who is being held at a US military jail at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was one of six men facing murder and war crimes charges for their alleged roles in the 2001 attacks.

Bryan Broyles, al-Qahtani's military lawyer, said on Monday that Susan Crawford, the convening authority for military commissions, dismissed the charges against al-Qahtani on Friday.

The charges were dismissed "without prejudice," meaning they could be filed again at some point in the future.

Crawford is proceeding with charges against five other people accused of having a role in the attacks, Broyles said.

Prosecutors are to seek the death penalty for the men if they are found to be guilty.

Military tribunal

Authorities allege al-Qahtani was only prevented from taking part in the attacks because he was denied entry to the US by an immigration official.

The US military said that he had no return ticket and Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker, was waiting for him.

Officials previously said al-Qahtani had been subject to harsh interrogation authorised by Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary.

The five defendants who are still facing charges include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is alleged to have masterminded the attacks in 2001 that killed nearly 3,000 people.

The five charged men are set to be arraigned before a military tribunal at Guantanamo, where the US holds about 270 men on "suspicion of terrorism" or links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Human rights organisations have criticised the rule that allows US judges to decide whether to allow evidence that may have been obtained under "coercion".

US authorities have acknowledged that Mohammed was "waterboarded" - an interrogation method designed to simulate the sensation of drowning - by CIA interrogators.

Al-Qahtani last year retracted a confession he said he made after he was tortured at Guantanamo.

In a written statement he said was beaten, restrained for long periods in uncomfortable positions, threatened with dogs, exposed to loud music and freezing temperatures and stripped nude in front of female military staff.

Via Al Jazeera.

Sami al-Hajj arrives in Sudan

Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj has been released from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay and has arrived in Sudan.

Al-Hajj, who arrived at the airport in the capital Khartoum early on Friday from more than six years in captivity, was carried off the aircraft in a stretcher.

He appeared too weak to talk and was immediately taken to hospital where his wife and son were on their way to meet him.

Sudan's justice minister told Al Jazeera that al-Hajj was a free man and would not be arrested.

Al-Hajj's wife, Asma Ismailov, spoke to Al Jazeera before she travelled to Sudan.

"Now I can think differently, now I can plan my life differently, everything will be fine, God willing," she said.

Two other Sudanese inmates at Guantanamo were freed along with al-Hajj.

The cameraman was seized by Pakistani intelligence officers while travelling near the Afghan border in December 2001.

Despite holding a legitimate visa to work for Al Jazeera's Arabic channel in Afghanistan, he was handed to the US military in January 2002 and sent to Guantanamo Bay.

Al-Hajj, who is originally from Sudan, was held as an "enemy combatant" without ever facing a trial or charges.

He had been on hunger strike since January 7, 2007.

'Element of racism'

David Remes, a lawyer for 17 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, told Al Jazeera that the treatment al-Hajj received "was more horrific than most" and that there was "an element of racism" in the way he was treated.

He said he had been in contact with the lawyer representing al-Hajj and it appeared the cameraman had been "psychologically damaged".

"The Europeans would never receive this treatment," Remes said.

About 280 detainees remain at Guantanamo and the lawyer said European detainees had all been returned to their country, leaving nationalities such as Yemenis - who now constitute one third of the inmate population.

Remes said al-Hajj was being released because the Bush administration "wants to flush as many men out of Guantanamo as quickly as possible … as Guantanamo has become such an international badge of shame".

"Once the Supreme Court said the men could have lawyers the pressure increased [on the US] and condemnation isolated the US administration. Guantanamo was a PR disaster," he said.

"Unfortunately Americans appreciate violations of rights but they have no sympathy for men held at Guantanamo as the [Bush] administration has done such a good job in portraying them as the worst of the worst and as evil doers.

"I've met many prisoners, gotten to appreciate their suffering ... we know them as humans not as worst of worst, we've met their families.

"I've been to Guantanamo and the human dimension of Guantanamo is a story yet to be told," Remes said.

Force fed

Zachary Katznelson, a lawyer from the Reprieve organisation has worked on al-Hajj's case since August 2005 and has visited him 10 times in Guantanamo Bay, the last time just three weeks ago.

"Al-Hajj is remarkably thin, he has been on hunger strike and forcibly fed through his nose while being strapped down, twice a day, for 16 months," he said.

"He looks like an ill man, he has problems with his kidneys, liver, blood in his urine and there are concerns that he may have cancer."

Katznelson said that the cameraman's release was probably motivated by political concerns.

"I think this is part of a larger picture between the United States and Sudan, that they are trying to bring those countries closer together," he said.

"Sudan, one of the primary demands they made to the United States, is if you want to normalise relations with us you have to give something back, and one of the things is the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay."

'Telling the truth'

Martin Mubanga, a former Guantanamo detainee, told Al Jazeera that al-Hajj had refused to be broken by his experience in Guantanamo Bay.

"When I saw him in the last years [of my captivity] he became stronger as he took a stance against the American authorities," he said.

"Basically he was a man of resolve, he refused to be broken because at the end of the day he was telling the truth, he was not a member of al-Qaeda."

Mubanga said that al-Hajj would not believe he was free until he was back on the ground with his son.

"Only then will it probably begin to sink in that he is free, on the plane he'll probably still be thinking he is in a dream, that it is not really happening."

Al Jazeera has been campaigning for al-Hajj's release since his capture more than six years ago.

Al Jazeera concerns

Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera's director-general who is in Khartoum to welcome al-Hajj, criticised the US military for urging him to spy on the operations at the channel.

"We are concerned about the way the Americans dealt with Sami, and we are concerned about the way they could deal with others as well," he said.

"Sami will continue with Al Jazeera, he will continue as a professional person who has done great jobs during his work with Al Jazeera.

"We congratulate his family and all those who knew Sami and loved Sami and worked for this moment."

Via Al Jazeera.


Comment:

Finally.