US

9/11 suspect asks for death sentence

Article published on the 2008-06-05 Latest update 2008-06-05 14:16 TU

Khaled Sheikh Mohammed after his arrest in 2003
(Photo: AFP)

Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US, has fired his defence team and asked to be given the death sentence. He is among five men to face a military tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. They could face charges including conspiracy, murder and terrorism. Defence lawyers describe the process as "fundamentally flawed".

Khaled Sheikh Mohammed declared that he will carry out his own defence and that he wants to be a martyr.

He is considered the brains behind the attacks. His fellow defendants are Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Wallid bin Attash and Mustapha al-Hawsawi Khaled Sheikh Mohammed.

The charges include conspiracy, murder, attacking civilians, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property, terrorism and material support of terrorism.

The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, along with a plane whose passengers rebelled against hijacking, killed 2,794 people plus the 19 hijackers.

The trial will take place in a specially-built room, which allows the judge, Marine Corps Colonel Ralph Kohlmann, to seal off the hearing from the public in order to hear certain testimony in secret.

The US government has released a limited number of documents which show that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed confessed to about 30 actual or planned attacks on American soil, as well as the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl.

But defence counsel Colonel Steven David swore to expose "each and every one" of the trial's alleged flaws.

Those include the admission by the Central intelligence Agency (CIA) that it subjected Mohammed to "waterboarding" – an interrogation technique that makes a detainee feel as if he or she is drowning – and the use of classified evidence that the defendants may not challenge.

The five were arrested in 2002 and 2003 and held in CIA prisons outside the US before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.

The legal advisor to the military commission, Brigadier-General Thomas Hartmann, said that the defence team has been granted "extraordinary" rights but added that even if they are acquitted, the suspects will continue to be held until the US's "war on terror" is declared to be over.